tihxaxy of t:he 't l^olocjical ^eminarjp
PRINCETON . NEW JERSEY
PRESENTED BY
The Rev. John M. Krebs
Class of 1832
BX 9315 .G66 1861 v. 11
Goodwin, Thomas, 1600-1680.
The works of Thomas Goodwin
NICHOL'S SERIES OF STANDARD DIVINES.
PURITAN PERIOD.
THE
WORKS OF THOMAS GOODWIN, D.D.
VOL. XI.
COU]SCIL OF PUBLICATION.
W. LINDSAY ALEXANDER, D.D., Professor of Theology, Congregational
Union, Edinburgh.
JAMES BEGG, D.D., Minister of Newington Free Church, Edinburgh.
THOMAS J. CRAWFORD, D.D., S.T.P., Professor of Divinity, University,
Edinburgh.
D. T. K. DRUMMOND, M.A., Minister of St Thomas's Episcopal Church,
Edinburgh.
WILLIAM H. GOOLD, D.D., Professor of Biblical Literature and Church
History, Reformed Presbyterian Church, Edinburgh.
ANDREW THOMSON, D.D., Minister of Broughton Place United Presby-
terian Church, Edinburgh.
©ftieral ©ttitor.
REV. THOMAS SMITH, M.A., Edinbdroh.
THE WOEKS
THOMAS GOODWIN, D.D.
SOMETIME PRESIDENT OF MAGDALENE COLLEGE, OXFORD.
BY JOHN C. MILLER, D.D.,
LINCOLN COLLEGE ; UONORARY CANON OF WORCESTKR J RECTOR. OF ST MARTIN'S, BIRMINGHAM.
BY ROBEET HALLEY, D.D.,
PRINCIPAL OF THE INUEPENDENT NEW COLLEGE, LONDON.
VOL. XL
CONTAINING :
THE CONSTITUTION, EIGHT ORDEE, AND GOVEENMRNT
OF THE CHUECHES OF CHEIST, &c.
EDINBURGH : JAMES NICHOL.
LONDON : JAMES NISBET AND CO. DUBLIN : G. HERBERT.
M.DCCC.LXV.
PEEFATOEY NOTE.
This is the only Treatise in the whole of this Series on a subject on which
there is material difference of opinion amongst Protestants. It is believed
that even those Subscribers who least agree with the sentiments of the
Author would have been dissatisfied if his works had been rendered im-
perfect by withholding this Treatise.
That it is not published with any sectarian view, is sufficiently vouched
for by the fact, that both the Publisher and Editor belong to that section of
the church whose views are specially controverted. Ed.
KDINBIiRGH : CRINTED BT JOHN OREIQ AND .'OM.
CONTENTS.
THE GOVEENMENT OF THE CHUECHES OF CHEIST.
Page
Book I. — Of the right institution of the churches of Christ. — That
the order and government of those churches are established by
divine institution. — What is the nature of divine institutions,
and how the koowledge of them is conveyed to us ; that Christ
hath settled ordinances for worship and discipline, which are
to continue unto the end of the world ; that the power of
church censures and excommunication hath its institution
in a more especial manner from Christ, as head of the
church. ...... 3
Book II. — Of the divine institution of a congregational church. —
That it is not secondary, or consequent upon a charter given to
the church universal, as virtually included therein, but is im-
mediate and proper to it. — That Christ instituted such a
church in Mat. xviii. and gave the power of the keys to it. —
That such congregational churches were primitive and apos-
tolical, proved from the instances of churches planted by
the apostles. — That the constitution and order of such
churches, is most fitly suited for the edification of the saints,
and most exactly accommodated to their various conditions.
— That Christ hath not only instituted a congregational
church, but hath appointed what the extent and limits of it
should be. ...... 50
Book III. — Particular congregations, having a'sufiicient number of
elders and officers, are completely enabled for all acts of
government, and excommunication itself, within themselves,
as well as for worship. . . . . .132
Book IV. — The claims of the Presbyterian government considered
and refuted. — That the church universal is not a church poli-
tical, and the seat of government. — That the institution for
worship and government falleth not upon the saints in a
nation, as a nation or kingdom, to be the seat of it. — That an
argument cannot be urged for a national church government,
from the instance of the Jewish pattern. — That a standing
presbytery is not to be set up to exercise power and juris-
diction over particular congregations. . . . 179
Book V. — The jurisdiction of synods debated. — That appeals are
not necessary to the government of the churches, and there-
fore there is no necessity of synods upon that account. —
What power may be allowed to a synod occasionally meeting
to consider the maladministration of any particular church.
— That they have not that gi-and prerogative of power given
CONTENTS.
by Christ to excommunicate other churches, and so by that
rod to enforce them to revoke their sentence of malad-
ministration, and to receive a person wrongfully excommuni-
cated by them. — The subordination of synods considered
and refuted. — Though particular churches are not subject
to the jurisdiction of synods, yet they are not wholly in-
dependent, but there is a communion which they ought to
hold one with another. ..... 232
Book VI. — Of the constitution of a particular congregational
church. — The rise, institution, and definition of it. — A com-
parison between it and the church universal. — That Christ
hath given to his saints a right and liberty of gathering into
such holy societies. — That in doing so they are not guilty of
sinful separation or schism. — Of the divers kind of officers in
a church. — That there is an institution for each sort. —
That the pastor and teacher are equal in authority and
power. — Of the exercise of the communion of saints, which
the members of a church ought to have, one with another. 285
Book YII. — That the preaching of the gospel is an ordinance of
Jesus Christ, instituted for the conversion of sinners, and
for the edification of the saints. — Of the use and necessity
of ministers wholly set apart to preach. — That Christ by his
institution hath appointed a due maintenance for ministers. —
Concerning the time for the administration of ordinances, and
whether the sacrament of the Lord's supper ought to be ad-
ministered on every Lord's day. — Whether, in case of neces-
sity, a church may by common consent divide themselves, to
meet in several parts, and receive the Lord's supper in such
distinct meetings, rather than omit that ordinance wholly. —
Whether in case of apparent danger of hfe, loss of estate
rationally foreseen, or in case of force and violence, causing
ordinances to cease, there may not be prudent forbearance
or secret avoidance. — Whether one who is not a church
member may be the subject of baptism. — Whether one who
is not a pastor may administer baptism. — Whether a church
may depose an officer for a fault, which doth not deserve ex-
communication. — Of anointing with oil. — Of toleration and
liberty of conscience to be granted to particular churches,
though differing from the national constitution. . . 359
The Government and Discipline of the Churches of Christ,
SET down by way OF QUESTIONS AND AnSWERS. . . 485
Two Letters concerning a Church Covenant. . . 626
Two Letters concerning Church Government. . . 54:1
OF THE
CONSTITUTION, RIGHT ORDER, AND GOVERNMENT
OF THE CHURCHES OF CHRIST.
VOL. XI.
■^'"X
IT
n
""'Or n
THE GOVERNMENT OF THE CHURCHES
OF CHRIST.
BOOK I.
Of the riffht institution of the churches of Christ. — That the order and
f/overmnent of those churches are established by divine institution. — What is
the nature of divine institutions, and how the knowledge of them is conveyed
to US', that Christ hath settled ordinances for ivorship and discipline, which
are to continue unto the end of the world ; that the power of church censures
and excommunication hath its institution in a more especial manner from
Christ, as head of the church.
CHAPTER I.
A brief scheme of the several opinions concerning the constitution and govern-
ment of the church of Christ. — The truth stated and vindicated.
If it were granted that the churches in the New Testament were formed and
fixed bodies, yet the question would still remain about the tenure whereon
they hold their formation and constitution ; of what kind that tenure is,
whether of divine institution ; and therefore it will be most seasonable, and
conducing to the understanding of all that follows, to give a general prospect
of the several opinions about church constitution that are amongst us, ere we
proceed.
There are three eminently differing opinions, one of which will certainly
prove to be the truth of God, and which soever of them, when all of them
are once thoroughly and fairly examined, shall be found to be the truth, we
shall rejoice, though it prove that we do suffer loss in our own.
1. Our presbyterian brethren hold the institution of church state to fall
upon the whole universal church, as one great body by institution ; and
then, likewise, upon all the parts thereof, according to the division and sub-
division of the whole into several subordinations of greater and lesser bodies,
or fixed assemblies, national, provincial, classical, or congregational ; so as
the universal church on earth being, by Christ's institution, a body politic,
and a kingdom in the total consideration of it, and being a similar body,
4 THE GOVERNMENT OF [EoOK I.
consisting of similar or like parts for state and condition, it becomes
throughout such in all parts thereof. Even as every part of water hath the
nature of the whole, so every integral church, be it lesser or greater, national,
provincial, congregational, &c., as they are all churches, so in their propor-
tion they are all of them seats of government by an equal, uniform, general
institution ; and the whole being ordained such, each part, by association
and consent, doth become such also. For Christ, by one great charter
granted to the whole, did at once authorise and endow all such particular
subordinations with ecclesiastical power ; only left the distribution of this
vast and great commonwealth and body politic, into its parts greater or lesser,
to be made by general rules for edification and order, as the law of nature
and human wisdom should see fit. But yet all is ordered'with this law,
that the lesser bodies should be subject to the greater, from top to bottom,
and so all to the church universal, and the judicature thereof, so as judica-
tory appeals might be made from the less to the greater, by virtue of this
divine right granted to the whole. And this is said to have been the scope
of Christ in his first institution. Tell the church ; and by it this kind of
power and government being wholly given to the elders of the church, is to
be transacted by them in their consistoi'ies and associations, even from con-
gregational to general councils, and is therefore only practicable by the
meetings of elders chosen and sent from the lesser assemblies to the greater,
as abstracted from, and without the convening of the saints, whereof they are
elders ; for convention of all the particular saints is not only unpracticable
in those greater bodies, but in classical assemblies too. And we do freely
give this testimony of honour to this opinion, that of all other grounds unto
which the presbyterian divines have in these latter days, when put to prove
their government, had recourse, this is the most consistent and fairest prin-
ciple (if it could be proved) to rear up all their subordinations at once, and
to endow the constitution of them with a divine light,* which, as the soul in
the body, will be equally diffused through every part thereof, and which, if it
prove true, we must all turn presbyterians.
2. Some other godly and reverend divines, who do with us wholly reject
any such politic model, as an invention of man (which reareth up a worldly
frame and theatre for elders, through several stairs, to enter upon the heri-
tage of the Lord), yet agree with our presbyterian brethren in this principle
■ of the catholic universal church being a similar body in the whole, and all
the parts thereof. So that as a congregation is in no further respect or con-
sideration a church, nor to any other end, use, or purpose than is the uni-
versal ; so, likewise, the warrant for, and the privilege of congregational
churches being a seat for ordinances and elders, is but from the bare general
grant and privilege given to the church universal, which is one day ordained
to meet together in heaven, and should now on earth aspire to the state and
perfection thereof. And by virtue of this canon law and charter only, saints
gather iato particular churches, and enjoy ordinances, and all power of
government executed therein. So that the whole constitution and order of
congregational churches, is only by virtue of that general law of communion
of saints, without any further superadded institution of Christ, either electively
ordaining of all such other bodies of saints to be the seat of ordinances, or
endowing them with any further privilege or power of government than the
whole body of saints in the world hath. In a word, the appointment of con-
gregational bodies is, according to this opinion, only virtual, and arising from
the general grant to the universal church, and founded but upon the common
law of the communion of saints. These two opinions, though thus agreeing
* Qu. ' right 'V— Ed.
Chap. L] the churches of christ. 5
in that fore-mentioned general principle, yet do differ, as two extremes. The
one, as we conceive, diffuseth a pretended instituted policy too vastly, en-
gaging all saints and particular churches to subject their consciences, under
pain of excommunication, to the determinations and decisions of all the
clergy in the world ; which is by this constituted as one body, inspired with
this soul of government in all the divisions of them as parts of the whole; and
such a government may possibly issue in the greatest tyranny. The other,
whilst they betake themselves to the common privilege of the church mystical
and universal, and merely to that law of communion of saints that is therein,
doth hereby shut out and exclude all government or censures, but such as
the common law of communion of saints, and the law of nature common to
all societies will admit, yea, and in the consequence thereof, takes away all
institutions whatsoever of any such discipline or censures, whereof, if par-
ticular congregations be found the seat, those congregations themselves also
must be by institution.
3. We profess, as in other things, so in this, to run a middle way, which,
for aught we yet see, the Scripture chalks out to us.
1. We maintain that assertion of a church universal, as the general body
of all, and that particular churches are as parts thereof. Yet so as with our
own Amesius, and others who have been esteemed orthodox ''divines, we
conceive that the notion or consideration of church, which the universal body
of saints stands under, is merelj' and purely mystical, and such also to be
the union and communion thereof, as with Christ, so of all the members
thereof among themselves. And further, we assert this notion or name of
mystical church, to be given not only to the invisible company of the elect,
and real members of Christ the Head, but to the visible company of pro-
fessors of Christianity that do walk as saints, and are esteemed as such by
saints through the world. Unto whom, as taken in the lump and outward
view, as Christ is reckoned to be an outward head to them, as on earth
considered, so upon whom also, taken in the lump and outward visibility,
as well as upon the invisible company, the notion of the church mystical
may be put, it being in this distinction opposed to a church instituted, or
that which is a politic body under Christ.
2. We assert, that until the mystical body of the elect shall meet together
in heaven, God hath appointed and ordained the visible saints on earth,
being diffused over all the world, and thin sown therein, to be knit together
in particular bodies, over which he hath appointed elders, pastors, and
teachers, officers by his institution ; which bodies, consisting of both, should
be the public holders forth of his truth and worship, and the subject of the
privilege of all ordinances, and seats also of a power and government, for these
saints to be subjected to, and reduced in case of scandals. And the honour
of Christ is hereby to be vindicated, and his ordinances kept pure, although
there were no Christian magistrates in the world that would take cognisance
of such scandals.
3. And further, we conceive that the gathering of saints into such par-
ticular bodies to Christ, thus to be the seat of such officers, ordinances of
worship, and government, is, by a general institution and endowment of
Christ, over and above the catholic warrant of communion of saints, although
including and taking in all the rules and laws thereof. And accordingly the
measure and proportion and extent of these bodies, and what the limits and
bounds thereof were to be, is set forth by institution, as also the organisa-
tion of this body, what kind of officers or organical members shall be in it.
These are all to be found set out by him, as in his wisdom he foresaw would
best suit those ends which this institution of such bodies of saints should
6 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK I.
serve fo, and as should be fitted to the privileges these bodies are endowed
with, Christ having also (as to his own institution he doth) made an answer-
able special blessing (which special promise of blessing doth indeed, if there
were no more, make an institution and ordinance of that thing to which it
is made) of being with such assemblies of his, over and above the blessing
which, from the virtual catholic relation and communion between Christians
in general, and on occasional waj'S, would flow.
4. These instituted bodies of churches we humbly conceive to be, for the
bounds and proportion, or measure of them, only congregational, which are
the fixed seat and subject of all ordinances of worship, and who are the
seat of all sorts of officers or organical members, that serve for the use of
the whole ; and that these also, by and with their officers, are the sole seat
of that government, and the acts thereof, which may more properly be
termed government, i. e. that is judicially to bind the soul (which is accom-
panied with a promise, that such a soul shall be bound in heaven), and in
Christ's name also to deliver to Satan, &c., which is an instituted punish-
ment, over and above the sphere of that catholic communion, and beyond
what any company of angels or saints as members of, or by virtue of the
catholic grant, can or ought to take on them, execute, and pronounce ; and
from which, rightly administered, there can be no appeal, nor of which no
act of repeal can be made by any supreme court on earth ; though, if not
rightly administered, it is null, and of no force. And these bodies thus en-
dowed hath Christ appointed as under- schools of his foundation, wherein, by
the enjoyment of all his ordinances, his saints living therein whilst on earth
might be tutored, built up, and formed and fashioned for that great univer-
sity, when all the saints shall meet in heaven. And thus, over and above
the general communion of saints, there are, and ought to be by Christ's in-
stitution, political, ecclesiastical bodies or churches, that are the seat of a
spiritual government, wherein we join with the first opinion.
5. And yet we further affirm, that out of the circuit and bounds of these
instituted privileged seats for worship and government, taking all these
saints, elders, and churches, whether in a city, province, nation, yea, the
whole world, among them as so considered, that common law of the mystical
communion of saints which the catholic relation obligeth to, takes place ; so
that as there is a law of single communion and non-communion between
saint and saint in case of ofi'ence, so between church and church, or greater
or lesser combinations of churches, as occasion is, or may be, of intercourse
either way. And therein churches proceed with churches, not poUtice, or as
armed by Christ with a judicial power of giving up to Satan ; but they pro-
ceed and deal each with other modo myslico, or with a moral declarative
power only, which law of mystical communion yet obligeth them to all the
same duties for substance, each to other, that that political power obHgeth
them in a congregation unto. And thus far we also join with the second
opinion, humbly professing that either to make the church universal in the
whold, and all the parts, to be a political instituted body, armed with go-
vernment, as the first opinion doth ; or, on the other side, to make the com-
munion and power in congregational bodies, and the institution thereof, to
be but virtual, from what is given to the church universal, and but similar
thereunto, as the second opinion doth ; to be both of them mistaken. Ap-
prehending much rather the truth to lie in a communion of saints here on
earth, compounded and made up (for the kind thereof) of both kinds of con-
stitution ; the one a fixed, instituted, and political communion, superadded
to the obligation of the mystical relation of saints one to another, as such,
and this to be in and between the members of a particular congregation ; the
CnAP. II.] THE CHURCHES OF CHRIST. 7
other, simply mystical, and moral, and occasional, and that to be between
congregations each with other, and indeed between all the churches in the
world. So as, whilst these saints are knit and united into such particular
churches for the enjoyment of ordinances, with power to preserve them pure,
they yet are both, as saints and as a church, to hold all sorts of correspon-
dency, and are by Christ obliged to all sorts of communion, and which, ac-
cordingly, we do profess to hold and maintain with all saints and churches,
according to the several degrees of purity amongst them.
This being a true scheme and general prospect of the several opinions
amongst us, the particulars of all which we shall in order pursue in this
discourse in such a due method as may conduce most to clear the truth, I
shall now apply myself to consider whether these particular churches, or
fixed bodies of saints and elders (whether congregational or classical, or
whatever else they shall prove to be), are to hold their constitution and for-
mation by any special divine institution ; for the clearing of which we shall
have occasion first to have to do with that principle forementioned, whether
over and above the general charter of the church universal, and the laws and
rules of the communion of saints belonging thereunto, there is not a super-
added institution for the constitution of particular churches, and for the en-
dowing them with these privileges which, as churches, is found to be bestowed
upon them ; and then we shall prove that even the setting forth the bounds and
limits of those bodies, the extensive power of elders, and measure and pro-
portion of these churches that are the seat of government, must also neces-
sarily be set forth by such a special divine institution.
CHAPTER II.
That the constitution of a church, and the rules of -its order and rfovernment,
are established by a certain institution of Christ. Some propositions laid
down in order to the demonstration of this truth.
The church universal is a church by an higher ground than by that of insti-
tution ; it is rather the object of God's decree. And their meeting in heaven,
and making a general assembly, is not so much by virtue of a command, or
by appointment declared in his revealed will, as by a decree of his secret
will, and through the efiicacious power of it, the same that raiseth them,
wraps them up in the clouds, and after carries them to heaven, and presents
them together at the latter day, as it is said of Christ, Ps. ii. As their wor-
ship there is only natural worship, not anything that belongs to the second
command, so, nor is their meeting by virtue of that command. But now,
if all the saints on earth were no more than could meet in one place, yet
that these should meet as a church for such and such ordinances, which in
heaven they shall not have, this must needs be from an institution of Christ's,
over and above their being the church in general, as the ordinances them-
selves are established by such an institution ; for they gather together in his
name, and excommunicate in his name, as well as they baptize in his name ;
and therefore, if baptism be an institution, their gathering together must be
an institution also ; and indeed, if the government and the worship be by
institution, the seat or subject must needs be so. As if the officers and the
laws of a college or incorporate town be by a law and a charter, the college
or corporation itself, the form of it and warrant to be so, must be much
more. Nothing in any kingdom depends more upon a charter and the
supreme authority than the embodying of men into societies, and the enab-
8 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK I.
ling them to act in them. And so the constitution of these spiritual hodies,
the churches, hath a necessary dependency on this authority of Christ.
Those bodies to be ruled, they are called the house of God, and the church
of God. ' If he rule not his own house well, how shall he take care of the
church of God ?' 1 Tim. iii. 5. Why is it called the church of God, but
because of God's institution, as the Lord's supper and the Lord's day, have
their names from the Lord's institution ? And it is called the house of
God and the temple of God ; and as the temple was by institution, so this
church of Christ too.
And, indeed, that to which a promise is, for that there is a command,
which is all one with an institution, and an institution is conveyed in a pro-
mise. In the Old Testament all their solemn assemblies (which were the
types of ours) were by an institution, both who, and where, and how, as
those for worship in the temple, the Sanhedrim for government ; therefore
the things typified much more.
But farther, what the apostles did teach the saints to become, for that
there is an institution, for they taught nothing but what Christ commanded
them. Mat. xxviii. 20. And when they had taught them to become churches,
they wrote to them us such, and the Holy Ghost owneth them as such. And
the Holy Ghost did ordain, by institution, pastors and teachers, and set them
as overseers over each flock, as an whole flock, Acts xx. 28 ; therefore or-
dained the bounds of their flocks too.
Again, the seven churches are seven candlesticks, whereof the type was
the candlestick of God, made by God's appointment. In the candlestick
there were two things : 1. Matter, which was gold, that they should be
saints ; 2. Form, which is therefore Christ's institution, to be cast into such
or such a mould. And for one candlestick then, there are many candlesticks
now. Seven in Kev. i. 20. And the form of these many are now as well
from Christ as the form of that one then was.
And as it is God's house, he hath not left it unto man to frame his building
to what proportion he pleaseth; Christ's body instituted (which is resembled
unto the natural body throughout the epistles), is to have set limits of it, a
maximum quod sit ; and as the natural body, if it have all the parts that can
have communion natural in the same common acts of nature together, though
it be never so small, is a perfect body, so it hath also a prescription of big-
ness, and bounds are set it, both for parts and a maximum, quod sit, for
proportion of stature, which none should exceed. Thus Christ hath also
constituted his body the church, in a due measure and proportion.
But to make a distinct demonstration, that the form and order of con-
gregational churches is of Christ's institution, I shall proceed in this method.
1. I shall prove that God hath not left the government of his church to
be ordered by the laws of nature, or the arbitrary maxims of human reason,
but hath prescribed rules for it by his own institution.
2. I shall shew what is the nature of a divine institution.
3. I shall describe the ways whereby Christ hath derived his institutions
to us, to ascertain us that they are genuinely his own.
4. I shall demonstrate the order, and worship, and ordinances of the
churches of Christ, to be of a perpetual continuance.
5. I shall prove that excommunication, being more than non-communion
or casting out of the church, hath in it a superadded institution of Christ.
6. I shall at last shew that a congregational church is, by Christ's insti-
tution, the only subject and seat of church government, and the grand charter
of the power of the keys is granted to it alone.
1. To prove that Christ hath not left his churches destitute of rules for
Chap. II.J the churches of cheist. . 9
her government, but hath established them in his divine word of the Scrip-
tures, I shall lay down and demonstrate these following propositions.
Prop. I. That the right government of a church is a part of worship under
the New Testament ; which is evident,
1. Because all means of worship are called the keys of heaven. Mat. xvi.
18, 19 ; and by excommunication men bind and loose, as well as by preach-
ing or by praying. 2. This act of government, excommunication, is paral-
leled with prayer ; the agreement of the church to cast out is paralleled
with this, What two shall agree to ask, Mat. xviii. 19. 3. Excommunica-
tion is done in the name of Christ and in the power of Christ, which is the
same thing that makes baptism a part of worship. ' Baptize them in the
name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,' Mat. xxviii. 19.
So as the Lord's supper also is constituted. 4. In Kom. xii. all is called
XoyiTir] Xargs/a, reasonable worship, which referreth to ruling afterward, as
well as teaching and exhorting. And 5. If a contribution to uphold the
ministry, and giving to poor Christians, be called a sacrifice, and a service
done unto God, 2 Cor. ix. 12 (the word is XsiTov^yia), then church censures
also as well may have that name, and therefore must have a rule for them
as well as other parts of worship. And therefore now to determine as who
shall baptize, and who shall administer the sacrament of the Lord's supper,
depends upon his having a power to do it, so to determine who shall excom-
municate, there is some rule to direct us.
Prop. II. The law of nature is not sufficient to set up any thing which is
parallel to a divine institution.
As for example, if the government of congregations by elders and officers
be in a particular congregation set up by divine institution, no law of nature
alone will be ground enough to erect the like power in any other company
of elders, if they have not that other by institution. The laws of nature may
-indeed direct ns how to manage ordinances that Christ hath erected, accord-
ing to the common nature in which those ordinances partake with other
things civil. As if that there be many prophets in a church, the law of nature
will teach that they should not speak many at once, because it is against
the end of prophesying ; but the laws of nature would not be sufficient to
erect an order of prophecy in the church, which Jesus Christ hath not ap-
pointed, although speech is a natural means to persuade by. The laws of
nature will also teach us to take the benefit of ordinances, if they be insti-
tuted by Christ. As supposing that Christ had appointed a superior power,
a superior court over churches, having the same power which the churches
have, the laws of nature woiild have taught me to have made use of this, but
would never have warranted the erection of such, armed with the same power,
if Jesus Christ should not be found to have appointed it. The proposition
is evident by these reasons :
1. Because that institutions and ordinances flow from Christ, not as the
author of nature, but as the author of grace, as Lord and King of his church,
and so depend upon his will. If therefore he by his will have made one in-
stitution, the laws of nature cannot make a parallel to it ; and parallel it is
if it be supposed to have the same power and influence that the other hath
which Christ hath instituted.
2. Nothing can work beyond its own sphere ; and therefore, though the
laws of nature may be sanctified to subserve the institutions of Christ, yet
not to raise up anything anew parallel to an institution of Christ. A spiritual
court parallel to such a spiritual court as Christ hath instituted, is what ex-
ceedeth the power of nature, as truly as that it is not in the power of nature
to produce a spiritual act of grace parallel to what the Holy Ghost produceth.
10 THE GOVEBNMENT OF [BoOK I.
Natural gifts and natural parts may be subservient unto grace that sancti-
fieth them, but they cannot produce or educe the least spiritual act. And
thus Christ's government excludeth not nature, but will take in the help of
it, but exceeding it ; nature cannot be the rise of any part of it.
Prop. III. That there must be a special divine institution for the govern-
ment of the churches of Christ.
For all church power and government which bath a spiritual punishment
annexed to it, must be by special institution ; and that is in a special manner
government, by a divine institution, which hath a power annexed to it, to
inflict a spiritual punishment, beyond what is in the common nature of the
act itself to do. And therefore, although to withdraw from every brother that
walketh inordinately, be from the common law of Christianity, in all sorts
of arbitrary converse ; yea, and to throw out of a fixed body or society, to
have power to do so, be from the common and ordinary nature of all other
societies, if the laws of those societies be so and so transgressed ; yet that
there should be a delivering over to Satan with the power of the Lord Jesus
Christ, that this should be annexed to the casting of a man out, this is
apparently by special institution, for no body of men by the common law of
nature could have power so to do. So also although upon all admonitions
there is a binding the sin upon the conscience so far forth as the nature of
the sin is laid upon it, which is common to all other reproofs of any kind in
other sorts, yet that there should be a promise that where such and such,
rather than others, do bind sin upon a man's conscience on earth by their
sentence and judgment, this sin is also bound upon them in heaven. Mat.
xviii. 18, this must be from an institution superadded. Whether Christ's
will that this should be done by such and such be apparent to us by an
express command in the letter of it, or is held forth in some example or
some promise which do imply it, yet it is an institution, because it holds
forth a supernatural efficacy. For whatsoever is set apart by Grod electively,
and culled out from other things to be the instrument of a supernatural
power and efficacy, that is such by divine institution ; and all such power
as is thus supernatural, must be disposed of and executed according to his
mind, by his own instruments, and where he hath placed it. Every man is
to admonish his brother upon that common ground, that he is to love him
and not to hate him ; this is a common ground belonging to all sorts of men
whatsoever ; but that any select company of men should be peculiarly singled
out to have power to admonish a man, to bind sin upon him, this is from
the institution of Christ. And that they should have the promise of the
power of Jesus Christ to accompany them ; that this should be in order to
a throwing the sinner out, and a dehvering him up to Satan if he repent not,
this is from Christ's institution. Thus God doth take things, that by the
common law of Christianity do serve for such an end, and yet over and
above puts an institution upon them to serve for some special end, in such a
way, by such and such persons ; as in those instances given of reproving and
admonishing by any Christian which serveth to a spiritual end, he takes it
up to be performed in a church and by elders in public in a more special
manner, to have a further efficacy in it, because he hath put a further insti-
tution upon it. Thus also the gifts out of which men preach and pray,
they are common to multitudes of men, and are given in a providential way,
and not by institution ; but that men should exercise these by way of office,
in a constant, selected way, and separated hereunto, this is by special insti-
tution. So likewise God doth take such things as have a ground in the law
of nature, and over and above stamps his institution upon them in a super-
natural way further than naturally they serve to ; so that Christ's institutions
Chap. II.] the churches of cheist. 11
they do not exclude natural grounds, but comply with them, only elevate
them, cause them to exceed their natural power and force with a peculiar
efficacy and blessing, and so fall in with the rules of nature. Thus that
not two or three should speak at once in a church, it is in itself a law of
nature common to all men ; that women should not speak in public, but be
silent, it is the law of nature ; yet over and above they are delivered as the
commands of God, which he that is spiritual acknowledgeth, as the apostle
saith, 1 Cor. xiv. It is the law of nature, that no man should war upon his
own charges, that the labourer is worthy of his hire, &c., and the apostle
allegeth these for ministers' maintenance, 1 Cor. ix. 7, and yet withal addeth,
so I ordain in all the churches, and makes an institution of it. And for
the due companies of men to meet and assemble themselves together, and
no more to assemble than can meet in one place to be edified by ordinances,
agrees with that law of nature that is common to it as to other things. But
yet this, which had but a natural and moral foundation, hath Jesus Christ
now made an institution of, and hath therefore put his own name upon it,
and called it, a gathering together in his name, and he hath enabled them
with a power beyond the power of nature in the throwing of a man out, for
it is to give him up to Satan.
So also in the judging of a man for having committed a sin there is always
a kind of censure. In a large sense indeed, vita est censura, and thus a man
condemns and censures another by his practice and example, and so a godly
man doth judge wicked men, and they are reproved and judged by all the
saints. But there is also a special judicature out of authority, and the power
of Jesus Christ accompanying of it, namely, that spoken of in 1 Cor. v. 12,
when he saith, ' Do not ye judge those that are within ? What have I to do
to judge them that are without?' therefore, this is by special institution.
And in this place of the Corinths, compared with chap vi., this difiering way
of judgment, one by way of institution, and the other by way of the common
law of nature, seems to be held forth by the apostle himself; for when he
comes to speak of judging the incestuous person for his sin, with a spiritual
power, the power of the Lord Jesus, he makes that a settled government,
' Do not ye judge them that are within ?' as they were a body to Christ. But
when, in chap, vi., he speaks of taking up diiferences about things of this life,
though he would have the saints do it among themselves by way of arbitra-
tion, and not to carry it out of themselves (for the sake of avoiding scandal)
to heathen magistrates ; yet this latter he doth found only on the common
law ; it is not an ordinance, though it was Christ's will and command it
should be in that case. Therefore he doth not bid them go to the elders to
take up differences, or to the whole church, but he bids them take whom
they would, the least saint, who is able to judge upon that common ground
of ability, whereby one day they shall be able to judge the world. So that
this latter was only occasional, and by way of arbitration, according to the
law of nature ; whereas the other was a constant and settled government,
and that invested with spiritual power supernatural, which the other is
not.
All the duties that are performed in a church, they are duties amongst all
Christians by the common law of Christianity ; for by the law of love they
are to instruct, to pray for, to reprove, to avoid, &c., as occasion is. But
that all these should be performed in a public body of saints, gathered
together, not occasionally but fixedly, and that special persons should have
the power or part of the power committed to them, separated thereunto, and
that it should be done in such and such an order ; all this both because of
the constancy of it, of the electiveness of it, and the special power and effi-
12 THE GOVERNMENT OF ^ [BoOK I.
cacy that doth accompany it, over and above what is promised in an ordi-
nary way to the common law of Christianity, must needs be an institution.
So that whatsoever be the subject or the instrument in a constant and
elective way of a supernatural power, or a supernatural administration, over
and above what is common to all Christians, or societies of men, that
power must be placed by institution, whoever hath it, or wherever it is. It
is not a supernatm-al quality indeed, but it is a relative respect, whereby a
company of men are called by God, and enabled unto a supernatural adminis-
tration, which a special efficacy shall accompany ; and so by virtue of God's
promise it is concomitantly a supernatural power, though not inherent.
And yet it is not so to be understood as if that such a power should always,
for the effect, have that efficacy that it is assigned to, for that is as God
pleaseth. He works not as natural agents do, because God's promise to
accompany his ordinances is in a free way ; as in preaching the word, though
it is an ordinance, yet it had not always the effect, though Christ himself
and the apostles preached it. It might always have an issue indeed one
way or other, and be a means to condemn men, because they receive it not ;
but it had not always that effect, for which it was more principally and
directly appointed, as natural agents have.
And so on the other side, we deny not but that admonitions and other
means which run according to the law of the new creature and Christianity,
which one saint is to perform to another, may have the like effects, through
God's dispensation, that excommunication hath, to bind sin upon a man's
conscience, give him up to Satan to terrify him, and the like ; even as God
also may bless private instructions, yea, the private example of a private
Christian, to convert an heathen ; yea, and that also when his own ordinance will
not do it, 1 Peter ii. 12. But yet still church admonition and excommuni-
cation is an ordinance in a special manner, which the other is not. So as
because that God's power supernaturally must concur for the effecting of
what it is ordained for ; hence, therefore, it must be seated where God would
have it be, by a special institution, and not misplaced, or else he will not
work in it and with it. If a man had stirred the waters, God would not have
wrought ; or if Satan had done it, he would not have wrought ; but when
the angel did it, he did, John v. 4. All such supernatural administrations
they are limited. As the power is from God, so in whom this power should
be is also from him and by his appointment. Though magistrates are the
ordinance of God in this general respect, that it is his will and command
that there should be magistrates, yet the power that God accompanieth
magistrates withal in their administration, is not supernatural to those ends
for which they are appointed, farther than in this proportion, as in general
he hath appointed magistrates to be his vicegerents. And hence, therefore,
what sort of magistrates to have, whether monarchial or aristocratical, of what
extent their dominions shall be, and the like, is still left to men, because the
power that the magistrate hath of any kind, it is indeed executively but the
power of the people committed to him and betrusted to him, whose power he
acts, so as what he pardons the people pardon, what he punisheth the people
punish : the people's power is engaged in it ; and hence as Solomon saith,
in the word of a king there is power, Eccles. viii. 4. Hence they are called
human creations, though an ordinance of God, 1 Peter ii. 3, Rom. xiii. 1.
But that supernatural ecclesiastical power that Jesus Christ doth appoint is
not simply an ordinance that there should be ministers in the general that
shall have this or that power, leaving it unto men to appoint what sort of
ministers, whether in a way of monarchy or in a way of aristocracy, whether
popes or bishops, &c. And so likewise as to the seat or relation over which
Chap. II.] the churches of christ. 13
these officers shall have power, and the extent of it. But these must be all
divine creations and institutions, as the sort of magistrates and extent of
commonwealths is a human creation. If the power that these did manage
were immediately the power of men, or given to them by the church as that
of magistrates is by the commonwealth, then indeed the several administra-
tions might be appointed by men, and the bounds thereof set forth, for the
power they have would be proportioned to the cause or rise of it. Magistrates,
as they have their power thus from men by human creation, so the punish-
ments that they inflict are but corporal punishments which the people that set
them up can inflict. Indeed, rebellion against the lawful magistrate works
damnation in the issue by consequence, because it is a sin against the gene-
ral ordinance of God ; but yet it is but as any other sin brings damnation.
But now in church power there is a special supernatural efficacy of God im-
mediately accompanying it ; and therefore this power, as it can no way be
delegated by the person or persons that have it, so as they should make any
one vicars or substitutes to execute it for them, as the bishops do the chan-
cellors, so also by the same ground it cannot be placed or seated but where
Christ would have it by his commission. For if the persons that already
have it from Christ cannot give it unto another than to whom Christ hath
appointed, or to any other body or society than Christ hath appointed, and
hath by institution placed it, then assuredly neither magistrates nor any com-
pany of men whatsoever can place it but where he would have it.
And surely for excommunication, of all other (if for any other ordinance)
there must be an institution, and by whom it shall be administered in a cer-
tain way defined, because of all ordinances it is the greatest. If, therefore,
for preaching, who shall administer it, and where, thei'e is an institution,
then certainly for this, for this is an act of mere authority. To preach is an
act of gift also, and he that hath gifts may, for the materiality of preaching,
perform all that a minister doth out of gifts ; but the act of delivering to
Satan, and the act of throwing a man out, are acts of mere power ; do cast
him out of all ordinances, and therefore of all ordinances they are the greatest ;
and besides that, it is delivering to Satan with the power of Christ, which
who can assume but those to whom Christ hath committed it ? It is to a
spiritual end, and it is not therefore enough to say that if there be nothing
in the word against it, but that these and these may excommunicate, that
then they may do it ; no, there must be something in the word positive for
it, and that limiteth it, and here placeth it. It will otherwise be a nullity for
want of commission in the persons that do it.
And if that excommunication were not so an institution as that also the
sort of persons to whom it is to be performed should be by institution, and
were not a delivering up to Satan also, then the magistrate could inflict it as
well as the ministers of the church, for he can cast men out of such and such
a society, and keep men from ordinances, as well as they.
Hence excommunication being an ordinance depending wholly upon insti-
tution, and that which makes ecclesiastical authority to be properly govern-
ment and jurisdiction, lying in a power so to excommunicate, none may
therefore take upon them to administer this ordinance without a special corn-
mission and institution ; and in this hes the knot of the diflerence in the
controversy.
Prop. IV. God's institution must put an efficacy into all censures.
Nothing in nature hath further perfection in it than God hath put into
it ; therefore much more this holds in power ecclesiastical. Man cannot
limit that power of ministry which he cannot give. All church censures, they
are accompanied with a supernatural power, as the word of God is, which
14 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK I.
bath not in itself a power inherent to work without the Spirit accompany it.
There is this difference between civil power and ecclesiastical ; tbat though
God's power doth accompany the civil power of the magistrate because it is
his ordinance, yet he doth not accompany the acts thereof supernaturally, but
the power that accompanieth the magistrate's acts is the power of the people
in whose name magistrates execute it ; and, therefore, if the magistrates be
resisted, the whole people are obliged to back and strengthen him. But here
now the ministerial power is ordained to convey a special supernatural
efficacy from God, and ministers do work wholly in his power : ' The weapons
of our warfare are mighty through Grod, having in us a readiness to revenge
all disobedience,' 2 Cor. x. 4, 5, 6. As, therefore, if the powers of a king-
dom are engaged in the sentence of any court, it must be because they have
set it up and confined it, and given commission, and appointed who should
execute it, so as if any should exercise a power further than they have ap-
pointed, they were not engaged to back it : so nor will God also assist with
.his power further than as he hath placed it, and where he hath placed it.
Prop. V. That the constitution of churches is uniform, and of one kind
and sort.
All churches are of a like sort, and, for their constitution and government,
are uniform ;
Or else, 1, there should be a double constitution, one for the one sort,
and the other for the other, and therefore a classical and congregational
church, being two several sorts of churches in respect of their end, the one
beinff for worship, the other for government ; the one a representative church
(for so the elders in a dassis are), the other of the people, or consisting of
people and elders both ; and being also truly several forms of churches in
respect of government, as economical government differs from political and
the like, they cannot both of them be by divine institution.
Object. In the Jewish government both small towns and great had entire
power.
Arts. Therefore, therein lay their uniformity ; and whilst power was lodged
only in the elders, and they kept court in the gate, it might be so, and the
same order be preserved ; but it cannot be so here, when the people also are
by institution taken in, and are to be present.
2. When the apostle saith, ' So I ordain in all the churches,' 1 Cor. vii. 17,
there could not be the same ordination of government and constitution unless
there were an uniformity in these churches.
3. Again, Christ writing to the churches of Asia in Rev. ii. and iii., he not
only calls them seven candlesticks, as being of the same make, uniform, of
the same parts, and the like ; but what he writes to one, he writes to all
that were churches, concluding all his epistles thus, ' Hear what the Spirit
saith to the churches,' which is all one with what is in Rev. xxii. 16, * I
sent mine angel to testify these things in the churches.'
4. And it is argued from that common type of the visible churches, which
is shewn unto John, Rev. iv., as the form of the tabernacle was shewn unto
Moses in the mount, where there are twenty-four elders, and four beasts,
and the acts they do perform are principally worship, and therefore it is the
form of congregational churches.*
5. Of Thessalonica he saith, 1 Thes, ii. 14, ' That they became followers
of the churches of God, which in Judea aVe in Christ Jesus.' If it had
been meant only of following of them in matters of faith, in receiving of the
gospel in the doctrine of it, as every particular Christian doth, he needed
not have used the phrase, ' followers of the churches,' but of the church in
* Parkerus de Polit. Eccles. lib. iii.
Chap, III.] the churches of christ. 15
Judea, if it had been spoken in respect as they were members of the visible
church, visible professors of Christianity. He speaks it therefore, also, in
reference to having received the gospel, and casting themselves, as a church,
into the same form and constitution with those churches ; for by reason of
their form and constitution they are called churches, as they are bodies
gathered up for worship and government.
6. For the confirmation of this, add that the institution cannot fall both
upon congregational and classical ; but one would destroy the other if it
were left arbitrary to take one or the other.
7. As one baptism, one body, one faith, are in the church mystical, so
one sort of body, as well as one baptism for kind, is instituted in the con-
stitution of the churches of Christ.
CHAPTER III.
That Christ hath, hi/ his own institution, established the order, discipline, and
government of his churches, proved by several arguments.
As there is a distinction commonly made between discipline, and worship,
and doctrine of the church, so such a distinction hath an apostolical stamp
upon it for its warrant ; for materially we find it, though in other terms.
Col. ii. 5, where by order among them he means that which we call dis-
cipline, or ordering the administration or government of the church and
worship ; and hj faith, that which we call doctrine, or the system of truths
to be believed and practised, for so everywhere the word is used. And so
in 1 Cor. xi. 34, having treated of matters pertaining to worship and dis-
cipline, the administration of the Lord's supper, &c., he concludes, ' The
rest will I set in order when I come.' So 1 Cor. xiv. 40, ' Let all be done
decently,' which respects the outward circumstances, ' and according to
order,' which respects those apostolical commands about matters of discipline
and ordering, as he calls them, ver. 37, such as he had given in that chapter
and at other times. Therefore, Titus i. 5, when writing to an evangelist
about rectifying matters in Crete, and ordaining elders in every city, matters
that concern discipline, he adds, ' as I had ordered thee, or given order to
thee.' The word is the same in all these places. And by order, he means
not simply their having all those principally instituted ordinances as are
essential, as preaching the word, sacrament, and censure, and officers to
administer these ; but all such rules as the apostles gave for the ordering
and administering those ordinances right, many of which rules are more
than mere external circumstances, and yet not principal ordinances, but
directions to manage ordinances, as even those directions given about pro-
phesying in that 1 Cor. xiv., that they should speak by course, and one at
once, that the women should keep silence, &c., which yet are points of that
order he would have them observe in their assemblies, ver. 40. And so in
the Old Testament there was the like ufi«*'»e. As they had the ark, so they
had direction how to carry it, 1 Ch'^^^AV. 2 ; none ought to carry the ark
but the Levites, for them hath tLd Lord chosen ; and because they carried
it in a cart, he tells them they sought not the Lord after the due order,
ver. 13. Now for the demonstration of this, that the order of the churches
of Christ is to be distinguished from their doctrine and worship ; —
1. Consider, that very place itself even now cited for this distinction, doth,
if viewed in the context of it, afford argument for this, the apostle delight-
ing himself with a rare and worthy sight, worthy an apostle's joy : Col. ii. 5,
' Though I be absent in the flesh, yet am I present with you in the spirit,
16 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK I.
joying and beholding your order, and the stedfastness of your faith in Christ.'
Where by sj)irit, if his own mind and heart be meant, then the meaning is,
that both those were estabhshed according to his own heart, as he an
apostle led by the Holy Ghost would have them ; therefore he says he was
present with them in liis spirit. Or if the Holy Ghost be meant more im-
mediately, then the meaning is, that in respect of those, the same Spirit of
Christ that dwelt in the apostle, and guided him in settling the church in
both these, was present also with them in both faith and order, both being
established and settled among, them according to the dictates of the Holy
Ghost in the apostle ; and therefore he says, he was present with them in
the Spirit, joying in a spiritual manner to behold both. So that the Colos-
sians had all ordinances and officers, and all those ordinances managed by
those officers amongst them, according to the directions the Holy Ghost
had given. This was their order he rejoiceth in, as well as in their faith,
and is in respect of both these present with them in spirit. And this being
their present state in both, he exhorts them to continue therein, in those
words, ' As ye therefore have received Christ the Lord, so walk ye in him,'
ver. 6. He speaks in relation to both these, for his scope is to exhort them
to persevere in what he had before commended them for, which hitherto
they had held on in ; which was for their order, as well as faith, which the
particle therefore implies, ' as ye have therefore received, so walk.' And as
in their faith they had received Christ Jesus for their Saviour, so in sub-
mitting to his orders and rules for their church government, they had re-
ceived him for their Lord ; and to walk on in both as they had begun, he
exhorts them. So that all churches, then, as they had received from the
apostles the doctrine of faith, so directions for order too, and it was not left
to their power, to their arbitrament, to innovate or alter in either, but to
continue to walk as they had begun.
And this further appears to have been his scope, because he prefaceth
this commendation of their faith and order, that he might preserve them
from the errors of some who went about to pervert them in both. Into the
order of their worship there were those that would have obtruded Jewish
rites and ceremonies, of abstinence from meats, and of holy days, and the
Jewish Sabbath, ver. 16, and so a seeking God after the old order of the
Jewish church. And into the doctrine of their faith there were some that
would have introduced things they had not seen, ver. 18, by which doctrines
they destroyed the foundation of their faith, not holding the head, ver. 19.
Now, to settle them against these innovations, both in doctrine and rites,
and against all whatsoever that might arise of the like kind, to the end of
the world, he tells tbem that they were, in respect of that order and faith
they had received Christ in, in him complete, ver. 10. He and his word
was a sufficient director to them in both, and they needed neither to be
beholden to human philosophy or policy, or any traditions of men, either to
order their churches for them, otherwise than as Christ by his apostles had
tanght, or to coin new doctrines, ver. 8. And because that, take them quel
colentes, as worshippers in a church, they were dead with Christ from all
rudiments of the world whatever, ver. 20, he wonders that any among them
should be so seduced, and why as though living in the world they would be
subject to ordinances human of what kind soever. Where he takes away
the fairest pretence for such innovations as could be, that they, because men
as well as others, lived in the world (the example of which is apt to mould
men much to conform to their practices), and therefore they should take
liberty to loose their orders in their church aftairs, to come the nearer to
the model of worldly governments. Ay, but the apostle tells them that they
Chap. III.] the churches of cheist. 17
were worshippers in a church that held of Christ as their only Lord, they
were of another world, and so ought not to subject themselves to any matters
of order, as well as matters of faith in their church administrations, but
what were purely from Christ. And in relation to both these (which he
still carries in his eye), he useth two words, ver. 22, not to go after the
commandments of men in matters of order, nor the doctrines of men in
matters of faith (for still such new invented ways profit not the soul, but
perish in the using), nor be deceived by the vain show of what wisdom so-
ever appeared in either. And although the swervings and aberrations there
mentioned from right order and faith were more gross than many of those
amongst us, yet the arguments and exhortations the apostle useth (to pre-
vent any of what sort soever for ever) are such as reach ours, and all other
digressions from the right order and faith at first delivered by the apostle,
and received by the apostolic churches ; and we are to reduce all to the
word, we being complete in Christ for either. The like exhortation unto
this (which further strengtheneth this) we have also Rom. xii. 1.
2. I add to this, that there are in the books of the New Testament, written
by the apostles, manifold particular directions and notes, purposely and pro-
fessedly written to direct in the government of churches, and ordering the
worship of them. Thus in the book of the Acts, which is an historical
narration, and in the Epistles, there are divers and several passages scat-
tered, which put together will rise up to a platform ; whereas for ordering of
commonwealths there are only general rules, as to be sixbject to the higher
powers, &c., but neither directions nor examples left or intimated how they
are to be governed. Thus in 1 Tim. ii. he gives many directions about the
public prayers of the church, as for their order, that they should be first
made afore any other, that ' first of all prayers be made,' ver. 1. So for their
kind, all sorts of prayers ; supplications, prayers, intercessions, &c. For
their subject, for all men, kings, all in authority ; for the places of worship,
not in places dedicated as holy with difiierence from others, as the temple was,
but ' I will that prayers be made everywhere,' &c, ver. 8. For the carriage of
women, that in the public assemblies they wear modest apparel, and not
affect that splendour and costliness as elsewhere, ver. 9 ; and that they keep
silence in all administrations whatever, ver. 10 ; and that they be not rulers
nor teachers of the church, ver, 11. Then in chap. iii. he gives directions
about officers ; their distinction, bishops and deacons ; their quahfications,
when to be chosen. And chap, v., he adds many more of the like nature,
both about officers and church censures. And what was the scope of all
this ? Even to shew that the ordering and disposing of all such things are
fixed somewhere or other in the writings of the apostles, and left as rules for
us by apostolic authority. He accordingly, in the conclusion of all this,
doth more strongly enforce his former directions : 1 Tim. iii. 14, 15, 'These
things write I unto thee, hoping to come unto thee shortly (and so not
writing all that might be written now). But if I tarry long, that thou mayest
know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the
church of the living God.' He puts an emphasis upon the subject he was
to converse in, ' the house of God, and the church of the living God ;' as if
he had said, the house or family of God, and the ordering of it, requires an-
other manner of skill than the societies of men. Timothy was an evangelist,
whose office it was to perfect discipline and doctrine in the churches, which
the apostles first planted ; and the evangelists received extraordinary gifts to
that end, and such gifts as made them to exceed, in spiritual wisdom and
spirit, all the bishops, yea, all the states in the world ; and yet it was not
VOL. XI. B
18 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK I.
left unto their wisdom or arbitrament, to dispose or give such directions as
these in church allairs and administrations ; but they were tied to the direc-
tions of the apostles, under whom they were evangelists, and who were guided
infallibly by the Spirit, that these evangelists might be guided by them to
mould churches accordingly. Timothy's wisdom could not direct him herein,
but he was to learn and know from Paul, ' That thou mayest know how to be-
have thyself,' &c., 1 Tim. iii. 15. This is a skill then which depends upon
apostolical revelation. And the directions were not so loosely given as they
might vary from them, for Paul says even to Timothy, ' how thou oughtest
to behave thyself,' as a matter of duty. Neither doth Paul only give general
rules, which might help human wisdom in the ordinance of things, for many
of the rules in that epistle are particular, and as express as may be, not only
directing to the substantial parts of worship, but giving directions for the
manner, as the word -roog, how, implies. Yea, and he makes these things
part of that mystery of godliness, ver. 16, for which Christ was made manifest
in the flesh, and ascended, as well as matters of doctrine ; and so they needed
a revelation as well as the greatest truths of faith. And further, he insinu-
ates the reason why he left these things in writing, because the Spirit fore-
told that there should be an apostasy of the churches to popery in the latter
times ; when there should be a perversion, as of the doctrine, so of the apos-
tolical order and worship set up in the first churches, he instancing in some
particulars for the rest, 1 Tim. iv. 1, which Daniel (whence he quotes it)
instanceth in, Dan. xi. 36, 39. And so he writ these things, that the church
might in after ages have a rule to restore all things to the primitive condi-
tion again.
The like we have delivered by Paul to Titus, another evangelist : Tit. i. 5,
' For this cause (says he) left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order
the things that are wanting ;' or, as the word in the original is, iTridiopduari,
thoroughly set straight, or reduce to the right, things that were left unset
right. And he instanceth in one matter of discipline for all the rest, ' and
ordain elders in every city.' And how w^as he to order all things, and by
what rule ? ug syu) (To/ diiTa^dfji.riv, as I ordered them to thee, or gave order.
Evangelists were appointed for church discipline, as well as doctrine ; so
Timothy you see was by the directions given him, and so Titus was, as
appears by the following directions, and as the word 5/ararrw implies, for
that signifies the ordering of matters aright. And he was to make an exact
or thorough reformation, and to constitute things fully aright ; and all this
not according to rules of general wisdom and discretion, but according to
particular and express order from the apostle, * as I gave order to thee.' Now
if the apostle gave particular orders for all these things then, and that to
abler and wiser men than ever were to succeed in the church, and they
needed them ; then if they have not left in their writings somewhere or other
all the directions they gave to them by word of mouth, there had not been
sufiicient provision made for us in these days, nor the succeeding churches
in all ages, who know less how to behave ourselves in the church of God
than they did.
3. Add to this that so usually cited place, Heb. iii. 1-3, which comes
fitly in to second this reason, and confirms it. As Moses is said to be faith-
ful in all God's house, so Christ also both in God's and his own house ; as
Moses was under the Old Testament, so Christ is under the New ; Moses
was concerned in that old visible constituted church of the Jews (for so also.
Acts vii. 38, it is called the church in the wilderness), and Christ in the new
constituted assemblies of the gospel. Even in the language of that Epistle
to the Hebrews, as well as in this to Timothy, these particular assemblies
Chap. III.] the churches of christ. 19
are called, with respect to Christ, his house, for, Heb. x. 21, the apostle
there shewing that, as we have an high priest now as they had then, so an
house of God now as then ; ' We having an high priest over the house of
God ;' he infers from thence, that as we should draw near in worship as the
priests did, having our consciences sprinkled, and our bodies washed with
pure water (following the allusion of the worship in that old house), so we
should go on with other duties of church fellowship ; as inferences from
thence, and among others, he brings in this last, ' not forsaking the assemb-
ling of ourselves together.''"' And his argument lies thus : as there was an
high priest then, so now ; as a public worship then, so now ; and as an
house of God, and assemblies then to exercise public worship in, over which
the high priest was placed, so there must be such an house now ; which, be-
cause they are not national, but parochial, therefore he expresseth them by
the synagogues of the Jews. Now if such congregations be God's house
appointed for his public worship under the New Testament, we needed par-
ticular directions how to behave ourselves in this house of God, as much as
the Jews of old did in that house which God built them for public worship ;
as that place in Timothy shews, ' That thou mayest know how to behave
thyself in the house of God,' 1 Tim. iii. 15. Yea, and Christ also hath
been as faithful to God in directing us now, as Moses was. in ordering all
things then, as this place in the Epistle to the Hebrews shews. Moses was
faithful, as in giving a right platform of doctrine to that church, both of the
law and gospel ; so in giving a perfect platform of discipline of the govern-
ment of that church, and ordaining all things in the worship of it (' He made
all things according to the pattern in the mount,' Exod. xxv. 40, Heb.
viii. 5), therefore, so hath Christ done also. Faithfulness implies going
exactly according to directions given, and Christ his faithfulness lay in giving
out those directions to us his church. Neither is it only in matters of faith
and manners ; for it is spoken of building Grod's house under the New Testa-
ment, which is done by ministry, and the government of the church also, as
well as by faith and manners ; for the building and edification of the church
is as well by the ministry and officers of the church, Eph. iv. 12, and all the
ordinances of it, 2 Cor. x. 4-6, as by the doctrine of faith and good manners.
Neither is the comparison of Christ with Moses, as to giving rules for a
commonwealth (and so this needs not be brought in for a disproportion), but
as to the house of God only, in which Christ only did meddle, and refused to
be a judge in other things. And herein, as Moses is said to be faithful, 'Ev
o>.w rw or/.w, in the whole house ; that is, in every particular about it, a
complete director of all things, in every room of it ; so must Christ be also
in all sorts of things, that concerned it any way as an house to God, whether
as mystical, in giving doctrines to build it, or visible and constituted, in giving
discipline. He was faithful to God in the whole house ; that is, in every-
thing wherein we are an house to God. Neither do we fetch an argument
from the particulars of Christ and Moses ; but further, from the very reasons
that the apostle here suggests. For,
1. In reason says the apostle, ' E,very house is built by some man,'
Heb. iii. 4. And for the building of it, there must be a platform, and
direction in some man's head. A pattern there was for the tabernacle, and
for Solomon's temple given by David, and that by the Spirit, as is warily
put in, 1 Chron. xxviii. 12-14, and the faithfulness of him that is to build
this house must lie in building it according to that pattern. Now this
house of God, neither under the Old nor New Testament, could have man
for its builder ; for no man hath either power to do it, nor skill to give the
■* M?! lyxtCTCif ilrovn; t7,v iVKrvvayoiynv iKuraiv, Ilcb. X. 25.
20 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK I.
pattern ; therefore, ver. 3, he says, that Moses, and all the saints of the
Old and New Testament, apostles and others, were, and are but a part of the
house, and so could not give of themselves directions to build it. There-
fore, as it is the house of God (both now and then), so God must be the
master-builder, as then so now ; therefore, ver. 3, he both calleth Christ the
builder of his house, in those words, ' he that built the house' ; and adds,
ver. 4, that whereas men build every other house, he that built this house
is God, ' but he that built all things is God.' Men love to have the contrivance
of their houses to be drawn by themselves, and are as curious in it to please
themselves, as in any other thing ; and so Christ likewise.
2. To build and give directions for the building of God's church, as unto
Moses was given, he makes a matter of honour and prerogative due only to
God and Christ, and shall man arrogate it ? Ver. 3, ' This man (meaning
Christ) was counted worthy of more glory than Moses was, inasmuch as he
who hath builded the house hath more honour than the house.' Under
the word building, he includes giving the pattern, for Moses was but faith-
ful in doing then according to the master builder's direction. Therefore, to
give but such kind of directions for the building and ordering God's house
under the New Testament, as Moses by direction gave under the Old, about
church officers, &c., if men should undertake it, would be to assume the
glory of that wisdom that is due only to Christ. It was the masterpiece
wherein Solomon's wisdom (Christ's type) is said to have been shewn :
2 Chron. ix. 3-5, ' When the Queen of Sheba had seen the wisdom of Solo-
mon, and the house that he had built, the meat of his table, attendance of
his servants, and so the rest of the ordering of his house, she professeth
she had not heard the one half of the greatness of his wisdom.' And cer-
tainly in God's house, which he hath built for his glory, much more of his
wisdom is expected. And if God, who built that old house of the Jewish
church, shewed his own wisdom in the exact particular directions about it,
surely in this new house of the New Testament, which in true glory is to
exceed that other, and which is built for the glory of his wisdom, as well as
the former, he hath displayed the like, or else he hath imparted the honour
to men under the gospel in the framing this better house, which he accounted
part of his glory, and so reserved it to himself under the Old.
So that, to sum up this, the apostle doth here at once exclude both men's
hands and skill from the building of any of God's house, both because it is
God's house, and themselves but part of this house. And is it not as absurd
for all men and angels to take on them to direct (otherwise than by direc-
tion first given) how any of God's house should be made and built, as it were
for any part of the house to give order for the rest ? It is as much as for the
clay to say to the potter. Why hast thou made me thus ? Is it fit for the
whole house, or any part of it, to say. Make me this house thus ? Who
shall give Christ a pattern of any house he hath promised to dwell in ? Who
hath been his counsellor ? Men love to have the contriving their houses
themselves, and are as curious in it to please themselves, as in any other
thing ; so is Christ. And the apostle withal expressly affirmeth, on the
contrary, that all things in this house are to be built by God, for so I
understand ra rtdvra, he that built all them thiu(js is God, all those things
that belong to this house, which was the thing he was speaking of. So as
Christ, not as a servant as Moses was, but as being God, built this house,
and all things in it, and yet according to a pattern, in respect of which he is
said to be faithful.
We shall annex to these scriptures but one reason for the confirmation
hereof, which is this, that if the Scripture hath condescended to set down a
Chap. III.] the chueches of christ. 21
multitude of particular directions, either in examples, or in more express
rales, about the ordering of government and worship, whereof some are in
appearance of but small importance, and might seem to be left to discretion
(as that every man should lay aside, as God hath blessed him, on the first
day of the week, rather than on another day, &c., 1 Cor. xvi. 2), that
then the word hath left a full and complete direction, as to matters of greater
importance. The strength of the consequence, viz., that if the New Testa-
ment hath given particular directions for many things, then for all of like
nature, appears by this.
1. Because the word of God is perfect in whatever it meddles with. If it
had not meddled at all with church matters, but only given in general rules,
then indeed no complete pattern could have been pleaded for ; but having,
to our view, set out so many pieces of this building, for any man to say,
Christ hath left other things of like nature and use unto general rule, is to
argue the Scriptures to be guilty of imperfection, whereas Paul writing to
Timothy an evangelist, about matters of church government (which was one
main part of an evangelist's office, and one main argument of his epistles to
him before), says, the word of God was given to make the man of God per-
fect, 2 Tim. iii. 17.
2. A divine wisdom of God being manifest in these directions in view thus
given, which man's wisdom in the like must not presume to imitate or come
near, if God should have given some directions, and left to man's wisdom
other of the same kind and use, in this man's wisdom had been made equal
to God's, in matters of this nature.
3. Those many directions and appointments God hath given, have a
supernatural efficacy and blessing in them, because they are his institutions
over and above what is in the dictates of nature, or what reason can invent.
Now if it were left to man to add the like out of his own wisdom, to the
like uses in the government of the church, then man must be supposed to
have the power or promise from God, to have his ordinances accompanied
with the like supernatural efficacy. All God's institutions have for their
object, men's souls and consciences ; so the dispensers of ordinances, the
ministers, and therefore likewise the things dispensed : ' Obey them that
rule over you, for they watch for your souls,' Heb. xiii. 17. And then for
their end, they are to be for the edification of men's souls, and to convey the
Spirit, 1 Cor. xii. 5, 7, and therefore are wholly supernatural and spiritual.
And the ministers, which are to be the means to efi'ect those ends, should
therefore not be left to the arbitration of natural reason or human wisdom,
though never so much elevated, as the ordering of a family or commonwealth
is, which have for their immediate object but men's bodies and estates, and
for their immediate end but men's natural and civil good. But if the end
of church ordinances be supernatui'al in an immediate way, then all the
means should be supernatural also in their appointment and institution ;
for between the end and the means there must be a proportion, nothing
being enabled to a spiritual effect that hath not a supernatural and spiritual
original. We could not tell how to imagine or expect that God would
accompany such media or means, of what kind or rank soever, as the wisdom
of man invents, with such a power. And, therefore, the apostle speaking
of all means spiritual (and by a metaphor calling these things weapons,
which logicians call instruments or means), opposeth these two : 2 Cor.
X. 4, ' The weapons of our warfare are not carnal (or human), but mighty
through God ;' and by that negation insinuates, that they must be spiritual
in their rise, if mighty in their working. It is as proper to the Holy Ghost
to sanctify any thing to a spiritual end, as it is for God the Father to create.
22 THE GOVERNBIENT OF [BoOK I.
or the Son to redeem; and, therefore, for man to appoint any thin^ to a
spiritual end, is as derogatory to the Holy Ghost iu his work, as the hke
would be to the other persons in theirs.
4. It was expressly forbidden for man to go about to make anything of
his invention hke unto God's, not like oil, not hke days, not like-posts to
God's ; and, therefore, much more it is prohibited, that man should frame
like institutions for the order and government of the churches under the
gospel.
CHAPTER IV.
What power spiritual or ecclesiastical is. — Of the nature of a divine institution.
— How the knowledge of divine institutions is derived to us, that we may he
assured ivhat are truly and, really such.
Power spiritual is an impress of, or an investiture with, the authority of
Christ, merely out of his will, whereby men are authorised and enabled by
commission from Christ, and in his name, to do that which others cannot do ;
and by virtue of which what they so do hath a special efficacy in it from
the power of Christ, seconding and accompanying of it ; which also the con-
science acknowledging subjects itself to, as unto the power of Christ, for the
sake of his will and institution.
An institution is that which is merely founded upon God's will, raising up
a thing beyond its own natural or moral efficacy, with an efficacy beyond if.
As for men to humble themselves is a moral duty ; but that God should
appoint and set apart a whole day for them to do it with fasting, and so
have a blessing therefrom, this is beyond the nature of the thing, and is
therefore an institution. The trumpets in the wars, they had a natural effi-
cacy to encourage ; but that the priests should blow trumpets when the people
of Israel went to war, had a blessing beyond the natural efficacy of the thing ;
therefore those persons were appointed to do it. To hear the word, it is a
duty we owe to God, as we are men, whomsoever he shall appoint to preach
it to us, whether he should speak it himself or by others ; but that he should
appoint men rather than angels, or rather than speak himself, that he should
single out some men for that office, and put a special efficacy upon them as
sent by him, this is to raise up what hath a natural and common efficacy in
it, beyond the nature of the thing ; and as it dependeth merely upon his
will, so it hath a special institution in it, because of a special efficacy accom-
panying it.
Institutions are not only express commands in the letter of them ; for
examples and promises, hints and implicit intimations, may hold forth the
will of Christ. Neither is everything that is the will and command of Christ
an institution ; but it must be judged to be distinguished from other com-
mands by the matter of it. If anything be taken out from the course of
nature, from the course of God's providence, or from the common law of
nature, and be peculiarly raised up above other things of its rank, to have a
special force and efficacy in it ; then if the will of Christ be declaimed con-
cerning such a thing, it is peculiarly an institution, although other things be
commanded as well as it. That bread and wine should signify and convey
to us the body and blood of Christ, this is by special institution, because it
is beyond the nature of the thing ; it depends only upon God's will, to have
chosen these elements to do it rather than others ; and so they have a spe-
cial efficacy in them. But to have the death of Christ set forth by way of
Chap. IY,] the churches of christ. 23
preaching, that is not an institution simply as such ; but that there should
a peculiar blessing go along with the apostles in preaching, or with evange-
lists, or with the ministers, this depends upon God's will, for he might have
chosen others. A butcher or any man could have killed the sacrifices, as
well as the priests, or any of the tribes of Israel could have done it ; but
God singles out the tribe of Levi, separates them to this work. To give
alms to men as men, is the command of God: 'Do good unto all,' Gal. vi. 10;
but this is not an institution, because founded also upon a common ground.
To give alms to saints is founded also upon the like ground, analogous to
the other, if to men as men, then especially to saints as saints ; but to make
collections in the church where God is worshipped, here it becometh a sacri-
fice ; and then to make this collection upon the first day of the week rather
than upon another, this must needs be an institution. So that oftentimes
God doth take such things as are prescribed by the law of nature, and such
things as are commanded upon other common grounds, and yet annexeth
some special and peculiar stamp of his own will upon them, as they are done
thus and thus, or by such and such. Hence is the distinction that our
divines give upon the first and second commandment : that as there is cult.ioi
naturaUs in them, as to fear Grod, and to love him, obey him, to hear his
word, &c., so also there is cultiis institntus, which is the substance of the
second commandment. So also there are means of edification which are
providential, and so occasionally will serve : if a man should walk in a church-
yard and see a death's-head, it might put him in mind of death ; but for a
man to set up a death's-head in his study, continually to do it, this were the
imitation of an institution. If a man went forth and heard a lark sing in
this providential way, it might stir up his mind to think of God or heaven ;
or if a man hears music, it may do the like ; but to keep a lark in cage on
purpose, that when it sings my mind should be stirred up, or to have music
on purpose to stir up the mind in a constant settled way, this were to make
it as an institution, as in the temple it was, when music was there used.
So as the constant setting apart of such a thing for such an end (though
providentially and occasionally it may serve for such an end), riseth up to
an institution also.
We come now to consider the ways whereby institutions are delivered unto
us by Christ, or made known to us. Institutions are but the will of Christ,
declared concerning such things as are exercised above the common nature
of them, to a further spiritual end. Therefore the declaring the will of God
about them, holds in common with the declaration of God's will in other
commands. It doth difier only in the matter, that the matter of institutions
are such things as are exercised above the common nature to some spiritual
end and efiicacy. In the delivery of these, Jesus Christ is as faithful as
Moses was, though he hath not delivered them in the New Testament, in
written Scriptux'e, as in a body of laws formed up by themselves as Moses
did ; with express positive directions, by way of command, as the law of
Moses is given. There is a double reason of it.
1. Because the Jews they needed much more express holdings forth of all
their laws, because they were in the infancy of the church ; therefore God
dealt with them accordingly, in giving here a line, and there a line, and it
was necessary to that state ; and yet, even their system of laws is in many
things obscure. There are many cases which the rabbins make in the inter-
pretation of the ceremonial law, which have a great deal of difficulty in
them.
2. But the chief reason is this : because (as was hinted afore) Moses his
law was given to a church and nation formed up, and that by writing from
24 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK I.
the first. But the apostles did not so ; they dehvered these rules to the
churches by way of tradition, 1 Cor. xi. 1. They converted men by preach-
ing, and formed up churches, and settled government and order amongst
them, as well as faith. And it was the pleasure and mind of the Holy Ghost
to leave to posterity those rules which the apostles expressly gave out to
churches then by word of mouth, to leave them, I say, to posterity in writ-
ing, by hinting what practices were in churches, recorded in the Epistles and
in the Acts ; so as what was delivered to them in a way of command posi-
tively, is traduced to us by way of example, how churches were then governed.*
Therefore, suitably the apostle saith, ' we have no such custom, nor the
churches of God,' 1 Cor. xi. 16. And those customs of the churches were
traduced and derived down to us ; and unto this day, the vestigia of them
all hath (though with superadditions and perversions) remained in the
church of Rome ; so as we have both the hints and practices of the primi-
tive times, and also those footsteps remaining in the churches to this day.
1. Now, such institutions as those, they are sometimes delivered to us in
promises, and we may gather them by the promises that are made to things
above their natural efficacy. And when we find such promises, although we
have it not in express letter, You shall do thus or thus ; yet to such things
as we find promises made, which are above the natural efficacy of them, we
may warrantably argue their institution ; as for the sentence the church
shall give, the promise being, ' whose sins you bind on earth shall be bound
in heaven,' Mat. xviii. 18, John xx. 23, which is beyond the efficacy of the
sentence of men upon earth, this evidently argueth a church, and their sen-
tence, to be by institution. And so also when Christ sailh, ' Where two or
three are gathered together in my name, I will be in the midst of them,'
Mat. xviii. 20, this implies that the gathering together in his name is an
institution, for there is a special promise of his being in the midst of them ;
and this being spoken upon occasion of his mentioning a church, is evidently,
therefore, the institution of a church.
Ohj. If you will make everything a promise is made to, to be an institu-
tion, we shall then have too many institutions.
Ans. We do not make everything a promise is made to an institution.
Promises are made to the people of God, but institutions are in this case to
be distinguished from all things else by the matter. However, promises are
the declaration of God's will, be they made to what things soever ; and if
they fall upon such things as are raised up above natural and common effi-
cacy, with promise of a supernatural power to accompany them, then they
are institutions. If that promises be made to any action, as, to ' honour thy
father and mother, that thy days may be long,' &c., then that action is a
duty, although there were no commandment for it, only it is not an institu-
tion, because there is not a supernatural spiritual efficacy put upon it. So,
if promises be made to the people of God, the people of God be not an
institution indeed, but it argues that they are the people of God : it doth
separate them from the rest of the world ; but if it falleth upon actions, or
things, or persons raising them up to have a spiritual efficacy unto others
above their natures, then it is an institution.
2. These institutions are sometimes declared by implicit .directions, as
when the apostle saith, ' Do not ye judge them that are within ?' 1 Cor. v. 12,
* It were a good project to add in every particular how that tliere is no particular
that we stand for, but there is a vestigium of it left in some of those churches, and to
give instances still all along of all the particulars, and so as to prove every one first
by Scripture ; 2, by consonancy to spiritual reason ; and, 8, by the opinion of the
reformed churches, &c. ; so, 4, by the footsteps of them in all churches.
Chap. IV.] the chueches of cheist.
25
that is, Have not you power amongst you ? It is but an implicit institu-
tion, but it holds forth that there had been an institution and commission of
power given them ; he takes it for granted ; and so the like should be amongst
us. So when he saith to the Corinthians also, ' When ye are gathered toge-
ther, deliver such an one to Satan,' 1 Cor. v. 3-5, making it their sin that
they did not, it implies there was therefore a law that had been given them,
or else there had been no transgression. Thus, by the same kind of arguing,
we find a promise in Scripture to be argued even out of a threatening ; so
Heb. iv. 5, ' If they shall enter into my rest.' Hence the apostle argues
' some shall enter in.'
3. When there is a commission of power given, there is a declared insti-
tution, as in those words, ' What you bind shall be bound, go and teach all
nations ;' therefore there is an institution of a church in Mat. xviii. 18-20,
for there is a commission given to bind. And if apostolical power be an in-
stitution by virtue of that in John xx. 23, ' Whose sins ye remit are remitted,'
&c., then here also, by virtue of these words, ' If thy brother oficnd, tell the
church,' ' If thou wilt circumcise thyself and thy seed, I will bless thee' ; ' Obey
them that watch over your souls,' there is an institution ; for it doth not
only hold that every Christian should obey the minister he is under, but
that he should be under his ministry, and that the minister should w^atch
over him.
4. There are virtual institutions as well as formal ; for the consequence
which argues God's will, be it in one thing as well as in another, is as truly
the word as in the express letter of it. So many points of doctrine are
demonstrated, as the case of the resurrection of Christ the third day, and
Jesus Christ's proof of the resurrection, by the instance of God's being the
God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob ; and as one truth may be gathered out
of another, so one institution may be gathered out of another, for they are
both but the declarations of God's will. And if there be a necessaryconse-
quence, that if there be such an institution there must be likewise this, that
It is God's will that such a thing must be, then that is to be taken for an
institution also.
When, therefore, many things that God hath instituted, being put altoge-
ther, do necessarily infer something else, then that also in an institution.
As if that God hath appointed officers and overseers, limited to a flock by a
special relation, over whom God hath made them overseers, then that there
should be a flock, and that that flock should have its bounds which they
have relation to, must be by institution also. If when they are gathered
together they must deliver to Satan, and they must gather together to ex-
communicate and dehver to Satan, and this delivering to Satan be by institu-
tion, then their meeting also. As the conclusion is rightly fetched out of a
major and minor, so if there be several particulars which, put together, sup-
poseth some fourth or fifth thing, then God hath instituted that thing ; if it
be such as is not necessarily in nature, but dependeth upon the institution
of his will. As if he hath commanded men to assemble and meet, to tarry
one for another till they meet, and that if any of them sin they should cast
them out, and that their power reacheth to them that are within, this ne-
cessai'ily implies that this company thus meeting are a church by institution
in relation to such meetings. If a king did write to a town to do all such
things as an incorporate town useth to do, if such and such offences fall out
amongst them to judge them that are within, would not this be evidently a
charter to them to make them an incorporate town ? As lords are made
lords being called up by a writ, so here ; therefore all such directions as we
find iu the epistles, as in 1 Cor. v., to do thus and thus, implies them to
26 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK I.
be incorporate bodies, which incorporation depends as much upon God's
will as the acts themselves which they are to do being so incorporated do.
And perhaps the synagogues under the Old Testament, though we do not
read when they were instituted by express command or law, as for making
of the temple and the like there is, yet was derived out of the general
charter for their meetings in the temple, and every seventh year to read the
word, as less leases are by parcels made out of a greater lease ; and so they
were by institution consequentially.
5. Institutions are made known by prophecies in the Old Testament con-
cerning the times of the gospel. As that upon every assembly there should be
a cloud, that the day of Christ's resurrection should be the Christian Sabbath,
' This is the day that the Lord hath made,' Ps. cxviii. 24. Or appointed by pro-
phecy ; he had said, ' To-day, if ye will hear his voice,' in another psalm, and if
not, that they should not enter into his rest, and this in Heb. iv. 3, 4 is by the
apostle made an institution of the Christian Sabbath. He hath appointed,
saith the apostle, another day, in opposition to the seventh da}^ which he had
spoken of in the 5th and Gth verses; so Clement answerably in his epistle, speak-
ing of the institution of the offices of bishops and deacons, quoteth the prophecy
in Isa. Ix. 17 out of the Septuagint, as then it was ; neither, saith he, is
this a new institution, but many years afore it was thus written of bishops
and deacons. So also in the applying of types, we may discover what is
an institution of God, but then we must find them so applied.-'' If we find
them warrantably applied by the Holy Ghost in the New Testament, or by
prophecy in the Old (for the signification of a type it is by the Holy Ghost,
as in Heb. ix. 8, ' the Holy Ghost thus signifying'), we may infer an institu-
tion from them. So when it is said in Isa. Ixvi. 21, I will take of them for
priests and for Levites, it implies that there should be these two ranks and
sorts of officers in the New Testament, answerable to those two in the Old,
for ordinarj"^ officers, as indeed there are, viz., bishops and deacons.
6. We may be assured what is of divine institution by parallel reason
between things of a kind and of a like nature ; as, for example, God having
appointed baptism a sacrament, and the Lord's supper a sacrament, these
being things of a kind. If he hath bidden and appointed ministers by insti-
tution to baptize, the reason is good that therefore they should have power
to administer the Lord's supper, although there is no instance in Scripture
for it ; so if he have given them power to be the mouth of God in preaching
to the people, then also that they should be the mouth of the people to God
in prayer, we finding that public prayer is appointed as well as preaching,
although we have not one instance in the New Testament that the officers
of the church did perform public prayer. So also God hath appointed
deacons, and he hath appointed elders ; he hath appointed deacons to be
set up by choice, and the elders to be set up by choice. We find that
the people did choose their deacons ; we warrantably argue therefore they
may choose their elders. In things that are thus of a like reason, we
argue from one to the other in other cases, as, for instance (since to us
Christians it is not the judicial and ceremonial, but the moral law which is
obligatory), how do we know, and why do we take the Levitical law for
degrees prohibited in marriage ? Lev. xviii. Because we find in 1 Cor. v. 1
one of those degrees forbidden in the New Testament, viz. for one to have
his father's wife ; and therefore all the rest, although we have no warrant in
Ka) TOVTO oh xaivus' ix yao d>i rroXxZv ^^ovav lyiy^a.'TrTo "jri^i i-ttktk'ovuv, xa) ^ii/.xivuv.
ouTco; ya^ -ttou Xiyn ri ypaiph, K(x.TaffTri(riii to'j; l'7i'i(7xoTotj; auraiv iv oixaioiT'Jv/i, xcci rrov; ^laxovovs
aurav iv ■TTiffrii Clem, epist. ad Corinth, p. 55; edit. Fatr. Juiiii. Oxon. 1G33.
Chap. IV.] the chukches of chkist. 27
Scripture for every particular degree. Also in that law the letter of it only
forbiddeth the aunt to marry the nephew, the popish divines have argued
that yet it is lawful for the uncle to marry the niece ; whereas, on the con-
trary, by a parity of reason it is unlawful, for it is all of a like kind, as the
same way from Thebes to Athens that is from Athens to Thebes ; the one
therefore being forbidden to marry because they arc nigh akiu, since the
other is of as nigh akin, therefore the law holds in the one as well as in the
other. So under the New Testament we have days of fasting set apart as well
as in the Old, for the same moral grounds, but we have no one instance of a
day of thanksgiving in the New Testament ; but these being parallel ordi-
nances (for as thanksgiving and humbling of a man's self before God for sin
are parallel duties, so to have a day of thanksgiving and a day of fasting are
parallel ordinances), therefore since we find the one in the New Testament,
and find both in the Old, we may argue the other from this one. But then,
that we may argue rightly, the things must be collateral, and of a kind, as
the Lord's supper and baptism are both sacraments, elders and deacons are
both officers of the church ; they are things co-ordinate, ejmdem orcUnis, and
so we may argue from one to the other in things that may be supposed
common to both, and is not upon a peculiar reason restrained to one. But
otherwise for things that are subordinate, as we may call them, and of an-
other kind, there i^rtr ratio will not make an institution, for then it is not
par ratio, because it is not inter paria, or things co-ordinate. As we can by
no means infer that because God hath set up an office of elders superior to
that of deacons, because he hath set up the office of pastors and teachers
superior to that of ruling elders, that therefore upon a pretended necessity we
may set up an office over all these elders, as the ancient times did a bishop.
And so neither will it follow that because God hath set up a court in a par-
ticular church to correct offending brethren, by delivering up to Satan, that
therefore they may set up an higher court in like manner to correct churches
by excommunicating them. These are not things of the same order, but they
are things of superiority and inferiority. Though we may argue in the judi-
cial law, that if the aunt may not marry the nephew, likewise the uncle may
not marry the niece, because they are things of the same order, yet we must
not now go and make a new degree forbidden ; as is the case betwixt our
brethren and us in the Presbyterian controversy. Reason will help us to
apply the same things in things collateral, but not to institute and set up
things anew.
Concerning the use of man's reason in this point about institutions, we
only say this, that man's reason may, by way of interpretation, find out what
God hath set up, but it cannot proceed further. Men mistake in thinking
that if God hath set up this, that therefore they may by like reason set up
another thing ; as because that God hath made set forms of prayer, that there-
fore men may ; or as because that God did deliver the Scriptures to be read,
therefore men may appoint sermons to be read. For in so doing man's
reason becometh a judge, and takes on him God's authority, in* inventing and
authorising this, as God hath done another thing, whereas we should be con-
tent with God's means that he hath appointed ; but in the other, man's reason
is only but as a witness, that applies a thing according to what by reason he
gathers God's mind to be. And there is this difference between doctrinal
truths and institutions, that one truth may be by reason better fetched out of
another, and more safely and easily than institutions. For one truth begets
another, and truth is infinite in the consequences of it, but so institutions are
not. And the reason of the difference is this, because they depend upon a
promise, and upon the power and will of God immediately to concur with
28 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK I.
them, and set them up. They are things that are singled out by the will of
God to a spiritual end, with a spiritual efficacy.
7. We may be assured what is an institution of God, by examples which
we meet with in the Scriptures. For one way by which Christ was pleased
to convey his institutions to us, is by way of examples in the New Testament,
without the which, being intended as a rule for us, we acknowledge, that a
complete rule for all things could not be made forth. We shall therefore
endeavour to give reason and demonstration, that the example of the prac-
tices of the primitive churches are to be taken as rules to us. It is true
indeed examples then bind not, when the story is so written as there may be
a supposition of error in the example, as the story of the lives of the patriarchs
is. And also those examples bind not which we find expressly contradicted
by a law, or which we find blamed, as that of Peter dissembling, Gal. ii. 11 ;
and that of John's worshipping the angel, Kev. xix. 10. These are not rules.
But if an example be written as a rule, then it will bind, because there is no
supposition of error. But the apostles' ways in churches, and ordering of
them, yea, and of the churches erected by them, are propounded and pro-
fessed to be recorded as patterns and rules to us. Neither needs there a
particular warrant to make every one a rule, whilst the general one that pro-
pounds all to be such will sanctify all. I shall first prove my assertion, and
then shew the reasonableness of it that it should be so.
1. My first proof is from comparing the commission Christ gave his apostles
at his ascending. Mat. xxviii. 20, with the Book of the Acts, the title and
preface to it, and matter in it. In Mat. xxviii. 20, this is the commission
he gave to his apostles considered as common persons, as the last clause
argues, ' Lo, I am with you, to the end of the world.' His commission is,
that they should teach those that were converted to observe whatever he had
commanded them. For the matter of the doctrine of the gospel, what they
should preach, he had given commission for that in the verse afore, ver. 19,
' Go, teach all nations ;' which Mark interprets, chap. xvi. 15, ' Go, preach
the gospel to every creature,' that is, as to matters of faith, what they are to
believe ; for it follows, ver. 16, ' He that believes shall be saved.' But for
matter of evangelical pract'ces, what Christians are to do and to observe by
special command from Christ, that injunction he gives in a distinction from
the other, ver. 20 ; he speaks of matters of practice, as the word tti^bTv,
observe, implies. And their commission is precisely limited unto what
Christ had commanded ; he gives them no authority to impose and cause
them to observe any other thing in practice but what he commanded ; they
went beyond their commission if they did. For matters of practice and
observancy, apostles are to meddle with nothing else but Christ's commands;
and they are enjoined to teach men to observe all that Christ commanded.
Now, the story of the Acts relating what was observed and practised by the
churches founded by the apostles, and so in the Epistles, they giving many
hints what were the observations and orders of churches, we finding these,
and gathei'ing them into a body together, cannot look otherwise upon them
than as practices taught them by the apostles ; and if so, then no other than
what Christ commanded. Observations of churches recorded, not blamed,
we take to be directions from the apostles, and to that end written ; and
directions of the apostles we may safely take to be commands of Christ, as
well in matters to be done as to be believed. This gives us a general ground
to argue from examples of the apostolical churches.
2. But, secondly, when we find the book of the Acts to contain many prac-
tices in and about churches, and the officers of them, recorded but by way of
story, and hints of examples to shew us what was the order of churches in
Chap. IV.] the churches of christ. 29
the apostles' times, we may be well assured that these were written on pur-
pose to shew what the apostles, taught them from Christ to observe; which
we gather from all these things laid together.
(1.) From the professed title of the Book of the Acts, which, as those titles
to the Psalms, hath ever been acknowledged part of canonical Scripture. It
is entitled The Acts or Tlpd^sig, practices, of the Apostles. That book con-
tains much of their doctrine, and yet it is not entitled the doctrine of the
apostles, but their practices. And it contains mostly the story of one apostle,
Paul ; and yet because his ordering and settling churches (as we shall anon
observe) was by the same rule that the other apostles all went by, it is called
The Acts of the Apostles, on purpose to consign and give warrant unto those
practices as apostolical. Yea, also, though many things ai'e the practices in
churches themselves, and of the elders and brethren of them, yet they are
called The Acts of the Apostles, because even those practices of churches
were guided by the apostles, and so they are called their acts ; and they
taught them but to observe what Christ commanded.
(2.) Then, secondly, after Luke had given it this title, see further what his
preface is, which further declares this to have been the scope and drift of it.
He connects it with the story of Christ in the Gospel, as passing from all
that Jesus began both to do and teach, ver. 1, from his example and doc-
trine, unto what the apostles did do, and what they did teach churches to
observe by commandment from Christ ; therefore he makes mention of the
commands that Christ by the Spirit had given them unto the day he was
taken up, ver. 2. All which commandments, and those especially which
pertained to his kingdom and government of his church on earth, he re-
newed after his resurrection, speaking, says he, by the space of forty days
of the things of the kingdom of God, ver. 3. The meaning of which both
title and preface, and connecting it with the story of the evangelists, is evi-
dently this, that these apostles being thus thoroughly furnished with com-
mands from Christ, and especially about the things of his kingdom, in
governing his saints (all which, whenas he was about to ascend, he gave in
charge, as the evangelist Matthew tells us), that therefore they should teach
those whom they converted to observe them ; and that done, you have the
story declaring the practices of the churches they reared, and the ways of
the apostles in them, and both as such as were according to these com-
mands of Christ given them, which he therefore mentions in the preface to
give a countenance to them as rules. And the language of it is as if he had
said, you shall know what those special commands pertaining to the king-
dom of God, and which they taught the churches to observe, were, by their
ways and practices here recorded, and mentioned as practised in the first
churches. What reader, observing that charge in Matthew, given by Christ
at his ascension, with the title of, and the preface to this book of the Acts, but
will acknowledge all the story of all the practices here recorded to be Scrip-
ture, written for our admonition, and think this to be the scope and intent
of them ? So that although we have not a particular warrant annexed to
every example here to make it a rule, yet we have this general, which if it
make out this, that they are written to let us see the commandments of
Christ in the apostles' practices, it is enough.
(3.) Then add to this, thirdly, that the practices here recorded of the
apostles in the first churches of Judea, were settled generally in other
churches of the Gentiles also, who yet varied in language, in fashion, and
manners, and government civil. They ordain deacons in the church of
Jerusalem, Acts vi., and elders, we read, mentioned chap. xi. 30, which are
mentioned but historically ; and yet we read of the same kind of officers,
30 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK I.
deacons and elders, in other clmrclies of the Gentiles ; at Philippi, Philip, i. 1,
and in many other churches mentioned in the Acts. Yea, and we find the same
practices and officers, &c., in the churches of the Gentiles settled by Paul, that
was converted and made an apostle many years after the other, and who
learned not the gospel, nor any part of it, from the apostles or the churches
of Judea, but had it by revelation of Jesus Christ, as himself says. Gal. i. 17,
he immediately conferred not with flesh and blood, that is, with no man.
' Yea, I came not to Jerusalem (says he) to them which were apostles afore
me, ver. 17 ; but I went into Arabia, and returned again into Damascus ;
and then after three years I came again unto Jerusalem to visit Peter,
ver. 18, and none apostles saw I save James,' ver. 19. And yet he set up
the same practices in churches that the other apostles did, ordained elders in
every city, and deacons, &c. Now that they should so agree in the same
practices ; that these all here recorded should be entitled the practices of the
apostles ; that they should be the same in several churches, in that first of
Judea, and the same from several apostles in those several churches, and
some of these apostles not consulting each with other ; how could this be,
but as guided by the same Spirit, and as going by the same rule common to
all, which was the commands of Christ ?
(4.) Yea, fourthly, as they have thus Christ's commands (afore the record-
ing these practices) for their warrant, so some of them that are recorded in
the Acts but as historically done at the first as acts of the apostles, yet are
in after times in other scriptures given by way of command. Now this
farther confirms this same, being thus warranted and consigned for the rest,
to shew the like reason of all the other. Thus the first mention of the office
of deacons in the church, is but historically and by way of example set down
with the occasion of it, Acts vi. As also of bishops and elders in the Acts often,
and not at all as recorded therein with any commands from the apostles ; and
yet to shew that these examples are recorded for commands and rules, Paul,
in his epistle to Timothy, writing to him how to behave himself in the house
of God, mentions these offices of deacons and elders as the commands of Christ,
1 Tim. iii. ; and, on the contrary, that which Christ gave a precept and an
institution about. Matt, xviii., namely, church censure and excommunication,
3'ou have it in a directive example given to the church of Corinth, 1 Cor. v.
(5.) And for a fifth argument, yet further to confirm this, the apostles do
in their epistles refer churches and others to their example in the churches,
as rules for their imitation ; and this in matters of church order. Thus, in
1 Cor. xi., Paul, when he was to write to the church of Corinth about
ordering matters of order, as ver. 34 shews, and also all the particulars in
that chapter do shew it (for they are matters of that nature, as about cover-
ing and uncovering, in token of subjection, and about their love feasts
breeding divisions, and eating in the assemblies, and the abuse in the Lord's
supper, &c.), he makes this the preface to all these, ' Be ye followers of me,
even as I am of Christ,' ver. 1, commending them in other things of their
church order ; such as these, they had remembered all these things, and
kept the ordinances as he had delivered them ; so ver. 2. But in these
abuses and disorders, he saith he could not but dispraise them, ver. 17.
Now, in all matters of this nature, as well as matters of doctrine, he exhorts
them to be followers of his example and practice in the churches, as he was
of Christ : so as about all such things Christ gave a command and the
apostles gave order, and by their doctrine and practices delivered them.
We have no such custom, says he, that is, no such practice, and so con-
demns their disorder, by bringing them to that as the rule. So also in his
preface to that discourse of his about church censures to be executed upon
Chap. IV.J the churches of cheist. 31
that iucestuous member of the church, which you read of, chap, v., and other
particular directions that follow in that epistle, he tells them, chap, iv., that
though they may have many thousand instructors, yet he was their father,
ver. 15 ; telling them, ver. 17, that he had sent Timothy, an evangelist,
unto them, which should put them in remembrance of his ways in Christ, ' as
I teach everywhere in every church'; the meaning whereof is plainly this,
that he did bind them to no other rule than what he bound all other churches
to ; and that his example or way, whereof Timothy could put them in mind,
was that rule he would have them and other churches follow, he teaching all
churches to follow those his ways ; for otherwise Timothy could not know
what he taught everywhere in every church ; so as he means not his doctrine
materially, but his ways which he taught every church to follow, as also he
requireth them. So in his writing to the church of the Philippians, his
general conclusion in matters of practice is, chap. iv. 9, ' Those things which
you have both learned and received, and heard, and seen in me, do' ; what
you have received by he;mng and learned by seeing.
1, I observe, his ways and practices in all the churches were regular and
alike, and all tied to the same rule, and given by doctrine and by example
also. Look what his ways were ; the same he taught, and this universally
in all churches, teaching them to observe it as Christ charged them.
2. He means his ways in matters of discipline and government of the
church, as well as doctrine, and indeed those matters of discipline were
delivered also by doctrine to those churches. For, 1, this is a preface to
his discourse about matters of discipline, which he enters into in the following
verses and following chapters. 2. Therefore he calleth them ways, not vjai/,
as being acts and practices of him as an apostle ; things to be done, which
matters of faith are not called. And 3. They were not moral ways of the
moral law, for these the Old Testament directed to, and he might refer them
unto the rules there ; but evangelical ways he means, which the gospel
brought in, ways in Christ, given as directions in all churches. And 4. To
that end he sent Timothy, an evangelist, whose office it was to order things
in church government, as appears by the matter of the epistles to Timothy
and Titus. Add but this, that if anywhere he calls on them to imitate him
in discipline, then in these places matters of discipline are meant and included ;
but he doth this in many places, as in 1 Cor. xi., and the matters of this first
epistle to the Corinthians are much about order : ' The rest will T order when
I come,' 1 Cor. xi. 34 ; and so Timothy was sent to establish them therein.
Again, 3. Writing to Timothy, an evangelist, on purpose to direct him
how to behave himself in the house of God (this being the chief scope of
those epistles, as was noted), he calls him to his example as his rule, as one
that had known his doctrine, manners, life, &c. : 2 Tim. iii. 10, * But thou
hast fully known my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, long-sutfering,
charity, patience.' The word is, TaorjKoXovdriKa;, juxta seqiii, vestif/iis iii-
.sistere, hast followed it step by step. ' 1. In doctrine ; 2. sv rri uyuyrj, in
converse or ways in the churches, as that place, 1 Cor. iv. 17, shews, in my
platform, or form, or leading, or method ; which may very well mean his
institution of churches, his leading or framing them, and training them up.
4. Yea, yet further, to shew that the practices of churches settled by
the apostles are rules unto us, we find him calling upon churches then to
imitate the orders of other churches in those times planted by the apostles ;
therefore the practices of churches recorded, and not blamed, are intended
as rules. The customs of churches is now much urged in the world to bind
others to them, because the apostles referred to them ; but the argument
fails and differs in this, which is not considered, that the custom of churches
32 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK I.
then were apostolical ; and such customs in such churches, so directed in-
fallibly, and recorded then when the apostles were present, we may safely
account obligatory, but not customs merely human. Thus Paul argues from
the custom of all churches, in that 1 Cor. xi. 16, ' We have no such custom,
nor the churches of the saints,' that is, thus founded by apostles. Thus,
1 Thes. ii. 14, he commends them for having become followers of the churches
of God in Judea, because they being the first churches planted by the
apostles, were most exact according to the pattern. Of other churches he
says, ' Came the word of God out from you ?' 1 Cor. xiv. 36. Now, from
the churches of Judea it did. And he speaks it generally of all their imita-
tions of them, and that both in matters of order as well as faith, they being
constituted and settled in both ; for if not in all things, why puts he not the
difi'erence ?
And to shew that all churches in such matters were ordered by the same
rule, one as well as another, and that therefore what we find recorded of one
church was in like manner in all, the apostle sometimes, in giving directions
to one church, adds, ' As I ordain in other churches of Christ also.' Thus,
1 Cor. xvi. 1, in the ordering of collections on the first day of the week,
which is in view but an inferior matter, and might have been done any day,
yet when he gives instruction about it to the Corinthians, though it had
been enough that he an apostle gave it, yet he puts this in, ' As I ordained in
the churches of Galatia, so do ye also.' So in giving those rules about pro-
phesying, to speak one by one, and the lesser number of prophets to submit
to the greater, he enforceth it by this, in 1 Cor. xiv. 33, ' as we see in all
the churches of the saints ;' and ver. 87, ' let him that is spiritual acknow-
ledge that these are the commands of God.' To this doth that old saying
aoree, Constahit id esse ah apostoUs traditum, quod ecdesiis oj)ostolorum. fuit
sacrosanctum, That is evident to have been delivered by the apostles, which
hath been sacredly observed by the churches of the apostles.
5. Christ calls upon the same churches to imitate the first pattern given
them, and wherein they or any swerved, he reduceth them to what they had
at first received and learned from the apostles, as containing an immutable
rule not to be swerved from. Now, if they had not liberty to swerve from
them, then not we : Rev. iii. 3, ' Remember how thou hast received and
heard, and hold fast and repent.' Those epistles to the seven churches do
as much concern discipline as matters of doctrine ; for the chief fault he
doth find with them still is slackness of discipline, whereby they sufi'ered
men to teach or practise amiss.
Now the general reason of this, why the apostle left these things in ex-
ample, is, first, because this agrees with the nature of the thing, for matters
of practice and order are as well, if not better, represented in examples than
rules. Men are moved more by examples than by precepts (as Seneca said),
as buildings and their platform are best set out in pictures. And, 2. Con-
sider the manner of writing scriptures, the occasion of writing these of the
New Testament, both Acts and Epistles, and it will appear that this way of
example was most suitable. 1. The manner of the Scriptures, even as to
matters of doctrine, is not to write methods or harmonies, truths ordered,
but scattered, and often left to us to pick them out by intimations and co-
herences, and this as to many great truths. And 2. Let us consider when
it was they were written. The work was not first to write scriptures, as
having churches constituted to their hands. Though Moses' case was other-
wise, who had a people already gathered, the nation of the Jews, which were
in one place, whom he could therefore dehver a law unto, in precepts, yet
the apostles dispersed themselves to several places ; and their first work was
Chap. IV.] the churches of christ. 33
to convert men in all nations, and so to build them up into churches, and so
carry their directions with them in their breasts. Thus they did tirst in
Judea, then among the Gentiles ; and every one of them (when apart) was
led with an infallible Spirit in so doing, and all with one spirit agreeing and
conspiring in the same, as by the churches set up by them doth appear.
And many years after this were the Scriptures written to those churches (as
occasion was) whom they had first ordered and disciplined, and this for the
direction of times to come ; and so, in writing to them, they hint relations
of what was done and constituted among them historically (for the rule was
already put in practice, and they were framed and reared). And so Luke
writes an historical relation (after the apostles had set many churches) of
their acts and practices ; and it was not comely to write a law to such
churches, to have such and such officers, &c., when already they had them ;
but rather they maintain their officers as existing among them already, and
shew their diversity, by exhorting them to their several duties, as Rom. xii.,
and elsewhere ; which yet, because they were erected by apostolical direc-
tion, is hint enough to us to have the like. If they had written to any
company in a place that had not been gathered into church fellowship, to
ecclesia constituenda, a church that was to be constituted, then it had been
meet to have written the laws and rules of it how to order themselves. But
the apostles had already, afore writing the Scripture, cast all churches into
that order which Christ had appointed, and by example and precept, in word
of mouth, delivered them the traditions, as the apostle speaks, 1 Cor. xi. 2.
And after upon occasion, writing to some of them as churches already con-
stituted, he mentioneth matters of discipline, but either historically, as
already settled among them, or by way of precept, in such particulars as they
were amiss in ; yet so as divine providence, that took care for after times,
hath given a complete direction, either in hints and records of those ex-
amples, of what was already constituted in some churches, or in such those
occasional precepts.
And further, in general, that examples recorded in Scripture are intended
as rules, and so are understood by divines, appears by these instances.
1. It is evident in the matter of the Sabbath ; for which, suppose that we
have no positive command given in the New Testament (and the command
in the Old was evidently pitched on the seventh day from the creation in the
letter of the command), yet because we have mention of it by way of prac-
tice, and administration of holy meetings on that day, — as in that of collec-
tion of saints upon the first day of the week ; and Acts xx. 7, of breaking bread
on the first day of the week, &c., — our divines have warrantably concluded the
alteration of it. And therefore we do alike wonder at those that are for church
ways, that they should be against the Lord's day, and that those that are for
the Sabbath should be against the form of examples in the New Testament.
2. This is evident also in matters of contract afore marriage ; but a hint,
by the by, in a rule given concerning adultery, and in the example of Joseph
and Mary, confirms the obligation of it.
8. The same appears in many particular explications of the moral law.
All that write upon the commandments, though for greater things of the law
they follow the express rules, yet the lesser explications are but from ex-
amples of holy men. Now allow but the same liberty in these evangelical
precepts, that for the great things there are express precepts ; as for the
sacraments, for institution of chui'ches. Mat. xviii. ; for officers, in Timothy
and Rom. xii. ; for censures. Mat. xviii ; but for many branches, for matter
of carriage in these, we must have them out of the examples and hints in
the New Testament, and it is all that we ask.
VOL. XI. C
84 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK I.
4. We find our Saviour Christ, and the apostles, arguing from examples
of first patterns, thus : 1. To prove what is lawful. Mat. xii. 3, Christ argues
from David's example iu breaking a law, in eating when he was hungry the
shew-bread (which was not otherwise lawful for him to eat, Exod. xxix. 33),
to prove it lawful to pull ears of corn on the Sabbath day, and eat them.
And so, from the example of the priests profaning the Sabbath, and being
blameless, Mat. xii. 5, that is, not found fault with ; and though Christ an-
nexeth a ground out of one of the prophets, ' I will have mercy, and not
sacrifice ;' yet consider that that law came long after, and these examples
were in force long before this law, for Hosea wrote long after. 2. Examples
are urged, not only to prove what is lawful, but also what is a duty. Thus
the apostle Peter, 1 Peter iii. 3, 4, exhorts wives that their ' adorning should
not be that of putting on apparel, but the ornament of a meek spirit,' for,
ver. 5, ' after this manner in the old time, the holy women who trusted in
God adorned themselves.' Thus also in the matter of praying twice a daj^
morning and evening, says Paul : 2 Tim. i. 3, ' Whom I serve from my forefathers
without ceasing, having them in remembrance in my prayers, day and night.'
This custom to pray so often was from the forefathers, who in the temple
did so, and in their houses ; and this is argued not so much from an express
command as from their examples. 3. Especially when the first institution
is founded upon an example, then the example is the great argument for it :
As prlmum in qiiolihet genere est viensura reliquorum, the first in every kind
is the measure of the rest, so in this case too. Thus the law of marriage is
founded upon the example of Adam's marriage, and so argued from, both by
the prophet Malachi and by Christ also, both that a man should have but
one wife, and not put her away. Thus Malachi argues from the very crea-
tion of but one woman for Adam, as a rule for us : Mai. ii, 15, ' And did he
not make one ? And wherefore one ? Yet had he a residue of spirit '
(namely, to have made more), ' that he might have a lawful and godly seed ;'
for which cause adultery and unlawful marriages are not sanctified from the
first institution. And so our Saviour Christ, Mat. xix. 4-8, ' In the be-
ginning it was not so,' argues from the practice then.
If it be said that there was a law, ' Therefore shall a man leave his father
and his mother,' &c., yet still the law is founded upon the example of Adam
and Eve, the first pattern, that because God made but two at first, therefore
no more should be joined together, as Christ reasoneth. Mat. xix. 4, ' Have
ye not read, that he that made them at the first, made them male and
female ?' He argues from that very instance. Yea, and he made the first
woman of Adam's flesh, so as Adam said, ' She is bone of my bone, and flesh
of my flesh,' and therefore, or for this cause (as Christ and the apostle in-
terprets it), was the law given, yet so as Adam's example is made the founda-
tion of it, because primiun in isto genere, what Adam did then by God's
appointment is a rule for ever.
Only to prevent a mistake, we will add these cautions as limitations.
1. That for the great and more essential parts of church order and wor-
ship, we have express and direct rules. As for the institution and constitu-
tion of a church. Mat. xviii. ; for the administration of censures by admonition,
excommunication ; for the chief ofiicers thereof, bishops and deacons; for the
sacraments, pubhc prayers, preaching, &c. The examples do only mostly
concern the limits, order, and administration of all these. And in such
things. Scripture examples should be admitted for rules, for so it is in in-
terpreting the moral law. The great things of each commandment concern
the grosser sins, and, mainest general duties, for which you have express
rules and commands ; but for all the particular branches and cases about
Chap. IV. J the churches of christ. 35
particular sins and duties, it will be hard to fetcli express rules to direct
men's consciences, but men take the help and benefit of examples unblamed
in Scripture, for a decision of them. Look all interpreters of the ten com-
mandments, and their quotations, and you will find it so. Now why should
not as great a liberty be left us to find out God's politics as God's ethics, it
being as necessary, if not more, that men should have directions to guide
their converse in the house of God as in their own houses and private afiairs ?
2. We must be careful that we take such examples as are written and are
not blamed, supposing this to be the rule, that what is not blamed or con-
tradicted by a rule doth bind us. Christ, arguing from an example of the
priests, allegeth that for a warrant ; you read (saith he), ' how that the priests
profaned the Sabbath, and are blameless,' Mat. xii. 5. Hence, because
apostolical examples in the converse in churches are recorded as rules, there-
fore such examples of theirs as were faulty are blamed, and took notice of,
as Peter's example in a church matter at Antioch, Gal. ii. ; Paul reproved
him to his face, and that upon this ground, because his example, being an
apostle, ' compelled men,' Gal. ii. 14, it had the force of an argument in it.
3. We must get characters to distinguish between extraordinary and ordi-
nary examples, recorded of churches and the apostles. As we do make a
distinction of Chi'ist's own example, and of Philip's baptizing out of a church
(he being an evangelist, and carrying church power about with him, and the
person's case requiring present departure into a far country), and of Chris-
tians selling their estates in the first churches of the Jews, when there were
many poor, and of the apostles being maintained and sent into all the world.
If you ask how we shall distinguish them ? we answer, even as you do
other things that are extraordinary, promiscuously recorded with ordinai'y ;
for the things distinguish themselves, as 1 Cor. xii., speaking of gifts, he
promiscuously reckons up ordinary and extraordinary, vers. 8-10, ' To one
is given a word of wisdom; to another a word of knowledge; to another the
gifts of healing ; and to another working of miracles ; to another divers
tongues ;' here is no greater matter of distinction put for the things, than
what themselves afi"ord. The gifts that remain still in the church are ordi-
nary, they that do not are extraordinary. So for officei's : ver. 28, ' God
hath set in the church, first, apostles ; secondarily, prophets ; thirdly,
teachers ; after that miracles ; then helps in government.' How can we
distinguish here, and know that we have teachers and government, and not
apostles, &c., but by this, that the necessity of gifts for teaching and govern-
ment still remains, not the other ? And so do we as easily distinguish of
examples ; such as were things common, founded upon common and general
respects, these we account ordinary, and to bind, because they may con-
tinue, and the reason of them continue, where it is not so in extraordinary.
4. The like we say of examples merely occasional. The occasion ceasing,
the thing ceaseth ; and therein we judge but as we do of other things under
the law, when yet Moses gave direct rules, as in eating the passover, that
they were commanded to do it with staves in their hands, and in haste, was
merely suited to the occasion of the first passover, because that night they
were to travel, and so it did not bind afterward.
If you say. Shew me a complete system of directions out of the examples
or rules given, and we will believe you ;
To this we answer : 1. That in the main and substantial matters, we can
shew enough to guide the present practices of churches in managing the
great and necessary ordinances of Christ. We gave one instance afore for
all the rest, about dispensing the censures of the church. And 2. By find-
ing express order taken about small things (as to carnal eyes they may seem
86 THE GO\rERNMENT OF [BoOK I.
to be), we may be directed in greater ; as how and when to order the col-
lection for the saints, on the first day of the week, and to treasure up bj' a
man's self weekly, as God hath blessed him, whereas another set day in the
week might have served, according to human prudence, as well ; and to lay
up as God hath blessed a man, at the month's end, might seem to have been
as well in a way of human arbitrary prudence, and have been left to men's
directions, and yet the apostle makes this an order in Corinth, and in the
churches in Galatia. Now, think we, if God took care and bound up human
wisdom, and interposed his own in matters of such small moment, as these
circumstances seem to be, we cannot but believe he hath done the like in all
things else of a like nature; and either he would have given no rules about
such things, or have left a complete rule, if we could find it out. That in dig-
ging, we find such small medals as these, here and there, stamped by God's
authority, and bearing the image of his wisdom and sovereignty, doth en-
courage us to dig, hoping to find that whole treasure that is hid in Christ,
in whom we are complete for all treasures of knowledge and wisdom. And
this binds up our understandings from daring to coin by human wisdom and
authority, any the like institutions, lest we should set up our posts by God's,
and eke out by human prudence those things which we see God hath
used his wisdom to deliver to us (as by such instances evidently appears),
wherein we ought to suspect our ignorance of his will, rather than his faith-
fulness, to deliver all of the like nature. And, 3dly, AVe are to be careful in
doing what we find a rule and examples for, and so whereunto we have
attained, walk. We find that true of Christ, and made good by him unto
us, that in doing the will of God, we know it ; and in matters of practice,
experience, with faith waiting for light, helps to the knowledge, more than
all the study in the abstract in the world can do. And therefore, though
we profess we know not rules for every case or query that may be put, yet
so far as we have attained, we walk ; suspending where we want light till
God reveal it, knowing that God will accept this : we finding that in all
sorts of human actions, in all callings and relations, there are a thousand
cases wherein men are to seek for direction out of the word, and yet they
do not forbear to walk in all those relations, till they are resolved of every
particular case and duty that may fall out. And so in matters of doctrine,
if we should forbear to believe the truths we know and have received, until
we have a complete system of undoubted verity, and Paul's form of whole-
some words in all particulars, we should be ever learning, and never come
to the knowledge of, and assent to, any truth.
And therefore our desire is, that the churches of Christ would in this age
(wherein these things are inquired into, and the reformation of discipHne
yet imperfect) walk by this rule, that so far as they agree, and in common
have found out the rule, to walk by it, and be obliged so to do ; and wherein
they difier, or want that light which others have, they might be left to that
rule which God hath set up, as the great peace-maker and arbiter in his
churches, not to judge one another for these things, but to say with the
apostle, * These that are otherwise minded, God shall reveal it to them in his
due time ;' and in so doing, know God will accept us, and we hope men will.
Chap. V.] the churches of christ. 37
CHAPTER V.
That there are ordinances of ■public worship established in churches wider tlie
New Testament, which are to continue to the end of the world.
I design not to discourse here of the doctrine of ordinances, as it is stated
against the seekers, who yield the being of such ordinances to be of divine
right, and no deficiency to be in Christ's institution ; and yet assert that as
a rose in winter hath a being in the world, of right, as well as any other
fruit of the earth then extant, only there is not a way or means of its actual
existence by reason of the season, so ordinances have a right of being in the
church, but antichrist hath withered all things, and made an interruption in
ordinances, ministry, &c. An unhappy generation of men have risen up,
who cry down all ordinances as forms, yea, and would rank them as forms
equally with all the idolatries in popery, or any other superstitions, in all
which (say they) God was in those appearances served, as well as in those
that were once of his own institution ; so making them all one, and all
forms alike, they pretend to live in the Spirit, and not only without all
these, but above them. But the prophecy of Jude, and other holy
apostles, Paul and Peter, have given in caution concerning these : Jude ver.
18-21, ' How that they told you there should be mockers in the last time,
who should walk after their own ungodly lusts. These be they which sepa-
rate themselves, sensual, having not the Spirit. But ye, beloved, building
up yourselves on your more holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, keep
yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ
unto eternal life.' The separation there is to be interpreted by what, as the
opposite thereto, the apostle exhorts true behevers unto. ' But you, beloved,
building up yourselves,' &c., ver. 20. What he mentioneth as means of
grace to preserve them to eternal life, from these it was these men separated,
pretending to live in the Spirit ; and therefore, with indignation, the holy
apostle saith of them, that they were ' sensual, not having the Spirit.' They
separated not from other Christians, but from these things, that were means
of grace when influenced by the Spirit. I will not meddle with any of their
evasions, but only positively speak that which concerns the truth of my posi-
tion, and prove the existency and continuance of gospel ordinances, as bap-
tism, the Lord's supper, &c. I will begin with that scripture upon which I
have discoursed on another occasion, namely, to shew the danger of living in
the practice of prevailing lusts, under ordinances. That which now I shall
make use of that scripture for, is to shew both the existence and continuance
of ordinances, of baptism, and the Lord's supper, under the New Testament.
1 Cor. X. 1-6, ' Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be igno-
rant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through
the sea ; and did all eat the same spiritual meat, and did all drink the same
spiritual drink : for they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them ; and
that rock was Christ : but with many of them God was not well pleased ; for
they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now these things were our
examples, to the intent we should not lust after e\i\ things, as they also
lusted.' Compare it with ver. 11 : ' Now all these things happened unto
them for ensamples ; and they were written for our admonition, upon whom
the ends of the world are come.'
The general scope is, to shew how, for the substance of them, the fathers
enjoyed the same spiritual ordinances, which now our baptism and the Lord's
supper answers to, and which these Corinthians, and all Christians generally,
38 THE GOVERNMENT OP [BoOK I.
lived under, only with that diflference which that dispensation of the old had
in it from this of the new. As that those were more shadowy, and in their
immediate ordination but tj-pes, as their baptism then pointed forth imme-
diately ; their total deliverance from Egypt, as then baptized unto Moses in
the cloud and the sea ; (but yet under that to us believers is held forth our
baptism as union unto Christ, of whom Moses was a type, and the deliver-
ance of our souls from hell and Satan) ; whereas our ordinances now have
that outward rind shaled off, and Christ only, and baptism unto him, are
barely and nakedly held forth, &c. Now, I shall but prosecute two obser-
vations, which to me seem natural as to this assertion out of the Scripture,
concerning these tw^o ordinances of baptism and the Lord's supper here par-
ticularly specified, and so consequently concerning all other parts of insti-
tuted worship under the gospel.
Obs. 1. Observe first, that these ordinances were generally received and
practised by the Christians of those times.
Obs. 2. Observe secondly, that these ordinances are to continue to the
end of the world.
To prove the first observation, I remark the note of universality which the
apostle useth. As he says that those Israelites were types of us, and their
ordinances types of ours, so in making the parallel between us and them, he
carefully inserts this, that as all of them were partakers, and lived under
those ordinances then, so all of us Christians do partake, or ought to do, of
these sacraments that answer unto those tj^pes of theirs now. Of the fathers,
as he calls them, in the wilderness, he says it no less than five times : ' All
our fathers were in the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and were all
baptized unto Moses in the cloud, and in the sea, and did all eat the same
spiritual meat, and did all drink the same spiritual drink.' And answerably,
concerning the Christians of those times, he utters it in all their names, and
involves himself: ver, 17, ' We are all partakers of that one bread ;' and
says the same of baptism : 1 Cor. xii. 13, ' We are all baptized by one
Spirit, into one body, and do all drink,' &c. ; andKom. vi. 3, 4, ' Know ye
not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ, were baptized
into his death ? Therefore are we buried with him by baptism into death,'
He argues from the known and generally received profession and practice of
all Christians : Know ye not, ' that so many of us as were baptized,' that is,
that whoever of us that profess baptism into Christ, profess baptism into his
death, as the thing intended by it. The ks there is the generality of Chris-
tians, distinguished usually by that word from heathens : as Rom. xiv. 7,
1 Cor. viii. 6, ' To us there is but one God,' &c., that is, we Christians pro-
fess all, and generally so. And his scope being to shew how sanctification
flows from being in Christ, his argument is drawn from a general principle
of the 7ts of Christians. As many of us, to a man, as we use to say, as have
been baptized into Christ, and do profess that part of religion, are all taught
that the import thereof is to be therewith baptized into his death. So that
his expression, as many of us, imports not, as if some were and some were
not baptized (for then his argument of sanctification had not been binding to
the generahty of Christians, which, it is evident, it was in his intention), but
it imports the contrary, that as many as were Christians were all baptized,
and were taught this to be the meaning of that great point and principle of
religion, that as they were baptized into Christ thereby, so also into his death.
I observe, also, out of this, 1 Cor. x., that it was in esteem, yea, and
taken for granted, a point of the then religion, to receive the Lord's supper.
For observe how he reasons against their eating in the idol's temple things
sacrificed to idols : ver. 21, 'Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup
Chap. V.] the churches of cheist. o9
of devils: Ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's table, and of the table of
devils.' He set these two one against the other ; to eat in the idol's temple
as a point of heathenish religion, and to partake of the Lord's supper as a
point of our Christian profession. Now, that he might be sure at once, for
ever to knock down that idolatrous practice, he useth this argument drawn
from that, which, according to all the then received principles, could not
be denied. He argues with them in this manner: A main practice of your
Christian profession, which you all take up, and of which you must in effect
renoance your profession if you renounce this practice, is the Lord's supper.
It is the "outward badge of your Christian religion, and you must utterly
renounce that if you will needs also practise this other of eating in the idol's
temple, for there is a contradiction between them, ye cannot drink the cup
of the Lord, and the cup of devils. Christ cares not for your coming to his
supper, but had rather you should keep away, if you also receive the devil's
sacraments. Thus he plainly works upon this firm ground, in which they
knew he must not be at a loss, that they must continue to drink of that cup,
that they must partake of that table ; so he takes that for granted, as sacred
to them, and then infers that other, of not eating in the idol's temple. And
it is as if he had said, I know I have you fast here ; that you will never for-
sake assembling yourselves for the Lord's supper, or neglect to do it ; this,
I hope, you will all say presently, that you will never do. Now, then, saith
he, I tell 3'ou, you cannot partake of the Lord's cup and of the devil's ;
choose you whether you will give over the one or the other, upon your
peril. He holds them hard to It, in this one, whilst he argues from thence
against the other. Now, as to the opinion of some men in our days, that
profess they are not bound to the Lord's supper, and think it is no point of
any religion, but that they can live without it or above it. If the devil had
thought of this, yea, and put it into the heads of any in those days, unto such
the apostle Paul's argument would have had no strength or force of conviction.
For if he had said to them, ' Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord in the
sacrament,' &c., as ver. 16, they might readily have said, or any one for them :
This is no argument to us, it reacheth not our principles, for we think not
ourselves obliged to drink the cup of the Lord, nor to eat at his table. And,
indeed, those that profess this principle, I except the dark scrupled seekers,
can as well partake of the mass as of the Lord's supper; they are all to them
but forms, the one as well as the other, and a Christian may use all, and is
above all. This, as to the first thing I observed, concerning these ordinances.
Obs. The second observation is, that there is to be a continuance of these
ordinances to after ages, which, out of the scope of the text, I demonstrate
thus : that twice in the 6th verse, and in the 11th verse, in making the
reddition or application of the story of the Israelites, both for ordinances and
for like punishment due to the abuse of them, he says, that in these they
were tLttoi i'Moov, types of us ; so ver. 6, which is their conclusion as to
their enjoyment of like ordinances, and so ver. 11, as to our incurring the
same punishment he had from the 6th verse discoursed of ; he subjoins,
' These things were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the
world are come.' So that all Christians, that do live under, or ought to live
under, these ordinances, partaking of those sins, are to partake of these
punishments, as well as these Corinthians. Some of the seekers, interpret-
ing that place in Mat. xxviii. 20, ' Go, preach and baptize, I am with you m
all things, to the end of the world ;' the words being in the original, rsXiiac,
roD dtojvog, in the singular number, would have this determine in the first
age of the church ; whereas, everywhere in Christ's speeches afore, the
very same phrase in the singular also is put to express the end of the
40 THE GOVEENMENT OF [BoOK I.
world, or, as Paul says, 1 Cor. xi. 2G, until Christ come. In Mat. xiii.
40, 49, also, you have the same phrase, where is meant the end of this
world, when the day of judgment comes, as also plainly distinguished
from the end of that age wherein Jerusalem was destroyed, Mat. xxiv. 3.
And Christ also adds in this place of Mat. xxviii. 20, the word ahvcnj,
which means, all the days or times to the end of the world. And
so all the ages hetween are implied. Well, but farther, here you see
that, in 1 Cor. x. 11, it is affirmed of the Lord's supper, as well as
baptism, that they concern all them upon whom the ends of the world (in the
plural) are come, that is, all the ages that succeed each other in this last
scene of the world. So as indeed, if any were to be excepted, those rather
that lived in the first age comparatively should. We have lived sixteen
hundred years since Paul wrote this, and upon us, rather than upon them,
it might be said that the ends of the world are come. I will but cast in this
out of this scripture more, and I think it is not altogether to be slighted as
to this head. You see he plainly parallels our sacraments and theirs as
types and anti-types. Now, what should be the mystery then, that when he
speaks of that sacramental rock, which was Christ, and says that they drunk
thereof, he would needs insert one circumstance concerning it, that is yet
not so evident in the story of the Old Testament '? The rock (says he)
' which followed them,' that is, all along through their travel in the wilderness.
It is to be supposed the rock stood in its own place, but Moses striking it,
and a river of water springing forth served them with water, not only in that
place, but followed them in all their journey in that desert ; which the
Psalmist intimates, Ps. cv. 41, ' He opened the rock, and the waters gushed
out ; they ran in the dry places like a river.' Surely this is (as here) added
to no other purpose but to make up the parallel in our ordinances, the anti-
type. When God had struck Christ the rock, and opened his side (and it
was for us rebels too, as Moses then called the Israelites, that water and
blood came forth, which are communicated to us in baptism, which is a
washing by water, as blood is held forth in the Lord's supper), these ordi-
nances were as channels cut out by God, through the means and conduct of
which this rock should follow us, and that whilst the church is in the wilder-
ness, and on this side Canaan ; as that did, as a sacrament to the end of their
journey. And so in this was the type fulfilled to them, in the primitive ages
of the church, and is yet to be fulfilled unto us, upon whom the ends of the
world are come.
I shall now, by other arguments, farther prove that there are ordinances,
or instituted worship, under the New Testament, to continue unto the end
of the w^orld.
1. The new covenant hath ordinances of divine worship annexed unto it,
as well as the old covenant had ; for which the coherence of the eighth and
ninth chapters to the Hebrews, the latter part of the ninth, and the beginning
of the tenth, are a clear evidence. The scope of that epistle is indeed to
shew how the worship and ordinances of the Old Testament were translated
into a worship under the New, in substance answering to it ; and how Christ,
as an high priest, was as faithful to God in his house as Moses was, Heb.
iii. In the eighth chapter, having treated of the two covenants, the old and
new, and by the new understanding that, wherein the promise was, ' that
they should not need to be taught,' &c., ver. 10, then presently upon it,
chap. ix. 1, he goes on thus : ' Then verily the first covenant had also ordi-
nances of divine service,' which was the tabernacle, and the worship per-
formed there ; so ver. 2-7 : * For there was a tabernacle made ; the first,
wherein was the candlestick, and the table, and the shew-bread ; which is
Chap. V.] the chueches of christ. -Al
called the Sanctuary. And after the second veil, the tabernacle ^Yhich is
called the Holiest of all : which had the golden censer, and the ark of the
covenant, overlaid round about with gold, v.'herein was the golden pot that
had manna, and Aaron's rod that budded, and the tables of the covenant ;
and over it the cherubims of glory shadowing the mercy-seat ; of which we
cannot now speak particularly. Now when these things were thus ordained,
the priests went always into the first tabernacle, accomplishing the service
of God.' I lay hold of the word also, as implying that therefore the new
covenant hath the like ordinances ; and not only so, but observe that, in
God's intention, our ordinances were the first of the two, and the chief,
though theirs first in time. For he says not, the new covenant hath also,
but the old had also ; for ours were more the substance, theirs more the
type and shadow ; yet so as both must have ordinances of divine worship,
the new as well as the old, whilst it continues. And ver. 10, they were
appointed, but until the time of the reformation, or change of worship to be
made, not of the abolition of it ; and what those ordinances are you know.
2. If there be no instituted ordinances to continue, then the second com-
mandment is utterly obliterated under the gospel, or under the times of the
gospel, in which these ordinances are supposed to cease. What is the dif-
ference between the first commandment and the second ? The first com-
mands such worship to God as is always and for ever due to him ; as he is
God, and we creatures, which is termed cultus natundis, natural worship ;
because due upon the account of our being creatures, and so indispensable
and eternal, and continuing in heaven, as to fear God, love him, &c. The
second commands instituted worship, or such means and helps of worship
as God sanctifies by his institution, as helps and means to worship him by,
and convey himself to us, which continues whilst we are on earth. Now
this commandment hath been and hath continued in all the states which men
have gone through, or shall go through, whilst on earth. And though the
duties have been changed, as the priesthood hath varied, or as God was
pleased to signify his good pleasure, how he meant to be worshipped, yet so
as in all states on earth, there have been some or other such duties belong-
ing to the commandment in force ; which sufiiciently argues that command
to have been, and to be still, in force in all states.
1. In innocency, those two trees, the tree of life and of the knowledge of
good and evil, were two sacraments admonishing Adam, the one of his
mutable condition, the other sealing up the promise of life. Under the law,
it is evident that a commanded worship was in force ; under the gospel, which
began to be preached by John, together therewith was baptism instituted,
of which Christ (who represented us) did m the name of us all as head
say, ' Thus it becomes us to fulfil all righteousness ;' and he began an ex-
ample unto us therein. And indeed, if there were no second command in
force under the gospel, then there were no such sin as idolatry, or false wor-
ship of the true God, as far as concerns the means of worship. There will
be no idolatry but what is heathenish, or the worship of a false God. Now
the consequence is good, for the negative part of the command, ' Thou shalt
not make to thyself an image,' or use false means to worship the true God,
is founded on the existence of a positive part, that there are means or insti-
tutions of true worship appointed by God. But now there is such an idolatry
and superstition of worshipping God by false means, forbidden under the
New Testament. For, Col. ii., Paul bids them to take heed of will-worship,
and voluntary humility not commanded : ver. 21-23, ' Touch not, taste not,
handle not : which all are to perish with the using, after the commandments
and doctrines of men. Which things have indeed a show of wisdom, in will-
42 THE GOVERNMENT OP [BoOK I.
■worship and humility, and neglecting of the body, not in any honour to the
satisfying of the flesh.' And John, that lived to the end of that age, at last
still chargeth them to keep themselves frOm idols, 1 John v. 21. It was an
admonition not so much against heathenish idolatry, which is to worship
outwardly another god, as against popish, which was coming upon the world
(as Paul also foretold both to Timothy and in his other epistles), and for
which God brought upon the Christian world those plagues which have
befallen the Grecian churches, Rev. ix. 20, and for which Rome also is
threatened, Rev. xvii. xviii.
3. If there were no ordinances, God should have no provision for his pub-
lic worship, and Christ should have no court on earth. Two things are the
glory of a king, the laws and jurisdiction by which he rules abroad, and the
state and reverence done him in his own house at home. Christ is the king
of nations. Rev. xv. 8, and therefore all are exhorted to worship him, ver. 4.
In Heb. iii. 1, Christ is as well termed our high priest as our apostle. As
our apostle, he hath given forth our faith in the doctrine, and we believe it;
as our high priest, he is the leader of all the worship of the New Testament,
as the high priest was of old. The apostle makes an inference from this :
Heb. X. ver. 21-25, ' By a new and living way, which he had consecrated
for us through the veil, that is to say, his flesh : and having an high priest
over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart, in full assurance
of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies
washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the profession of our faith with-
out wavering (for he is faithful that promised), and let us consider one
another, to provoke unto love and to good works, not forsaking the assem-
bling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is, but exhorting one
another ; and so much the more as ye see the day approaching.' Christ is
an high priest, therefore he hath an house, a court on earth, and therefore
worship, in which you must draw near with inward washings and sprinklings
(as the priests of old in the type did with water, &c.) ; and therefore he must
also have assemblies to be worshipped in. So, ver. 25, it follows, 'Not
forsaking the assembling of yourselves together.' He exhorteth them to
meet in churches, as the Jews did in synagogues ; so the word rriv hTrmuva
'yc^jy/jv signifies. And now such assemblies must have ordinances to converse
with God in, as they accordingly had preaching and singing of psalms,
1 Cor. xiv. 23-26, and sacraments of the Lord's supper, 1 Cor. xi., to which
all were bound, for they were to tarry one for another, ver. 83 ; and that
being the top ordinance of the gospel, their whole assembling or meeting
was denominated from it. Acts xx. 7, when the disciples met to break
bread ; and 1 Cor. ii. 20, ' When ye come together into one place, this is not
to eat the Lord's supper.' Thus their assembling to worship, and their eating
the Lord's supper, are promiscuously put one for the other. So among the
ancients, this did bear the denomination, being termed sacra ffuva^ig,* and
is put for the whole of gospel worship in the prophecy : ' From the rising of
the sun, even unto the going down of the same, my name shall be great
among the Gentiles, and in every place incense shall be ofiered unto my
name, and a pure offering ; for my name shall be great among the heathen,
saith the Lord of hosts,' Mai. i. 11.
But to prove the continuance of these two ordinances, both of preaching
and of the Lord's supper, we need only consider that Christ hath adjoined
his promise to them both. Christ's promise is annexed to that of preaching,
Mat. xxviii. 20, ' Teaching them to do whatever I have commanded you,
and lo, I am with you to the end of the world ;' and as for the Lord's supper,
* See Mr Joseph Mcde, p. 355 of Lis works, Edit. London, 1677.
Chap. VI.] the churches of christ. 43
Paul expressly says, ' As I received of the Lord, so I deliver to you,' 1 Cor.
xi. 23. It is therefore one of those commands of Christ, ' And do this (said
Christ, Luke xxii. 19) in remembrance of me,' which is there expressed as a
command, and implied by the apostle, 1 Cor. xi. 2, ' I praise you that you
keep the ordinances as I delivered them to you ;' whereof this of the Lord's
supper was one, and a great one, insisted on throughout the chapter. And
writing to the Thessalonians, and giving a warning to them, and to those that
should live in the times when popery should overspread the world (of which
speaks 2 Thes. ii. 3-13), he admonisheth as a remedy against these seduce-
ments: ver. 15, 'To hold fast the traditions which you have been taught,
whether by word or by epistle.' This, though given to the Thessalonians,
yet must needs more properly concern those that should live in the times
when the perverting of ordinances should come into the world, for then is
the most need of that exhortation; when there is an advance of popish inno-
vations, then is the proper season for it. And therefore, though it con-
cerned those Thessalonians in those times, when the mystery of iniquity
began to work, yet upon the same ground more fully it concerns us in these
times, when this mystery of iniquity hath prevailed. For their sakes, there-
fore, this was written, upon whom these latter ends of the world are come,
and so concerns us and our forefathers who reformed from popery, to hold
firmly to Scriptures and ordinances as a preservative against popery. Yea,
Paul goes further : 1 Cor. xi. 26, ' For (says he) as often as ye eat this
bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew forth the Lord's death till he come ;'
and again, ' Do this in remembrance of me.' It is as if he had said, Christ
must be absent till the day of judgment, and the heaven of heavens must
contain him till then ; and to keep up the remembrance of that great love
of his in dying, he hath appointed this as the memorial of him whilst
absent, till he come. And what maoner of coming that is, which puts the
period to this his absence, the angels have resolved us, and also how
he will come: Acts i. 10, 11, 'And while they looked stedfastly to-
wards heaven, as he went up, behold two men stood by them in white ap-
parel, which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into
heaven ? This same Jesus which is taken up from you into heaven shall
so come in Hke manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.' If ye say
he is already come in spirit, do but consider who was more filled with the
Spirit than Christ himself? and yet he was not only baptized, but in being
baptized, professeth his observance of it to be for this end, to fulfil all right-
eousness ; and he seems also to speak in the name of us, i. e. of all believers,
and so it becomes us to fulfil, &c., Mat. iii. 15, because he, as the head,
gave example to all his succeeding members. And not only so, but though
he thereupon received the Spirit, and was in spirit in the wilderness, and
that above measure, as John testifies of him, John iii. 34, yet he lived under
the observation of all the Jewish ordinances of worship, as going to the
feasts, eating the passover, &c.
CHAPTER VL
That hy excommunication viore is meant than bare casting out of the church. —
That it is an ordinance of Christ, to deliver the excommunicate jjcrson to
Satan in his name and jwwer. — The rules ivhich Christ hath given for
church admonitions and censures.
Though this ordinance of excommunication be described many ways ;
as, 1, ' Let him be to thee as an heathen and a publican,' Mat. xviii. 17 ;
44 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK I.
and 2, ' With such an one, no, not to eat,' 1 Cor. v. 11 ; and 3, it is ex-
pressed as a ' casting out of the church,' 3 John 10 ; yet over and
ahove all this, it is called a delivering unto Satan, 1 Cor. v. 5. And now
that by this phrase more is intended than simply an ejection out of the
church, these following arguments evince.
1. That word of delivering to Satan imports something positive, distinct
from and including more in it than ejection out of the church. It imports
a giving up a person to receive a positive punishment from Satan, therefore
is more than a casting out of the church. This is appai-ent, for as the
sentence of a judge (though it doth not pitch upon the consequent of the
punishment of death, viz., the sending a man to hell, nor doth he express
the sentence he judgeth him to by that) imports more than a mere casting
the condemned man out of the world, for the sentence directly expresseth
that punishment which the judge hath power to inflict, viz. the carrying
of the man back to the gaol from whence he came, and from thence to
the place of execution, and that there he should be hanged (though he
doth not put it into the sentence, in the name of the king to deliver this
man to the devil to be damned), so in the sentence of excommunication
there is more implied than a casting out of the person out of the society
of Christians ; for the judgment, the sentence, and that in the name and
power of Christ, is to deliver unto Satan. It is not to leave the man
unto Satan only, but it is to deliver unto Satan, which is an act of authority;
to give him up unto him, as to give a man up to the jailor or to the tor-
mentor. Thus when God speaks to Satan of Job, he is in thine hand (saith
he), I have given him up unto thee. Job i. 12 and ii. 6.
But you will say the bare casting of a person out of the church still im-
ports but the consequent of it, viz. a delivering him up to Satan, as to
deprive of light is to give up to darkness. But unto that it is answered,
that what the formal sentence of excommunication pitches upon is more than
a mere consequent of the person's being cast out, or is more than accidental ;
for what the very formal sentence of excommunication pitches upon, and
which is in the power of Christ, is not barely leaving the man unto Satan,
but a delivering of him unto Satan. Yea, this is in the very definition of
excommunication, and therefore is not to be omitted. For that which is
the positive form of the sentence, and by which excommunication is expressed,
containeth the essential terminative object or matter of it, that a man is so
delivered up to the devil, as in the name, so in the power of the Lord Jesus.
Now this, viz. the delivering of a person to Satan in the name of Christ, is
a distinct character of excommunication, as that is of baptism, I baptize
thee in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. As in
the act of ordination, when you say, I ordain thee a minister or a pastor, it
imports truly what is said, and not only in a metaphor but a reality ; so in
this act of excommunication, it is with the power of the Lord Jesus to de-
liver such an one unto Satan ; therefore when Christ doth give commission
to the church to do it, in his name and power, this being the formal sen-
tence, his power concurreth to it. Now this is more than to throw out of
the church, for if there was only a power to throw the man out of the church
in the name of Christ, without a power to deliver unto Satan, the church
would have no more prerogative than what is a common thing to all societies.
But now when the church can give Satan power over a man, this is an act
of the power of Jesus Christ indeed, peculiar to a church of his.
2. Again, if excommunication puts a man into a different state than
merely that of being again thrown into the world under Satan, as the world
is that never professed Christ, then it imports some distinct thing from
Chap. VI.] the churches of christ. 45
casting out of the church. But a person's being excommunicated is a dif-
fering thing from being in the world, or under Satan, as the world is. And it
is so not only in this respect, that they that are in the world, and never
were of any church, are so in the world as withal they never were of any
church, as this man hath been, but it is also difierent in respect of some
special power that Satan should have over this excommunicated person ;
which is evident by this, because that power which Satan hath over a man
unregenerate in the world is to carry him on to sin, to work effectually in
the children of disobedience, Eph. ii. 2, therefore we are said, Col. i. 13,
to be translated out of the kingdom of darkness, that is, of Satan, who, as
the strong man, keepeth all in peace. But so to be delivered to Satan cannot
be the meaning of excommunicating a man, for the intent of this is to destroy
the flesh and to save his spirit, therefore it is not to deliver a man unto
Satan so as to be a man of the world out of the church. Again, the differ-
ence is evident by this, that this man's punishment is in other respects
greater than that of a man unregenerate in the world, for as the apostle
saith, the saints may eat with them of the world, but with such a one as is
excommunicate they are not to eat, 1 Cor. v. 11.
3. Excommunication imports a positive punishment, for it is a spiritual
revenge. The negative throwing out of the church is but that which is
common to all societies ; ' But the weapons of our warfare ' (says the
apostle) ' are mighty through God, having in a readiness to revenge all dis-
obedience,' 2 Cor. X. 4-6, as will be evident if we do but lay all these fol-
lowing things together. 1. That Satan is ready to punish the man in his
spirit by terrors, and to set on his sins with horrors if he have leave from
Christ. 2. This man is by the power of Christ given up, and not left only
to him. 3. He is given up to Satan to punish and correct him : 1 Tim. i. 20,
' Whom I have delivered to Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme,'
that is, that they may learn how horrid a sin it is to blaspheme by what
Satan inflicts. The word translated to learn is in the Greek 'TraidivOOJsi, which
is, to be disciplined as a child is, to learn by rods ; so that being delivered
unto Satan to learn how dreadful it is to blaspheme, impHes that Satan is
to whip them, that they may learn by a suitable punishment what it is to
blaspheme, by Satan's casting hellish terrors into their mind.
4. And the analogy of a man's sin when he deserveth excommunication,
and the punishment itself, seem to be suitable, and that the sin deserves it
in a way of proportion. For when a man is obstinate, the frame of his
spirit is such that he doth not regard the ordinances, therefore to be cast
out of the communion of saints would not be a sore punishment to him,
neither would that be enough to bring him in ; and therefore the only way
to bring this man in is to have Satan set on his back with terrors, as in the
work of humiliation at first.
5. Then again, such a man hath grieved the Holy Ghost the Comforter,
and therefore he is suitably given up unto Satan as an accuser and tormentor ;
and so the phrase of delivering unto Satan seems to mean a spiritual pun-
ishment opposite unto joy in the Holy Ghost, which is the fruit of obedi-
ence ; that as the ' kingdom of God is joy, and righteousness, and peace,'
Rom. xiv. 17, ' the peace of God shall guard your hearts through the work-
ing of the Holy Ghost,' Philip, iv. 7, so that estate this man is given up to
is an estate of terror and darkness ; it is not to be an unregenerate man,
but it is to be under the bondage of Satan.
6. And then again, excommunication is called the retaining of sin, and
binding of sin, a binding of sin upon the conscience. Now the question is.
Quo eficiente ? by whom this should be done. This sentence of delivering
46 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK I.
him unto Satan, implies that Satan hath power given him to set his sin on
upon his conscience ; and that he is ahle to set sin on upon the conscience is
evident from other scriptures.
7. Attain, we do find by experience that where excommunication is not
administered rightly, there the saints oftentimes are given up to very great
terrors of conscience, and that from Satan, and left to great temptations ;
the Lord sometime working without the ordinance that which he doth work
by the ordinance of excommunication when it is rightly administered.
8. This fruit doth seem to have been in that Corinthian, 2 Cor. ii., for
the apostle desires them to forgive him, lest he should be swallowed up with
over much sorrow, ver. 7. It seems to be more than an human sorrow, or
more than a sorrow which would have been from the Holy Ghost's working,
for that would not have swallowed a man up. It implies, therefore, that he
was in Satan's power, ' We are not ignorant (saith he) of his devices,'
ver. 11, and that his devices were to keep this poor man in his clutches.
And the phrase there, ' swallowed up,' answereth to what is said of Satan
in other cases, ' He goeth up and down seeking whom he may devour,'
1 Peter v. 8; whom he may drink up, so the word signifieth, xaracr/?).
9. And again, excommunication may seem to be more than merely a
throwing out of the church, by that parallel of a greater excommunication
than what is ordinary, that anaUioiia-maranatha, 1 Cor. xvi. 22, which was
not only to give a man up to Satan for a time, but to give him up into an
eternal curse, when they saw that a man which had been a professor loved
not the Lord Jesus Christ, that is, hated him, as sinning against the Holy
Ghost. Now, if the church in that case hath power more than to eject, viz.,
to eject with an eternal curse, never to receive a man more, which God
ratifieth in heaven, then in the ordinary casting a man out of the church,
though there be hope that he may be recalled again, the way of doing it is
not merely a private punishment, or a throwing him out of the church, which
should work upon him in a moral way of a sorrowful thought and sense, that
he is cast out from among the people of God, but it is a giving him up to
Satan to terrify him ; God sanctifying that, as he doth other afflictions, to
bring him in.
10. If excommunication were nothing else but a seclusion from the church,
then for the substance of the act it would be no more than a continued sus-
pension ; for if the substance of the act be the same, they do not differ,
though the one be done out of an act of authority, the other not. They will
admit him again upon repentance if he be excommunicated, as well as when
suspended ; and if he do not repent, they will not admit him, no more than
when he is excommunicated ; and when he is excommunicated he needs not
a new admission, as when he is suspended and repents he doth not ; so that
for the extrinsecal act they are all one. But excommunication hath a spiritual
punishment attending it, and therefore answerably when that Corinthian was
to be received again, 2 Cor. ii., they are not simply to pass an act of for-
giveness, and to receive him again, but to comfort him also.
If it be objected that we do not always see this efiect of a spiritual punish-
ment following excommunication.
1. We reply first, that there have been very few excommunications in the
world that have been from those that have had the right power of doing it,
and those excommunications which have been administered by the rightful
persons yet have not been due, because proceeding on too slight occasions,
and such as have not deserved excommunication.
2. They have in their excommunication trusted more to the power of the
magistrate, when it should have come to a writ de excommunicato capiendo,
Chap. YI,] the chukches of cheist. 47
or to horning of a man as in Scotland, banishing him, or depriving him of
his estate, &c., thej' have confided, I say, in the magistrate's power, and in
his punishment, more than in excommunication, or else why have they
recourse to it to make a man repent ? Whereas if they would wholly leave
it unto God to inflict that which he hath ordained to be the punishment, and
that sufficient too (for all his means are sufficient, as the apostle says, ' the
weapons of our warfare are mighty through God to revenge all disobedience '),
2 Cor. X. 4, it would prove efficacious enough to all ends and purposes,
and sufficient for such a man would that punishment be. But because they
put confidence in an arm of flesh to bring him in, as if that were more an
eft'ectual means than the power of God, therefore God makes his ordinance
to be but as an arm of flesh, and to have no other effect or fruit than what
the magistrate's punishment hath,
3. It is with this as with all other ordinances, which do not always attain
their end which they are principally ordained for, because that God works
freely by them. Preaching is ordained to convert, yet there are millions of
men to whom the word is preached upon whom it hath not this effect ; for
although they have all heard, yet they have not all believed, Rom. x. 18.
It is enough that God hath ordained it to such an end, and it takes place in
some, as the apostle speaks ; and so also hath this very ordinance wrought
in that very way, as divers instances might be shewn.
4. Jesus Christ always fulfils what he hath promised : Mat. xviii. 20, ' I
will be with you, and in the midst of you,' either to bless this my ordinance
by giving repentance, or giving up to a reprobate sense.* So as excom-
munication hath usually its eftect one way or other, the man is given up unto
Satan ; and if it have not that direct effect of terrifying of him, so as to bring
him to repentance, he is given up to a reprobate sense, that Satan entering
into him as into Judas, so that he turneth a persecutor, as was frequent in
the primitive times, that men once excommunicated turned persecutors ; they
forsook the assemblies of the saints, which was a step to the sin against the
Holy Ghost, Heb. x. 25-27. When they were thrown out, they would come
at them no more, and so were given up unto Satan for ever.
Obj. In Mat. xviii. 17, all that is said is only, ' Let him be to thee as an
heathen and a publican.'
Ans, 1. There he speaks in the language of the Jews, and so expresseth
excommunication only by what easting out of the synagogues was amongst
them ; as elsewhere Christ expresseth the ordinances of the gospel, under
the Jewish phrase, ' Leave thy gift at the altar,' Mat. v. 24. Now the Jews
did not know what it was to be delivered unto Satan, and therefore no
wonder if Christ did not expressly speak of it in that place of Mat. xviii. 17.
But, 2, one place expounds another, and that which he calleth there.
Mat. xviii. 17, ' Let him be to thee an heathen and a publican,' is in 1 Cor. v.
called a delivering unto Satan.
Then, 3, this delivering unto Satan was exemplified in the punishment of
Judas, for after he was gone out (as it is judged by Piscator and others, he
did not receive the Lord's supper, but was sent out) presently the devil
entered into him ; he was a branch cast out, John xv. 6.
4. Though our Saviour Christ expresseth it to them in the Jewish
language in Mat. xviii. 17, yet to the same apostles when this ordinance of
excommunication came to be exercised in a church, his Spirit expresseth
more fully what was the intent of that ordinance, not simply to throw a man
out, to avoid outward converse with him, and in that sense to be as an
heathen and a publican, but to be a delivering unto Satan. So that as the
* Parlverus de PoHt. Eccles. lib. cap, 5.
48 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK I.
chnrch of the gospel in the privileges of it exceedeth that of the law, and
that privilege thej had in the synagogues, so the disprivileging of a man
from the communion of the saints under the gospel hath an higher punish-
ment than the sj^nagogues knew.
5. When Christ said, let him be to thee as an heathen and a publican, he
expresseth there not so much what the church's censure pitcheth upon, but
what the consequent is, viz., the manner of their converse afterwards towards
him, therefore he saith, let him be to thee ; he saith, not only let him be to
the church, but to thee ; he expresseth it by what is the consequent, but in
1 Cor. V. 5, he expresseth the formal sentence, when the apostle saith, ' No
not with such an one to eat' ; he expresseth there indeed the consequent of
the sentence, but delivering unto Satan is put into the sentence itself.
I shall urge one argument more to prove that excommunication is not
merely an human ejection out of a society, but an ordinance in the church
established by Christ's institution, because Christ hath given us express rules
for church admonitions and censures ; we find as direct rules chalked out for
the series and order of proceedings therein, as any state can take for order-
ing proceedings in civil causes.
1. For the matter of Christ's censures, what we are to censure in men,
and how we must apply those censures, we have our limits and rules in the
word, so as we need no orders or canons to be made to make new matter,
or the chief matter of church censures ; for plainly it is told us that sin only
is the subject of church cognisance, that it is a transgression of some law of
God : ' Them that sin (says Paul to Timothy, 1 Tim. v. 20) rebuke.' Now,
what is sin and not sin, the word is the sole judge of, and a perfect rule of.
And 2. It is scandalous sin that is the matter of censure, sin judged so
by common light, and received principles ; sin that goes afore to judgment,
that you may read afar off, 1 Tim. v. 24. Doubtful disputations and sins
controverted are not to be made the subject of church censures ; for if the
weak are not to be received to such, then neither are they to be cast out for
such. Instruction may be used to consciences ignorant, as the phrase is,
2 Tim. ii. 25 ; but admonition only for sins taken forgi'anted, and professed
to be sins by the light of nature, and the common light of saints, 1 Cor. v.
1, 8, 3 ; ' For how else shall all fear ' ? 1 Tim. v. 20.
2. For the ways of dealing with such sinners, we have admonition, ex-
communication, and rejection prescribed.
(1.) Admonition : ' Them that sin rebuke,' 1 Tim. v. 20, and that not
privately (if the sin be open), but publicly, afar off, to the end others may
fear.
(2.) For excommunication we have warrant, after admonition : Titus, iii.
10, * After the first and second admonition, reject,' which, in 1 Cor. v. 5, is
called, ' delivering unto Satan,' &c.
(3.) We have order given for the degrees of proceedings in these, as
orderly as any law can make provision, for the indemnity of men innocent
and just, proceeding in any civil court in order to amend men.
1. If the sin be private, so as thou alone knowest it, ' That thy brother
sin against thee,' Mat. xvi. 11, 15, ' Go and tell him his fault, between him
and thee alone, if he hear and repent (as it is Luke xvii. 3), thou shalt for-
give him,' and it shall go no further. This provision hath Christ took to
preserve the reputation of persons, so to mend them as not to blaze their
faults ; and this not for one so sinning, but if seven times, that is, never so
oft, Luke xvii. 4.
2. If he neglect to hear thee, that is, repents not, then take two or three
and tell him of it afore them, and if he denies not the fact, and yet repents
Chap. "VI.] the churches of christ. 49
not, then thou hast two or three witnesses of his not denying the fact, and
yet of his obstinacy and hardness in not relenting, and of his impenitency ;
so it follows, ' That in the mouth of two or three witnesses, every word may
be established,' that is, brought into public.
Therefore, 3. Now the matter, though but private at first, is ripened for
church cognisance : 'If he neglect to hear them, tell it to the church.' But
if it were a sin that is public, that it is, though privately committed, yet
made known, commonly reproved, and so commonly known, as it is 1 Cor.
V. 1, then the church is to take immediate notice of it publicly, without
telling it in private ; and those that can accuse, should impeach, as 1 Cor.
V. he shews, and also 1 Tim. v. 20.
But, 4, if it be a sin that is suspected, and cannot be proved (whether
commonly reported or private), and that by two or three witnesses, the offi-
cers are to cast it out of the church proceeding, and not to receive it : ' Re-
ceive not an accusation,' so as to proceed in it, unless it appears evident by
two or three witnesses. This rule is given about admonishing officers, 2
Tim. V, 19 ; but it regards also every man else, Mat. xviii. IG. Then, when
any sin is thus made of public congnisauce, 1, they are to admonish; 2,
to excommunicate in case of obstinacy and impenitence.
To conclude all in a word : if Christ had not settled by his institution the
order, discipline, and government of his churches ; if he had not given
established rules for church censures, admonitions, and excommunication ;
if a certain platform of church government had not been fixed by him, we
should have no warrant to endeavour a reformation, when the order and dis-
cipline of the churches of Christ is impaired, and almost lost; for there would
be no rule to go by in such a reformation. And without a rule of divine
institution, there could be no setting things right when amiss, no 6/og'
dunjg, as the apostle calls it, Heb, ix. 10. Nor could we produce any
warrant to advance the spiritual sceptre and kingdom of our Lord Christ,
if we did not know, by the rules and laws of his own institution, what it is.
VOL. XI.
50 THE GOVEKNMENT OF [BoOK II.
BOOK 11.
Of the divine institution of a congregational church. — That it is not secondary,
or consequent iq^on a charter given to tlie church universal, as virtually in-
cluded therein, but is immediate and proper to it. — That Christ instituted such
a church in Mat. xviii. and gave the pou-er of the keys to it. — That such con-
gregational churches u-ere primitive and apostolical, liroved from the instances
(f churches planted by the apostles. — Tliat the constitution and order of such
churches, is most fitly suited for the edif cation of the saints, and most exactly
accommodated to their various conditions — That Christ hath not only insti-
tuted a congregational church, but hath appiointed what the extent and limits
of it should be.
CHAPTER I.
That the institution of particular churches is not virtual only, or secondary,
and dependent on the charter given to the church universal, but immediate
and proper to them, as particular churches.
They who assert the general church to be a pohtical body, seem to be divided
into those two several ways of explaining it : 1. That it cometh to be a po-
litical body ascendendo, so making a congregation to be ecclesia p)rima, a
church first designed in the institution, and which the institution falleth
upon ; but yet, that by the virtue of the same commission, that saints make
up a particular church, many churches may make up one church, and more
of those churches may make up a greater church, for appeals, &c. And so,
by the like reason, the universal church cometh to be a political body, the
national or provincial churches being but ecclesicB orUc, removes from, and
representations of those that are ecclesia; primer., the first churches, which are
congregations. This opinion I shall consider when I come to discourse of
the nature of synods, and their subordination.
2. Others form the institution to be descendendo, as asserting the first
principal charter to be given to the church universal, so as that is by insti-
tution first a church, and particular congregations have it but by a derived
right, as lesser leases have theirs out of a greater charter. And the reason
that is given is this, that when the church universal was but so many (or if
it were again reduced to so small a number) as might meet in one place, they
met by virtue of being the church universal ; but that it afterwards was mul-
tiplied to so many as that they must meet in several places, which is the
occasion of forming particular churches ; this is accidental and occasional,
and so they are to be regarded as one church still, and so that first funda-
mental institution goes on. For number or multiplication of churches is not
the object of God's institution ; for God ordained not first that churches
should be many. If these many particular churches are framed, it is with
proviso and sub conditione, namely, only when they are so far multiplied.
Chap. I.] the churches of christ. 51
Nor did Christ give such command, that when they did arise to such a num-
ber, they should make several churches ; only necessity doth that, which yet
still proceeds by virtue of the general grant.
But to refute this, consider, 1. That if there had been a time in which
the universal church was so small under the New Testament, living also to-
gether, as they might have met in one place, they had not met by virtue of
their being the universal church, or being a mystical body to Christ, as the
church universal is ; for they had been a church mystical unto Christ, though
they had not so met, even as the church mystical now is a body to Christ,
though it never doth thus meet. Yea, those saints who then made this
church universal might have worshipped apart, and singly, and God might
have ordered it so ; therefore, that they should meet, and meet together
fixedly for supernatural ends and ordinances, this dependeth over and above,
upon a special will of God superadded to this universal church as such. If,
therefore, when the universal church was no more than could meet in one
place, it must have had for those fixed meetings, and the privileges of them,
a divine appointment, and if it met then, it must be by virtue of a special
institution ; then, afterward, when it was divided into many congregations,
they must meet by a special divine institution too. If the universal church
was no more than could meet in one, yet they must then have, for those
fixed meetings, met by a special institution and privileges, and afterward,
when they are many, they met by the same special institution also ; and
so what at fii'st suited their condition, when they were no more than could
meet in one place, suiteth their condition afterward, when they are mul-
tiplied.
2. They could not then meet qua universal catholic church, for the uni-
versal catholic church is called such in respect of its being in all nations,
both Jews and Gentiles. Whereas the institution of a particular church is
the same, whether there be no more saints than can meet in one place at
once, or whether there be more. When they are many, those many do set
up several congregations, upon the same special ground that the universal
church did set up a meeting. And the universal church did so meet in a
congregation, by a special superadded ground over and above their being a
' church universal, for it further depended upon God's will, that they should
all meet thus together fixedly ; for they might have met but occasionally
sometimes, and they might have met in several companies, or they might
have worshipped privately, and God's ordinance might only have been so
administered; for if they meet for these ordinances qua church universal,
then in heaven they should meet for them too. So, then, that they should
meet in one fixed society for public worship, is by institution. And,
3. This institution of meeting together, was rather made and suited for the
saints when multiplied, than in respect of their being one body as an univer-
sal church.
For, 1, under the New Testament there never was a time that we know
of, after the Jewish law came to be dissolved, that this universal church
could meet in one ; for although not at Jerusalem, yet surely in whole
Judea there were more scattered up and down than could have met in one
place.
2. Under the New Testament, when the church universal is multiplied to
all nations, in respect of which it is called the church catholic, by way of
distinction from the Jews, then it is so scattered as that they cannot meet
together, no, not by way of representation. So as, indeed, this pretended
principle, that institutions should mainly fall upon the church universal, is
such as was never practised, nor extant de facto, neither at first nor at last.
52 THE GOVERNMENT OP [BoOK II.
Then, 3, we may observe that God did frame the institution of his
chnrches, according to what, in the wisdom of his counsel, he hath deter-
mined and foresaw would fall out. His institutions are such, as he in
wisdom knew would best suit the condition of saints in all ages to come,
under the gospel. He therefore ordered particular congregations, as the
most commodious seat of public worship, government, and order, and as the
best and fittest security to preserve the saints from scandal, and also the
means of maintaining among them the most entire kind of communion which
could be attained.
That particular congregations do not meet as assemblies for public wor-
ship and ordinances, by virtue of a charter given first to the church univer-
sal, is evident from these reasons.
1. If they do meet by virtue of the general charter of the church universal,
and they needed no other warrant than that, then if they meet occasionally
only, some saints together at one time, and others at another, and not fixedly,
whether for government or worship, they do thereby satisfy the obligations
they have by virtue of the general warrant. And, indeed, to make running
churches and societies of saints up and down in the world, would more satisfy
the obligation of the general charter, and come up more nearly to it. There-
fore, for them to have a fixed special tie to particular churches in a constant
way, when the churches are many, must needs be by a further special
institution.
2. If they thus meet by virtue of their being the church universal, then
they met by virtue of it only in all times, and then afore the law was given ;
and so the same government that is now pleaded for, from the notion of the
church universal, should have been then. And then, likewise, after the law,
the Jews should have met by the law of the church catholic'; and if so, there
should be now the like meeting for public worship of the whole church as
was then, viz., three times a-year. Was their meeting by virtue of their
catholic communion, or as they were a nation ? As they were a nation,
surely ; for if multitudes out of other nations had been converted, they had
not been (as the Ninevites, and the like, where they had not been bound to
the ceremonial law, neither were the Jews themselves, that lived out of the
land, dispersed) bound to come up to the Sanhedrim. And suppose that they
had been the church universal, yet that they were cast into a national way
v/as by institution, over and above that universal consideration, as they were
the seed of Abraham.
3. If the institution of a particular church depend on the charter first
given to the church universal, then where there are more of believers, and
more of elders, there would be more of the keys, if they had them by virtue
of the universal church. For why ? There would be more of the universal
church in such a body. The institution, therefore, must fall primarily upon
their being a particular body to Christ, meeting in his name, by his special
commission, though the persons be but two or three, that is, a few in number ;
which argues that he doth not put his institution barely upon their member-
ship or station in the church universal, but upon the formality of their being
his body thus united ; his blessing is given to them, as formed up by insti-
tution, whether they be saints more or fewer, as among the Jews also it was
in their cities and towns, as well as they were a commonwealth in their
nation.
According to this asserted charter of the church universal, whenas he saith,
'Tell the church,' Mat. xviii. 19, it should be meant primarily of the church
universal, for the institution and rule for church proceedings would fall first
upon it. But he speaks plainly of a paiticular church (and the Christian
Chap. IL] the churches of christ. 53
church being as then to be gathered when he uttered it, if he would have
made a charter to the universal, then had been the fittest time to have ex-
pressed it) for he declareth his institution there, when he had but a few
disciples about him, and those with him, and yet declareth his institution
for all ages, to tell it to that next church whereof a man is a brother. And
if the church universal had been intended here, then the church of the Jews
had not been intended as the pattern, which would overthrow the main asser-
tion of our presbyterian brethren.
5. The truth is, that the meeting of the universal church is but occasional,
for in all the ages that the church was to run through, it hath seldom been,
3'ea, could never be. And when that which we call general councils have
been, that they were rather for matter of docti'ine than for government, or
for appeals about persons, and that the institution could not fall upon. It
is true in Mat. xvi. 18, the word church is taken indefinitely, and for the
church universal, but yet not as an institution political, therefore he doth not
say, he will give the keys to it, but unto Peter, as representing both saints
and ministers, to be divided into several bodies, as afterwards Christ should
appoint it.
CHAPTER IL
Thai the grand charter of church government, or the power of the keys, is
granted not to ministers in particular only, excltiding the people, but to the
whole body of believers.
If any were to set down the model of any government whatsoever, the
first and most necessary thing is, to set out first what commonwealth, cor-
poration, or body politic, should be the substratum, the seat of that govern-
ment, in and among whom it is exercised ; and to set out the bounds
and extent thereof, by which the jurisdiction of that government is limited,
and unto which, as the subject matter thereof, all the particulars of that
government are suited and proportioned, as the building is to its foundation ;
and also the situation and measure of the ground which they make the seat
thereof. Therefore, in the inquisition after that order and frame of govern-
ment which, we conceive, Christ hath instituted for his church, it is most
proper to begin in seeking out what kind of body or society it is which should
be that proper, adequate, entire seat and subject of this government, what the
bounds and extent thereof are wherein Christ would have his government
exercised, and within which confined. I call the church sedes, or seat, not
in allusion to that ancient phrase used for the subject of ecclesiastical juris-
diction, which phrase yet strengthens this use of it, but in allusion to that
Scripture phrase, 1 Tim. iii. 15, where he calls the church a^sa/w/xa, that
is, the ' seat or ground of truth ;' and as of truth there, so, say I, of worship
and government. This, therefore, as the foundation, shall be the subject of
discourse, and upon the finding the true abutments hereof, doth the ending
and determining of most of those suits and quarrels of this age about church
government depend. The first charter granted by the founder, and the pat-
terns of those master builders the apostles, and the proportions of those
primitive churches, must be our guide herein.
Begin we therefore to inquire what is the true purport of the first grand
charter of all the rest, and what help that will contribute hereunto ; as we
find in Mat. xvi. 19, ' And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of
heaven : and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven ;
whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.'
54 THE GOVEKNMENT OF [BoOK II.
1. Where, first, ho no sooner mentions (and it is the first mention) a new
church to be builded by him under the New Testament, but he, together
therewith, makes mention of keys, both as means of building it and of
governing it, following the metaphor of a house therein. And Peter having
newly made a confession that Jesus was the Son of God, he being declared
and owned by him as such, Christ utters himself again to him, as the Son
of God indeed, speaks of building and contriving anew of his house, as a
prerogative proper to him as the Son, which to the same pui'pose the apostle
in like manner allegeth : Heb. iii. 3-5, ' Christ as the Son over his own
bouse, is the builder thereof,' which prerogative he here holds forth, saying,
I will build my church, and I will give keys. The church he intends is the
church of the New Testament, which (the Son being himself come) was to
be moulded and built anew by him, especially after his ascension. And the
keys he means are ' the keys of the kingdom of heaven ' (as the state of the
church under the gospel is called), which, to shew he is the Son, and hath
all power committed to him, he professeth to dispose of anew (as the keys
themselves were new) to another sort of persons than before ; the keys of
knowledge and government having been before in the hands of high priests
and Levites, &c. Now as the church was to be of a new frame, and the
keys were new, so he declares a new disposement of them to other persons
than the former. So that this place strengthens the assertion that Christ
as the Son is the builder of his church, Heb. iii. 3, 6, and the institutor of
all power and means of building in it ; and also it proves that the frame and
government of the church under the Old Testament, delivered by Moses to
those that sat in his chair, cannot be a set rule of the frame and form of
government of the church under the New. For Christ the Son being come,
shews his prerogative by declaring the old to be done away with, saying, I
will build, I will give the keys, &c. Whilst he speaks of a new, the old is
done away ; yea, the persons to whom, and the extent and limits of the power
are to be set out by him, as well as what those keys shall be by which he
will build and have his church governed, and he therefore says to Peter, ' I
do give to thee.' In that he singles him out electively, it argues his special
designation of the subject or persons (whoever they be) to whom he will be-
queath them.
2. That Peter here, in this promise of the keys for the future to be given,
should stand in a representative respect, and not merely personal, all writers
in all ages and all sides, though in Peter's name laying several claims unto
these keys, do universally acknowledge and observe. Some say the grant is
to Peter only considered as a believer, having made confession of his faith,
that Christ was the Son of God, and therefore representing the church of be-
hevers, as unto whom all church power should be first given. Otbers assert
this grant to be made to Peter as an apostle, and so representing the apostles
and ministers only. Thirdly, others, as the papists, vindicate a personal
privilege of Peter's above all other apostles, yet therein representing his sup-
posed successor, the bishops of Rome. Learned Cameron almost alone
would have it that this was a personal privilege to Peter, wherein none others
did succeed him. Thus much seems evident to us, that our Saviour Christ
speaks unto Peter under a double consideration in these words, ver. 19, and
the words before. The one was merely personal, and therein he speaks to
him under his own proper name, Simon son of Jonas, and so pronounceth
him blessed, for that his confession, which accordingly expressed his personal
privilege (which under that name he had even from circumcision) of his
being saved, without any mention of the gift of the keys. But then, secondly,
he gives him withal a new name, and ' I also say unto thee. Thou art Peter,'
Chap. II.] the churches of cheist, 55
or rock, which was a new and mystical name, as the words following shew,
' upon this rock.' Usr^oc and 'jsT^a answ'erincf each other as fides and fideJis.
And under this new name now put upon him he gives him a further privilege,
' I will give to thee the keys,' namely, as thou art Peter. This was not so
much in a personal as a mystical consideration, upon which his new name
was given him. And to strengthen this, it may be observed that God in
first delivering his promises and grand charters unto all sorts, singled out
some one man in whose name the grand charter should eminently run. So
Adam was fixed upon, when God, in his name, gave the earth unto the rest
of the sons of men. So Abraham was singled out to represent the church,
both of the Jews and Gentiles, but especially to represent the Jews who
were his children, to whom God gave the promises of the Land of Canaan,
as representing all his seed, and of the whole world as representing all the
saints, Eom. iv. 13. And accordingly he did upon it change his name from
Ahram to Abraham. Thus in like manner here doth Christ deal with Peter.
He first blesseth him personally as Simon, then changeth his name to Peter,
and so bequeaths this charter of the keys, in his like representation of others,
to whom in him the grant is made, as well as to himself. For Peter was still
more forward than all the rest to utter his faith that Christ was the Son of
God. Elsewhere indeed (as in John vi. G9) he speaks in the person of all
the apostles, but here, where this grant is first uttered, singly in his own ;
and on this occasion Christ honoureth this great and eminent confessor of
him, as that man in whose name this great charter should run, he bearing
therein the persons of all sorts that were to have any portion of power,
whether of his apostles, extraordinary officers, or of ordinary officers, as also
of the church of believers, and even of all to whom ever any portion of the
keys was for the future to be given : yet so as this honour was peculiarly
his, and he is singled out to be this common representer of all others under
the New Testament, which honour he doth bear to this day in his name,
even as Abraham had the like honour under the Old Testament. And to
evidence this the more by the event, Christ did in an especial manner honour
Peter to be the founder; as it were, and beginner of the new Christian church
(as Cameron hath observed out of Tertullian) when he converted that multi-
tude at one sermon, Acts ii.
Neither yet is this to be understood, as if those keys were given unto Peter
to convey the keys unto others derivatively, but he takes them representa-
tively (and therefore it was not necessary that all power should be in Peter's
person as an apostle, otherwise than representatively) and that not repra-
sentatione reali, as if he received all power for the church over her, as a king
or a parliament doth, who represents a commonwealth (as the papists and
episcopal divines and others say of the officers, that they represent the
church) but only repraseutatione typicali, a typical representation (as Baynes
distinguisheth), that is, that power which the church, or others that were
officers unto her, should receive in themselves afterwards, he now received
in a representation both of her and them, as a common person standing for
and spoken to for all the rest. And Christ therefore doth not say / [lire,
which if he had spoken to him as an apostle, constituting him such thereby
at present, he would have done, but / u-ill (jire, for the future, because many
of those whom Peter represented here the power was afterwards to be given
to, when the Lord should be pleased to declare it by himself or his apostle.
3. Further, as all this is spoken of Peter here as a representative person,
so in an indefinite and general way. And as it is the first great promise and
charter, in which all particular portions of power, to whomsoever afterwards
distributed, are included, so likewise as the other first and great promises of
56 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK II.
God use to be, this is as comprehensive, so indefinite also, not designing at
particulars. Such was that grant of the earth to the sons of men, whom
afterward God divided into several nations, to whom by his providence, suited
to his decrees, he set out the bounds of their several habitations, Acts xvii. 26,
and in Deut. xxiii. 8. The like was that first charter made of Canaan to
Abraham, which was afterwards particularly designed out by lot to the
several tribes, &c., whose right was yet all indefinitely comprehended, and
intended in that first grant to Abraham. So accordingly all the expressions
in this promise are general and indistinct, and to be taken in an indefinite
and comprehensive Avay.
1. As first, where he saith, he will build his church, it is hard to know
how to limit it, for he means all sort of churches ; he means the mystical
church, for he saith, 'The gates of hell shall not prevail against it,' which
is only true thereof, for they have prevailed against particular churches, and
may ; and yet again he must include particular churches too, for it is certain
that the mystical general church hath not the power and exercise of all the
keys, but only as divided into particular churches, or if it might be supposed
to have the keys of rule in general councils, yet not of the sacraments, not
of preaching the word, for, as for such ordinances, that church cannot meet,
and therefore exerciseth them only in several parts, and divisions of itself.
2. Those words, the keys, are a general comprehensive expression, an-
swerable to that of the word church, taking in keys of all sorts, viz., the keys
whereby the universal church, as such, is built and reared, that is, those
means whereby men are converted and made members thereof, which God
oftentimes blesseth in the hands of others than ministers. And they are
therefore called * the keys of the kingdom of heaven ' at large, not the keys
of the church, as restraining it to a political church ; and therefore (as Bel-
larmine, though to a wrong purpose, urged, namely, for the transcendency
of the pope's power above the church, yet for the thing itself rightly) is larger
than that in Mat. xviii. It is there meant of a church political, but the keys
here in Mat. xvi. 19 have relation to the opening tlie door of faith, as in
Acts xiv. 27 it is called, and therefore implies all means of conversion. And
accordingly the opposite thereunto is the gates of hell, which shall not pre-
vail. And yet again, on the other side, the keys or the power that is given
to particular churches are intended, for this is the general grant, afterwards
settled in Mat. xviii., where * Go tell the churches ' is mentioned. And the
binding and loosing spoken of there is comprehended under the binding and
loosing which is spoken of here ; so as churches of all sorts, and keys of
all sorts, keys given to churches in a way of discipline, and to private per-
sons to build up one another, keys given to officers of all sorts, apostles and
others, are all here intended. And therefore Melancthon well saith, Claves
eccleskc data; sunt, sed juxta electionem a Christo institatam. And it is cer-
tain that in Mat. xviii. he instituteth a church power, as touching the per-
sons to whom it belongs, distinct from Peter's, and that of the apostles as
such ; and yet whatsoever church power there mentioned was to be in any,
Peter receiveth it here. And as when we say all civil power is in a kingdom,
it is meant, sensu diviso, the king hath one part, the nobles another, the
people another ; and the several oflacers of a kingdom, they have their part;
and so it is here, and all at the first was now given unto Peter, as bearing
the person of all these.
4. Whereas the controversy hath been, whether Peter represented the
apostles and the ministers only, or whether he represented the church also,
or whether Peter is here personally to be taken as the sole and single sub-
ject of a personal privilege ; we say all these are here intended by Christ
Chap. II.] the churches of cheist.
57
in this his first promise, uttering it himself in this indefinite way, which was
afterwards to be further and more distinctly divided, and set out by himself
and his apostles. So that whether Peter had it granted to him as an apostle,
and as an apostle representing apostles and other ministers, we will not
contend ; but yet, that Peter had it also representing the church itself, and
saints built upon the rock, the arguments are as convincing and concluding
to prove it, if not more, than those that on the other side are framed to prove
the words should be spoken of him as an apostle representing the other
apostles and elders ; and therefore we safely take in all. The main argu-
ment urged to prove that it is spoken to him as an apostle, is drawn from
this, that the person spoken unto, viz. Peter, was an apostle, and the other
apostles were present, and so intended ; and therefore this grant here should
be restrained to Peter and them as such. And the arguments for the other,
namely, that ordinary believers also should be intended, is taken from the
occasion and gx'ound of Christ's speech, which was a confession of faith made
by Peter, and therefore that Christ should take in, and intend other ordinary
believers and confessors to have an interest in the keys, as well as elders
and apostles, and accordingly to have been by Peter represented. So as the
pleas of this suit (so far as concerns this place) do lie between the sort of
persons spoken to, and that were present, and the qualification of that person
as a believer, namely, and the ground of Christ's speech ; and all the argu-
ments that are brought to prove they were given him as an apostle, are not
exclusive that they are not given him also as a believer. Austua's expres-
sion, Non tantum Petro, sed ecclesia, not to Peter (that is, as an apostle)
only, but also to the church, doth rightly divide the share between both.
The occasion of the promise was Peter's confessing that Christ was the
Son of God, which holds forth nothing proper unto ministers only, or him-
self as an apostle only ; and therefore the privilege here must be common
unto that sort that make confession of faith, as well as to ministers. It was
a common faith confessed, not of what belonged unto apostles only, but unto
believers ; the promise is therefore suited unto the occasion. And this is a
stronger inference than that other which is brought, that he represented the
other apostles only, namely, because that they were present, whenas Peter
here did not intend to speak it in their names, as in John vi. 69 he did ;
but rather, he steps out and prevented them, and therefore also Christ speaks
first unto him in his personal condition, ' Blessed art thou, Simon Bar- Jonas ;'
and then in his representative condition, as representing those whose faith
he had confessed, as well as the apostles, whom, if only or simply Christ
had intended that he should represent, he might have spoken to them all as
well as to Peter, they being then present.
And then, again, his name, Fetros, Peter, which Christ here anew gives
him, with the reason of it, viz. ' upon the rock,' &c., in an allusion to Pe-
tra, signifying one built on the rock, and so of the same nature with the
rock, argues this to have been Christ's scope in promising to him the keys.
This change of his name thus into Peter elegantly served to suit and answer
the thing which Christ was speaking, namely, the bmlding his church on
the rock, whereon Peter, thus confessing himself, was built. ' Thou art
Peter,' that is. Thou art built on this rock, thou art a stone in this rock, and
unto thee as such I speak. And further, he doth not say, lliou shalt be
called Peter, but Thou art Peter, that is. Thou art a stone, thou art built on
a rock ; and thus it answereth to his being a believer, which is all one as to
be a member of the church so built, and therefore it is spoken of Peter, con-
sidered in the person of believers, built with the rest of the church upon the
rock, as well as the apostles, whose privilege alone this was not ; aud it is
58 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK II.
farther observable, that of all the apostles, this Peter, here spoken to, should,
if only intended, alone use this very similitude to this particular purpose, and
in eftect apply what is said here of himself, Thou art Peter, to all believers,
in 1 Peter ii. 5, ' Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house,'
&c. ; as if he had said, It is not I only that am the Peter that Christ in-
tended ; it was not spoken to me, but unto jou. all. And his expression in
2 Peter ii. 1 is all one with this in his first, ' To all that have received like
precious faith with us,' i. e. with me ; as in 3 John 9 John saith, « that
receiveth not us,' that is, that receiveth not me. And almost all divines
of all sides do thus far yield this : they say the keys are given primarily to
the faithful, only they explain it and say, they are given in honuvi ecdesicr,
for the good of the church, but unto the officers of it.
Ohj. 1. If it be said that if they be given to Peter as a believer, then unto
all believers, to women and children, and the like.
Ans. The answer is, first, when it is said the keys are given to a behever,
it is to be understood not rediiplieatire, as if only and to all such all sorts
of the keys are given ; but extensive, that is, to Peter, as representing believers
also, and not barely as an apostle, but yet such believers as after should be
more specially determined to have their share in them. For they are given
unto believers, in Peter representing such, according to Christ's disposement,
alter to be declared. It is an indefinite charter, to be formed up by him
afterwards, only now declaring that those of that sort should have them.
And Christ hath afterwards made a peculiar exception of women not to
speak nor to usurp authority in the church, 1 Cor. xiv. 34 ; w'hich being an
exception, it must be from a rule, and so, finnat regulam, argues and con-
firms that the rule is, that males have liberty and power to speak and judge
in some cases. And yet, secondly, even they have a sprinkling of the keys
in their proportion, if you take keys in that large sense before explained ; for
the keys of conversion and edification may be, through God's blessing, in
their hands. Their speeches and instructions in private may, and often do,
convert and edify the souls of others ; thus, Titus ii. 4, ' That the aged
women may teach ' (namely, by private instructions and the like) ' the
younger women to be sober, to love their husbands.' And other of them
may be instruments to convert or build up servants and children, friends,
&c., in their families ; yea, ' their husbands may be won without the word,
by their chaste conversation,' 1 Peter iii. 2. Yea, and as members of a
church, they have power to bind sin upon a man, in private personal admoni-
tion first, which is a degree, and in order to that public, if a man repents
not, which yet personal admonitions of others to those not in church fellow-
ship (as in England formerly) are not in order unto. For when a woman
doth tell a man of his sin, if she makes it out and prove it, she tells it him
with this bond upon him, that if he repent not, she bringeth it to the church ;
and so she binds him before and in the church, which she doth as a fellow-
member, though not as a judge. And the same sentence that a woman hath
thus pronounced in private against him, the same the church afterward
ratifies, even as what the church ratifies is bound in heaven. The mistake
of the objection lies in this, to infer that because women have not the autho-
rity, the public power of the keys, that therefore they have no power of the
keys committed to them, whereas none have all that others have, not the
apostles themselves.
Ohj. 2. If further it be objected, that the keys are given to others than
believers, as to ministers, though not true believers ; —
Ans. The answer is : Yet so as that they are visibly believers, or they ought
not to be ministers ; so Judas was. And so if it be given to ministers only,
Chap. III.] the churches of christ. 59
and apostles, it is supposed that they are faithful : ' The things that thou
hast heard, commit to faithful men, that they may teach others,' 2 Tim.
ii. 2. ' Just, sober, holy,' Titus i. 18.
Ohj. 3. And if it be said further, that then they are given to believers
singly, and out of church fellowship ;
Ans. The answer is : Although they are here given to believers materially,
yet formally, but as built up in a church, according as Christ should after
order it. And if we speak of the judiciary power, elders themselves must
needs be supposed to be set over a church ere those keys are given unto
them ; and so also what is granted to saints hereof, those keys must needs
fall under the same supposition. But if we speak of the keys in a larger
sense, so they are given to all and every one singly, whether they be in
church fellowship or no. Now, Christ's grant here being general and inde-
finite, though it takes in all, yet each according to Christ's order ; and so if
the judiciary keys ai*e said to be intended, they must be understood to be here
given, as Christ afterwards should particularly design how they should lie
exercised, and that is, and can be, only in church society ; and whether by
saints or elders only, as they are rightly formed up into fixed bodies.
But for a conclusion, that which from this place we take along with us,
towards the finding out the seat or subject of church power, is this, that the
keys were indefinitely and materially here given, as well to saints as elders,
in the person of Peter, in their several proportion, and afterwards were
particularly determined, and held forth in the rules and examples set by the
apostles.
CHAPTER III.
That before a covipany of believers or saints can become the formal seat of
(jovermnent, they m^ist be united into the state and order of a church. —
Reasons given ichy this is necessary. — A demonstration of it also from the
example of the j)rimitive churches, 2)lanted by the apostles.
This first charter, or grant of the keys, both to the saints and officers,
being but indefinite, and given unto them as materially considered, as the
command and blessing to multiply, is to men, Gen. i. ; ere these can become
the formal seat of government or public worship, there must be an orderly
moulding and casting of this matter, both saints and officers, into several
bodies or societies, for the exercise of these keys ; which both the necessity
of the thing requires, and also the examples in the New Testament do wai'-
rant and confirm unto us.
1. The necessity of the thing requires it.
For, first, otherwise there would be no order, which in the church of the
Colossians the apostle doth so praise in them. He might have commended
the saints in that city for their personal holiness, the teachers among them
for their gifts, but he further rejoiceth in their order. And as order in any
multitude or company of men primarily respects their union into a body for
such ends and purposes among themselves as thereby they seek to attain,
so here in this case cpiod non est forinatnm, non est vere uniim, what is not
formed is not truly one. This outward order is as the form that gives the
unity. An heap of stones is not one body so properly as an house, although
the parts in such a heap be homogeneal, and of one and the same kind ; and
the other consists of several materials, heterogeneal, and of several kinds, as
wood, stone, iron, clay, &c. Yea, and the indefinite collection of all such
materials into one heap are not a building, although they be squared and
60 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK II.
fitted to be joined each to other, the beams and rafters by their tenons and
mortices and the like ; but that all these should be reared, and artificially
erected into one building, it is that which makes them one body, in such
a respect as the other are not.
2. Secondly, There would otherwise be no government at all. When God
gave forth that law, Gen. ix, 6, ' He that sheddeth man's blood, by man shall
his blood be shed ;' over and above this indefinite commission given, it was
necessary for the due and orderly execution hereof that there should be
orderly societies of men, which should be the seat of a government by which
this punishment should be exercised. God's way in this law, and so Christ's
meaning in that gift of the keys. Mat. xvi. 19, cannot be like to that which
Cain, through the horror of his conscience, feared, that any man or every man
that met him might kill him. So neither is it indefinitely and promiscuously
in the power of any, the next company of saints and elders, to judge an
offending brother. And reason confirms this ; for, 1, it is this form and
orderly union of them into a body that makes any company the seat of
government, and to have a power among them ; and how can there be true
government without a seat of jurisdiction in which it must be exercised ?
And that must be a body politic, according to the nature or kind of the
government or polity exercised in it ; if civil, then it is a commonwealth or
corporation, &c. ; if ecclesiastical, it is a church. A politic body is not
made up by a multitude, for then a company of men at a horse-race were
such ; nor is it local union in the same place, for so at a stage play a throng
or a crowd meeting would be such.
As forms in natural bodies are necessary to constitute them such as well
as matter, so an union and moulding into one is needful to constitute a body
politic ; yea, a judicial power doth as much depend upon a formahty of order
as it doth upon a material qualification of persons. Take a company of
ministers, or what sort of persons else, however qualified or denominated,
they have not that power (which yet doth belong to ministers) indefinitely,
or as any way met, but as formed up into bodies, as a power in a kingdom
is not given to justices of peace indefinitely or promiscuously met, but as met
according to commission in several circuits and distinct bodies from them.
Burgesses of parliament, although lawfully chosen to be such, yet they have
not parliamentary power, but as met in parliament according to the law of
the kingdom ; and the legality of the meeting doth give as much power and
authority as the qualification of the persons. The authority is the result of
union, and that legally and lawfully made, as well as it is founded in persons
fitly qualified. Power in civil things is not so much given to mayors and
aldermen as to the corporation; though the whole '.corporation exerciseth it
not, yet it is their privilege, and they have such and such a power amongst
them ; it is not alone the privilege of the magistrates so much. That
heathenish town-clerk of Ephesus, when the men of that city met in a
promiscuous way (and perhaps the very same men of that city had panegyrical
meetings for some acts of government, as election of magistrates and the hke),
yet because then they met not according to the order of that city, he says of
it that it was an illegal fxxXjjty/a, assembly.
3. Without this union and order of society, persons offended, that ought
to complain, should not have whither to go to accuse, or the party offended
be obliged to come. Nor would it be known whose the care and duty were
to take on them the cognisance and judging of it, and whose sin it was if it
were neglected. If these companies of elders and saints in a great city were
fluid and promiscuous, and but like such companies as met at sights, or
shows, or ordinances, without any incorporation or embodying, so as all being
Chap, III.] the churches of christ. 61
in an equal liberty to go one day to this, another to that, company, &c., the
same persons never met in one place unless casually and providentially.
If twelve such meetings were in one such city, what shall oblige me to any
one more than the rest ? If I come to receive in any one, and they upon
occasion would proceed judicially to deal with me, I might plead and say,
I am no more accountable to you than the rest, I receive as often with
them as with you, I belong as much to other assemblies as to you ; and what
have you to do to judge me more than they? And besides, it being (in this
way) but providential that the same persons the offender is accused unto
to-day should meet in one place another day, when ail have an indifferent
liberty, without any set or fixed incorporation, at the utmost it is but his
forbearing to assemble with the company for that time or in that place any
more, and retire unto those other, for he is at his freedom so to do.
Again, in this case, all that any of those companies can inflict upon him
is but for that time to suspend him from communion with them ; but to pro-
ceed to excommunication they cannot, not only because that imports a fixed
company he is cast out of, but also because there is nothing to oblige him to
attend that company to be so often admonished, as his sin shall become an
obstinacy and fit matter for excommunication. Or what shall oblige those
of this individual company to whom the complaint first came, that they in re-
lation to and for his censure's sake should meet so often together, as that he
may be publicly admonished by them so many times as in the end deservedly
to be thrown out ?
Yea, 4, this union and order must needs hold in such societies where the
very punishment is to cast out of that body they were first within, for to cast
out and to be within are correspondent, and answer each to other. Now the
punishment to be exercised is not only a personal withdrawing by every man
apart (as occasionally they should meet him), but a sentence publicly agreed
on ; and the sentence then in use in the primitive churches was to cast out
of the church, John iii. 10 (as to expel and cast out of a city, or town, or
family), which unless they were a body formed up among themselves, and he
one within to them, they could not do.
II. As the necessity of the thing, so the examples of those primitive
churches argues them to have been formed and fixed bodies that were the
seat of worship and government, and do agree with these fore-mentioned
principles. :;
First, The very denomination of churches (as of churches in Judea, Galatia,
&c.) doth fall in with and confirm that first reason, that the saints and elders
in those coimtries were cast into distinct and several bodies, and diversified
by several corporations and relations. It imports not a distinction of them
only as saints materially from the world (as the universal church whereof they
are parts doth), but a distinction of them into several companies among
themselves, namely, the universal and great church parted into several lesser
companies and churches. Nor can those set and fixed titles arise from
several promiscuous acts of meeting of these saints and elders providentially,
but it includes, in the Holy Ghost's language, a settled state and incor-
poration in order to settled meetings. As the word preshyterij notes out not
simply a company of elders, but united into a body for government ; so the
phrase churches imports not simply a company of saints and elders met, but
a stated society ; so as when the union of their actual meeting is dissolved,
they still continue the same, as the companies in London are still so many
companies in state, though not in act, when every man is gone to his own
house, as well as when met in their common hall. They are not only a body
because or when they actually meet, but they are a body in order to meeting,
62 THE G0VKEN5IENT OF [BoOK II.
and there is a power in their governors to call them together again. And
this also all the comparisons of an house to God, &c. (speaking of particular
churches), implies, not simply acts of meeting, but a compacted state.
And that the churches then in the primitive times of Christianity were
such bodies is evident, for, 1 Cor. xiv., the apostle calls not only a parti-
cular church an whole church (as likewise elsewhere, Acts xx. 28, the church
of Ephesus is called the 'whole flock, '-^ and that at Corinth ' a whole lump,'
1 Cor. V. 6, each therefore making a distinct body, an whole and entire body,
bounded within itself, as any other corporation is) : but further, he speaks
of that church as importing a stated union in relation to meeting actually :
• If the whole church,' says he, ver. 23, ' come together.' They were there-
fore a church in order to meeting, even when they met not, and are at home,
in respect that the union and bond to the same laws and ordinances still re-
mained. They were not a church simply because they met or when they
met, but they, the same persons, were to meet because they were a church
in a stated and constant relation. And suitably to this, he elsewhere says
of them, ' When you are gathered together to cast out such an one,' 1 Cor.
V. 4, 5, because they were to meet as a body in a constant way. And upon
this fixed relation of each unto the whole, the apostle lays upon this same
church this as a duty, as to meet for worship, so to stay each for other, in
1 Cor. xi. 33, and so not to meet in promiscuous several companies (as men
at ordinaries) for the sacrament. There was therefore a set company known
to each other, obliged to meet in one in a constant way, and so was an whole
church in a fixed relation.
And such were all the churches the apostles wrote unto, and gave ordi-
nances forth unto : ' So I ordain in all the churches,' 1 Cor. vii. 17 ; * we
have no such custom,' saith he, 1 Cor. xi. IG, * nor the churches of Christ,'
whom he praiseth for keeping the traditions he gave thern, as 1 Cor. xi. 2 ;
and rejoiceth in their order, and whom he blameth for occasion of divisions,
in respect of their public meetings, as vers. 18, 19, 21, 22. Now all this
argues that, as churches, these were bodies and societies in a fixed and set-
tled relation, for his manner of writing is parallel with that, as if a king or
his superior ofiicers should write in his name to all corporations, shires, and
bodies politic, giving out laws and proclamations and edicts to be observed
by them in their assemblies, which, if they were not fixed and settled bodies,
but only unfixed and uncertain fluid assemblies, they were not meet sub-
jects capable thereof, nor of orders to regulate them. This also the state of
the seven churches of Asia, whom Christ directeth those seven epistles unto,
with several inscriptions to the several angels of those churches, evidently
argues ; they were fixed bodies, having each their elders, an angel (collec-
tively taken, as the use of that phrase in that book is), in a special relation,
to whom therefore, as to the mayor or alderman in a settled corporation, tha
letters are directed. And he blames them, as bodies or societies of men,
fixedly incorporate, for sins passed in their public transactions as they were
a body, as suffering Jezebel to teach, &c. And further, he threateneth to
remove the candlestick, Ptev. ii. 5, that is, their church state, as they were
a standing seat and subject of the ordinances of the gospel, as the Jewish
candlestick was ; for the seven candlesticks are the seven churches. Rev.
i. 20. As these candlesticks were these churches, distinguished each from
other, so these churches were the saints and elders, as candlesticks cast and
moulded into a set and standing form, and so thereby made distinct each
from other, though all made out of the same lump of the church universal,
therefore chosen out as standing patterns of the frame and fabric of other
* Though it be not 'oXc? in Acts xs., vet it is so elsewhere in other places.
Chap. III.] the chueches of christ. G3
churches then extant or to come. And as that and the like threatening con-
cerns succession, so it further argues a fixed combination, that is the subject
of guilt, for that combination continuing, though the persons then alive
should all die, yet if the same sins continued in persons that succeed mem-
bers of that combination, that church or body, in respect of the fixed state
of it continuing, would inherit it ; for by reason of such a fixed union or
stated society or corporation, it comes to pass that not only a company of
men are one body when their assemblings or meetings are not, though in
order to such meetings, as well as when they are, but farther, that they con-
tinue the same body to succession, and so each of these the same church or
candlestick, notwithstanding it may snfier alteration in increase or lessening,
in respect of particular persons. Yea, though the matter, the gold, the per-
sons that now make up one of these candlesticks, should all be removed by
death or otherwise, yet the candlestick continued the same, because the
same settled church state continued ; as in this respect the company of mer-
cers, or any corporation, is the same it was an hundred years ago, because
of this settled order and union, and is capable of being threatened to have
their charter taken away, their corporation removed, or the main privileges
of it some way nullified, though the original persons do not still dwell in the
same city.
2. And as in respect of public worship, so in respect of judicature ; the
churches then were bodies cast into fixed relations. This made the church
of Corinth (as, 1 Cor. i. 2, it is called), a seat and subject of judicature and
government : 1 Cor. v. 12, ' Do not ye judge them that are within ?' and
' What have I to do to judge them that are without ? ' Here was, first, a set
and certain judicature among themselves, as the word judging imports ;
secondly, a body, within which whoever was, he came under this judicature,
for they judged them within, as corporations or bodies politic use to do them
within themselves. There was something then that made a special relation,
which was the ground of their power to judge this person, and brought him
within the compass of their jurisdiction. And it is further expressed with a
denial of power over others that are without, ' What have I to do to jud^e
them that are without?' I that am an apostle, that have the largest jurisdic-
tion and commission, what have I to do in it ? And his power and theirs
did ditfer ; for though he might judge as occasion was in any church where
he came, yet he lays it as a special peculiar duty upon them, to have power
over them that were within themselves ; and that power belonged unto them,
as the other belonged unto him. And the persons that are said to be
within, to that church of Corinth to whom he writes, could not be the
church universal, for then the church of Corinth should have had power to
have judged all or any other churches of saints in the world, as well as
itself, and so a part had power over the whole. There was, thirdly, a duty
lay upon some persons among them, to whom this belonged, ' Do not ye
judge ?' and a sin that lay upon them for their neglect, which lay not upon
another company, ' Do not ye judge them within ?' Aoid have you hitherto
neglected it ?
3. Thirdly, The special relation of elders to their churches, and the mem-
bers in particular churches among themselves, doth evidence that not any
company of Christians, but such as embodied together into and settled in
the order of a church, are the subject and seat of this grand charter of the
keys, or the ecclesiastical power.
(1.) The relation of the members among themselves doth evidence it,
1 Cor. xii. 27, where he descends from the discourse of union of the mem-
bers in the universal body of Christ, which he calls Chrut, ver. 12, to a
64 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK II.
more particular enforceirient of the duties of that special relation that was
amongst the members of the church, as a particular body to Christ ; and so
to oblige each to other, not only by that general law of the universal rela-
tion, but further by virtue of a more special one contracted among them-
selves, being made a distinct and entire body to Christ in particular, by
being one church. And so the obligation was not only doubled upon them,
but further, the proportion of the general tie (which was more difiused) was
contracted into a narrow and lesser compass, and as holding analogy with it,
was so made stronger and more vigorous. Thus we understand those words
to be a special application of that general doctrine premised in the former
part of the chapter, which treats of Christ's body, the church universal.
' Now ye,' the church of Corinth, ' are the bod}' of Christ, and members in
particular,' in a more special relation ; and so owe all those duties in a
special manner, one to another. In this respect also, sometimes when the
apostle hath occasion to mention a member of a particular church, he
specifies it with a special distinctive relation, 'Epaphras, who is one of you,'
Col. iv. 12 ; and Rom. xvi. 1, 'Phoebe, our sister, who is a servant of the
church which is at Cenchrea,' is commended to communion with them, as
standing in special relation to that church. So when he speaks of elders, a
special relation to a particular church is intimated, which could not be
unless those churches had been fixed bodies for state, and not promiscuous
assemblies in respect of acts of meeting. Thus the same Epaphras, as to
his common relation of membership in that church of Colossians, is men-
tioned, ' who is one of you ; ' as afore, cha.p. iv. 12, and also as to his more
special relation as an officer of that church, ' who is for you a faithful minis-
ter,' of whom they had been taught the gospel : * As ye also learned of Epa-
phras, who is for you a faithful minister,' and in a special relation your
minister. He still held his relation of a minister for them, though for the
present occasionally employed with Paul. Thus the ordinary elders were
set over particular churches, and so had a special relation to those churches
as elders of them ; and the relation was the rise and foundation of their call
to be elders, as Acts xiv. 23. The apostles, who were general elders in all
churches, by virtue of apostolical commission, ordained ordinary elders in
every church ; and these elders were specially appropriated hg rovg, to them,
and were to take care of that whole flock which appertained to them. Acts
XX. 28 ; and so they were entrusted with the care of them, and to watch
over them, as those that were to give an account to God for their souls ; and
therefore they were their pecuHar charge, Heb. xiii. 17. And in respect of
this relation, the Holy Ghost directs those epistles, mentioned Rev. ii. 2, 3,
to the several particular angels of those churches in Asia, who therefore had
their churches assigned to them, for which they were to give an account,
and more accountable for their sins, in which they are accordingly blamed.
And these elders could not have a special settled relation, if these churches
were not cast into a fixed settled state, as churches under them ; for the one
are relations to the other ; and therefore the Holy Ghost dii-ects his epistles
to the churches also, chap, i., as well as to the angels of these churches, for
in their relations these two were commensurable.
4. And lastly, these elders and these churches were formed up into fixed
and settled presbyteries, so 1 Tim. iii. ; and the acts of ordination were not
attributed simply to an indefinite company of elders (as promiscuously or
any way met), but to a presbytery, which imports not simply an act of meet-
ing by a company of elders, but (as the word is paraphrased by our trans-
lators, with respect to the Jewish Sanhedrim) ' the estate of elders,' Acts
xxii. 5. As if we should say, The common couacil did ordain so and so,
Chap. IV.] the churches of christ. 65
it notes not out simply a meeting of a company of wise men in such a city,
but as met in an united body. And if these presbyteries were a fixed and
united company of elders, then the churches must needs be also, to whom
they were a presbytery. And so this is a further argument than that former,
which was drawn from the special relation of elders, singly or personally,
or loosely taken, which was ordinarily fixed to be a settled church. But if
further, we consider these elders as united into a presbytery, it yet more
importeth this. For though it should be granted to be a truth, which some
affirm, that every elder were an elder indefinitely of the church universal,
yet every presbytery is not a presbytery to the whole universal (no more
than every common council in each corporation is a common council for the
kingdom, though each burgess met therein must be capable of being a
burgess in parliament for the whole kingdom), but, as specificated, such
must relate only to some particular church. If therefore the government
were seated (as our brethren would have it) in presbyteries, yet these bodies
must be fixed and incorporated. Or if in churches with their elders (or else
nowhere), yet if their elders were presbyteries to their several churches (as
is evident they must be), then those churches also were fixed bodies over
which they were placed. Yea, and the Scripture doth, in terminis, in plain
terms, attribute the act of ordination to a presbytery, that is, a company of
elders united in their relation and in that action ; and as much to this their
united relation, as to their being elders. And so the validity and legality of
the act depends as much upon this as upon their being elders met ; as if a
man should say. Such a thing was done by the common council, certainly
he means thereljy that it was done not only by men that are councillors
promiscuously, in that sense as lawyers are called to give counsel, as
occasion is, singly or apart ; but it imports they met as a common council,
so embodied, that the act hath a legality, an authority therefrom. And
the validity as much depends upon that incorporation of theirs according
to a law, as upon their being men, and so qualified.
CHAPTER IV.
That Christ in his institution of ecclesiastical power, Mat. xviii., hath r/mnted
this ■power of the keys only to saints embodied and united in the state
and order of a congregational church. — That though it should he granted
that Christ in this institution had a regard to the constitution of [the
church of the Jews, yet it would be evident that he intended a congrega-
tional church.
Moreover, if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his
fault between thee and him alone : if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained
thy brother. But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or
two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be
established. And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church:
but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen
man and a publican. Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind
on earth shall be bound in heaven; and ivhatsoever ye shall loose on
earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again. I say unto you, That if two of
you shall agree on earth as touching anything ichich you shall ask, it shall
be done for them of my Father ivhich is in heaven. For where two or
VOL. XI. E
66 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK II.
three are cjathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. —
Mat. xviii. 15-20. '
There are three things may be proved out of this place. The first is,
that church power is by Christ's institution. Secondly, that a particular
congregation is there meant, and so we have an institution for it. Then,
thirdl}-, that suppose there were a subordination of churches above parti-
cular churches, that yet the particular church should finally excommunicate,
and that the supposed superior orders of presbyteries should not take it out
of their hands.
1. The first is plain, that here is an institution of church power, as is
evident by comparing it with Mat. xvi. 18, 19, where it is said, ' I will build
my church, and I will give thee the keys.' He speaks indefinitely. That
place affordeth this evidence, that Christ is the only builder of his church
(' Every house is built by some one,' Heb. iii. 4), and of all things about
the house : ' The builder of all things is God' (saith he), namely, Christ,
who is God, as he had proved in chap. ii. Having spoken this indefinitely in
Mat. xvi. 18, 19, here, in Mat. xviii. 15, IG, he particularly determines the
seat and subject of this ecclesiastical power. Here, in Mat. xviii. 17, Christ
uttereth himself definitely, ' Tell the church.' The jus proprietatis is in
Mat. xvi. 19 ; the right of propriety is stated in the right of administration.
The jus executiouis, in Mat. xviii. 16. He doth not give it to saints and
officers simply, but as formed up into bodies. Mat. xvi. holdeth forth that
they are to be saints, making confession as Peter did. There is the matter
of a church, to whom the keys is given ; but Mat. xviii. holdeth forth how
that these saints are to be formed up into several bodies or churches, and
so to execute this power. Therefore he speaks of them as ' being gathered
together in his name,' Mat. xviii. 20. Their being saints, or faithful, is not
enough ; but order is to be added to faith (as in Col. ii. 5), which order is
held forth here, in Mat. xviii. ver. 15 to 20.
2. The words of Christ here, in Mat, xviii. 18, ' Verily I say unto you,'
which are institutive ; ' And again I say unto you.'
(1.) That word Amen, or verily, est idem quod firmum et ratum, shews the
thing to be firm aniil ratified, as Amen doth also, being set to our prayers.
And here so it is taken ; for it is with a promise of power from him, confirm-
ing and ratifying of such meetings as he speaks of. And a promise to any
thing that is beyond the law of nature implies an institution ; for what is an
institution but a setting up something with promise, to have a blessing in
it beyond the efiicacy of the thing ?
(2.) ' Again I say unto you,' saith he, ver. 19. The word arjaiji is
additiotm, moreover, a superadded expression, as Mat. iv. 7, ' Again it is
written.'
(3.) The words I say are institutive, or commanding with an efficacy ;
as they are used in Luke v. 24, 'I say unto thee. Arise.' And if they be
only assertory (as some say they are), yet being spoken by the Son, of his
own house, in his mouth they are edificatory, or institutive of it.
(4.) Jesus Christ giveth power to a brother to admonish, and that in an
ordinary way, in order to excommunication ; then bids him take two or
three, and then tell the church. And it is not a matter of indulgency or
liberty, or privilege (as Cameron observeth), that his speech importeth, for
that is, whenas there is a benefit to one's self by it, which, if I will forego, I
may ; but what is spoken here is j^er modnm imperii, by way of command,
for it is for the gaining of a brother. And it is in order also to a court sen-
tence, when it is brought to the church ; and the word established. Mat.
Chap. IV. J the churches of christ. 67
xviii. IG, that is, the sentence shall be firm, and fixed, or ratified, confirms
this to be his design and meaning.
(5.) To reckon a brother as an heathen, if obstinate after this course is
taken with him, is an act of power, which, if Christ had not given, should
not have absolutely necessitated it.
(6.) He saith, ' Where two or three are gathered in my name,', therefore
it is an ordinance. What makes other things an ordinance, bitt' that they
are done in the name and power of Christ ? Is baptising in hi-s name an
ordinance, and so gathering together in his name also ? And'in his name is
all one, as in his power and authority, by commission from him ; and to
such ends and purposes as he hath appointed, whereof one is to throw: out
an ofiending brother. He speaks as the Messiah, that did anew form his
church, and put a new title upon their gathering together ; calls it ' assem-
bled in my name,' as the Messiah is come in the flesh. And whereas before
he did authorise the whole nation, and made the trust unto them, he reduceth^
it now to a fewer company, to two or three gathered together in his name.
All assemblies, if they be not established by authority, are unlawful. Acts
xix. 39. Therefore these assemblies that Christ here speaks of, must be-
established by the law of Christ.
And thus much may suffice to shew in general, that let it be meant in^
church power, whatever it is, it is by institution.
And when he saith, ' go tell the church,' he imports authority and power,
placed in that company he calls a church, with which he invests them. The-
word church in this is an authoritative word, and the authority the cliurch-
hath is his ; and whom should she have it' from, but from him ? And
therefore, in 1 Cor. v. 4, they are said to be ' gathered together in his name,
and in his power.' And by comparing this place and that together, it
appears that his intent is both institutive and directive, only with this dif-
ference, that in Mat. xviii., Jesus Christ speaks by way of directing a bro-
ther what to do when he is offended ; and upon that occasion mentions what
authority he would give unto his church, and assemblies of his saints ga-
thered together in his name ; but in the other text, 1 Cor. v., Paul gives
forth the direction to the church itself, calling upon them to perform their
duty, according to the power and authority given him by Christ. As an
apostle, he commands them, when gathered together, to deliver such an one
to Satan, and (saith he) ' do ye not judge them that are within ?' That is,
have ye not power to do it from Christ, is it not a duty lies upon you ?
And he parallels it with that power himself had, according to proportion.
Now the power he had, all grant to be institutive, for otherwise, what
power could one man assume over the churches of Christ ? And so like-
wise without the like institution, what power could a church assume to
deliver a man to Satan, which is out of their natural and moral power
to do ?
I shall now demonstrate that a particular congregation is meant in this.
Mat. xviii., and that a particular congregation is there instituted, and insti-
tuted, too, as having that power of excommunication.
Now that a particular congregation is here meant, is proved first out of
the place. The church intended here, is a church appointed for worship as
well as for discipline. Not only because that meeting to pray is mentioned,
as well as to correct ofi"ences ; but because if that be a church which is ap-
pointed for worship, it were strange if Christ should in his first institution
mention that church which is only for discipline, and not that which is for
worship also. 2. Out of presbyterian principles.
And, 1, out of the place it is apparent that a particular congregation is
68 THE GOVEBNMENT OP [BoOK II.
meant, take church to be interpreted by whatsoever you will that Christ
-alluded to, then in use.
There were many unformed sects, that had several companies belonging to
them, that were of the same principles and regular order ; who, although
they held a general communion with the church of the Jews, yet the manner
of these sects was to have their synagogues and schools (as Paul was brought
up at the feet of Gamaliel ; and we read of the school of Tyrannus). And
if any of them transgressed the principles of their order and sect, they were
brought (as Grotius saith) before the whole ; and so they were reproved Ivwcnoi/
'jrdvTMv, that is, before all. And now if this allusion be to such a church or
company, then the people are taken in, such as should meet and hear ; and
so then, Jesus Christ so fixed his institution, as the people as well as the
officers met, for even those sects supposed guides, who did bring it to the
whole company of that sect, whereto a man belonged. Secondly, if the
allusion were to this, then according to the liberty that was then given, of
having disciples, our Saviour Christ had then a church upon earth which he
spoke actually unto. For he had by him twelve apostles and disciples, who
after grew unto one hundred and twenty. And, therefore, according to the
law of those times, he directs them, that if any oflences were among them,
after two or three witnesses taken, they should tell it to this church.
Although Judas had sinned, yet he had not so sinned, as to have witnesses
against him, until his betraying of Christ, and then (as our Saviour Christ pro-
phesied of him, John xv. 6) he was cast out as a withered branch. And
then, 3, that phrase of gathering together in my name, is an allusion to that
custom in those times ; for the manner was then to call disciples by the
names of those they followed, and their meetings by their names, as Hero-
dians were so styled from the name of Herod. ' In my name' (saith Christ),
that is, such as profess me, and set up such schools in my name, are to
observe the rules which I set them, for their order and government. Christ
here expressed how his churches should, after his death and ascension into
heaven, be ordered under the New Testament. As it is said, ' the Scripture
foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles through faith (Gal. iii. 8),
made the promise unto Abraham ; ' and as God, foreseeing that when the
Israelites came into Canaan, they should live in cities, and be a kingdom or
a nation, accordingly ordered beforehand their government, and gave laws
aforehand, for that nation of the Jews as such, when they should be in their
own land. So here, the church of the New Testament, being to be multiplied
and scattered, that they could not assemble in one, as that national church
of the Jews did, Christ aforehand speaks, what he would have his churches
under the New Testament to be ; and his institutions are suited to what in
his counsels and providence he had determined should be, and he knew
aforehand would fall out.
2. If, secondly, the allusion be to the Jewish way that was appointed by God,
and had been of old, then either the Sanhedrim is meant, or the synagogues,
with the officers there. But in the first place, the Sanhedrim is not meant ;
for (as Cameron saith) that is never called eccJesia, a church, no, not by the
Septuagint. But be it that this word had been used of it, yet private
oftences (of which Christ here speaks) were never brought to the Sanhedrim ;
but Christ speaks this of private oflences, for it is, * if he ofiend thee, then
take two witnesses,' and then tell it to the church. Whereas there were
but four cases which belonged immediately unto the Sanhedrim, and those
were cases of difficulty, when the private judges in the cities could not end
the controversy, who yet had full power to have done it. And then, in the
third place, Cameron's reason why the Sanhedrim is not meant, is good.
Chap. IY.] the churches of christ. 69
because the evangelists do still call it 'TrosaiSur'spiov -rou Xdov, and that now only
Christ should call it ecclesia, a church, when it is nowhere used by the
Septuagint, under that name, would be very strange. Secondly, if his allu-
sion be to the government of every town, this makes for the way of congre-
gational churches. For every village had their government entire within
themselves : Deut. xvi. 18, ' in all their gates.' If it were a small town,
there were three elders (to which Christ here alludeth), and in the cities one
and twenty. And from the towns to the cities there was not an appeal, but
immediately to the Sanhedrim.
3. His allusion rather is unto the synagogues in every town, which were
the ecclesiastical state. The books of Moses were read in every city, in the
synagogues. Acts v. 21. For every city had their synagogue, and so then
in this sense, to ' tell the church,' was to tell that particular synagogue
(whereof they were members), both to people and rulers. Now thair Christ
alludeth to this appears,
(1.) Because that excommunication was exercised in their synagogues, not
in the Sanhedrim. Indeed, the Sanhedrim might make a law, as a rule
according to which men should be excommunicated ; but the synagogues
executed it, therefore it is called, ' casting out of the synagogues,' John
xvi. 2. And synagogues were not governed by an association, but each
synagogue had its rulers, John ix. 22 ; and in John xvi. 2, ' They shall cast
you out of the synagogues.' And a synagogue was a particular assembly,
such as congi'egations now : Luke vii. 5, ' He hath built us a synagogue ;'
Mark i. 21, "Christ entered into the synagogue and taught.' And when a
man was cast out of the synagogue, and w^ould come into the temple, they
used to say to him, when he would offer to enter into the temple (although
they refused him not to enter thither, for he held communion still with the
temple). May he who inhabits this temple give thee an heart to hearken to
the words of thy brethren, that so they may receive thee.
(2.) In every one of these synagogues there were two or three officers.
They had rulers, Acts xiii. 1-4, 15, xviii. 7, 17. And therefore Christ
alluding unto this saith, ' If two or three agree.' They used to have three
at least, that a major vote might cast it among the rulers. And they used
to have two or three admonitions afore they cast out, and thirty days between
every admonition.
(3.) In a manner, all other authority was taken from them, but what they
exercised in their synagogues thus, or in the Sanhedrim, which dealt only in
the great matters of blasphemy ; whereas this authority of synagogues was
for offences of brethren ; and therefore it is still said, they should bring them
into their synagogues when they questioned them, -as Luke xii. 11. The
Romans took away all other power ii'om them. But here they could inflict
punishments : ' They shall scourge you in their synagogues ;' it was the place
of then' punishment, so Mat. xxiii. 34 ; they whipped in them, for they had
no other courts left. Acts xxvi. 11. And they had rulers, for the casting
men out from thence. And perhaps these meetings in the synagogues are
those which are called Synediia in Mat. x. 17. And in Luke xii. 11,
' when they bring you into the synagogues,' is mentioned first, and then,
* unto magistrates and powers,' namely, the civil magistrate, which in Mat.
X. 17 is rendered thus, ' They will deliver you up to the council,' or San-
hedrim, and they will scourge you in their synagogues ; and then follows
their being brought to the civil magistrate in the next verse, ' and shall bring
you before kings and governors.' And some interpreters say, that the allu-
sion is here, in Mat. xviii. 17, to that synagogue government and worship,
ecclesia and sijnayofjus being used promiscuously.
70 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK II.
(4.) These synagogues were oratories, places of prayer and preaching, there-
fore Christ doth also subjoin here, ' if two meet together, to ask,' or to pray.
It is not meant only of praying when they administered discipline, for it is
praying about any business, for they used to worship and pray in the syna-
gogues, as well as to cast out of the synagogues ; their worship and their
discipline there being of equal extent. And the word that is used in this
text of Mat. xviii. 19, au^a^ajvrjGMSiv, shall agree, signifies a meeting, as well
as a consent, so Gen. xiv. 3 ; and the words also that Christ useth, ver. 19,
' Again,' or moreover, ' I say unto you' (having spoken of discipline afore,
and now of prayer), do hold forth the scope of this church to be as well for
prayer as for discipline, and so to be understood of such a synagogue as
was both for discipline and worship, or prayer. And then the addition of
the last words, ver. 20, ' For where two or three are gathered together in my
name, I am in the midst of them,' is the general conclusion to both ; so that
the meaning is, that whether they meet for worship or prayer (of which he
had spoken, ver. 19), or for discipline (of which he had spoken, ver. 17, 18),
Christ is in the midst of them. Now, as our Saviour Christ's allusion was
unto that synagogue government and worship then extant, so particular
churches and congregations under the gospel, in answer thereunto, are
expressed unto us, under the word synagogue. They have that name,
because unto them did Christ allude ; and they suited his institution under
the New Testament. James ii. 2, ' If one come into your assembly, it is in
the Greek, hg rriv eumyuyriv, ' into your synagogue.' He speaks of synagogues
for worship, as in Heb. x. 25, ' Forsake not the assembling of yourselves
together.' It is there imffuvayojyriv, meetivg in a synagogue, which is a par-
ticular meeting for worship, which is therefore called the house, that God hath
under the New Testament, ver. 20, whereof Christ is said to be the high priest.
And, indeed, the analogy between their sj'nagogues and our congregations
holdeth exceeding far. They hold two or three officers that were rulers of
the synagogue, and we profess, for kind, that there are three sort of officers,
• — pastors, teachers, and .elders. And the Jews, in a manner for the sub-
stance, use the same expression concerning their synagogues ; they had two
wise men to teach, and one to discern ; and therefore Christ saith, * where
two or three are gathered together.' And to be an heathen and a publican,
and to be cast out of the synagogue, was all one ; and the word synagogue and
ecclesia, lOr church, are all one in the Septuagint ; and -so, consequently, to
be cast out of the church, corresponds to their ejection out of the synagogue.
And to this hath Christ framed the constitution of his church under the
New Testament, that it should be both for worship and government, as the
synagogues were within themselves. And although these assemblies are
called synagogues as for their extent, yet they are called temples as for their
privilege. And this constitution of Christ suited with the primitive times
of the gospel ; for the Jews, being dispersed in several nations, they had
synagogues in all cities, and an entire government within those synagogues.
Yea, even in Judea, in some one great city, there was but one synagogue,
as in Capernaum, Mark i. 21. Thus, at Antioch too, the Jews had a syna-
gogue. Acts xiii. 14, 15, as also at Thessalonica, Acts xvii, 1, and at Cormth,
Acts xviii. 4, where the Greeks and the Jews were met in one. Now, the
Christians being to be called out of all places, and being dispersed, as these
Jews were, in all nations, Christ suited a government to these conditions of
the synagogue-government, and answerably fixed his institution of churches,
in imitation of the Jews dispersed, who had synagogues amongst all the
Gentiles, in their several cities. Christ chose not the legal way of a national
church, or of a sanhedrim, or of going up to one temple for a whole nation,
Chap. IV. J the churches of christ. 71
but he fixed on synagogues, as fitting his turn best, for he chose churches out
of nations, and so did not hold to one national church of the Jews ; and,
therefore, we read of churches in Judea itself, and not church, Gal. i. 22.
And to strengthen this assertion, it may be observed that our Saviour
Christ did not take nor follow the institution of the Old Testament, but the
appendixes of it ; as for example, in the Lord's supper he instituted the bread
and wine, answerably to the bread and wine which were appendixes of the
passover, and he refuseth the paschal lamb, and chooseth the bread and wine.
80 likewise, as the Jews used to baptize proselytes, so he refuseth circum-
cision and takes that baptism. Thus also as the synagogues were, as it were,
chapels of ease to the great church, the temple, where moral worship only
was, he lets the stately temple worship go, and the glory of a national
government, and chooseth this mean way of a synagogue, but yet endows it
with the privilege of a temple ; that so whereas, before, God was worshipped
in the mount and in the temple, he is now worshipped as much, and as
truly, and as spiritually everywhere, and in every synagogue having the
same privilege. And, indeed, Christ's way in the ordinances and institu-
tions of the gospel was to choose that which, in comparison, was before to
the Jews, and to the world, fooHshness ; thus he chose the foolishness of
preaching, and instead of taking the high priests and rulers, he takes fisher-
men, &c.
4. But yet, though Christ might speak in the language of the Old Testa-
ment, it is not necessary that his meaning should be that the churches in the
New Testament should be formed according as the old were, but the con-
trary. Our Saviour Christ had said before, in Mat. xvi. 18, ' I will build
my church ;' and, as he speaks of new keys that are to be given, so by that
he prepares their minds to a persuasion, that he would have a new church
distinct from the former. And then afterward, here in Mat. xviii. 17, he
tells them more distinctly, that they should ' tell the church.' And if it be
said that they understand not what he meant by the word church, or that
they could not apprehend that he meant by it a particular congregation,
and that they knew not too what he meant by keys, for certainly they knew
not the particular ordinances which he intended under that general expres-
sion, the keys of heaven ; and so neither knew they what this new church,
in Mat. xviii. (to which they were to tell) might import ; the answer is
plain, that the Holy Ghost was to come on them, to tell them afterwards.
And, indeed, our Saviour Christ spake of many things which they then under-
stood not, as of the resurrection : Mat. xvi. 21, ' I will destroy this temple,
and build it in three days ;' and also, ' that his kingdom was not of this
world,' John xviii. 36. So when he washed his disciples' feet, they knew not
then the meaning of it ; but he saith, he would * send them the Comforter,
which should tell them all things,' John xiv. IG, and chap. xvi. 30 ; but yet
it was necessary that Christ should deliver the main foundations of all those
truths which the Holy Ghost afterwards should enlighten them in. Moses
delivered many things in the wilderness concerning the government of the
church of the Jews, which they could not so well understand, till they came
into the land of Canaan ; and though they knew not the place that God would
choose, yet many of the laws that Moses gave depended upon it. But,
2. Our Saviour Christ had, according to the liberty that then was given
unto all several sects (though we call not his such), built a church; he had a
little flock, as he calls it; and as he began to institute baptism, and began
to institute the Lord's supper afore he died, so to institute this church; he
began it as other ordinances, afore his death, and he did cast Judas out of it.
And,
72 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK II.
3. The manner is oftentimes to speak in the language of the Old Testa-
ment when the same thing is not meant. As when Christ speaks of the
person offending, Mat. v. 22, he expresseth the degrees of punishment to
several sins, under the names of three courts amongst the Jews, and yet he
meaneth spiritual degrees of punishment. Thus, too, in 1 Cor. ix. 13, the
whole service of the sanctuary is called the allar (' He that serveth at the
altar, must live of the altar') ; yet there is no such altar erected amongst us,
as was amongst the Jews. And the prophets also, prophesying of the times
of the gospel, spake of our ordinances under the notion of the Old Testa-
ment, yet meant other ordinances anew to he instituted ; so in Isa. Ixvi. 23,
' They shall go from one new moon unto another.' Though under the
gospel we have not monthly feasts and meetings as they had, yet the meet-
ings that we have are expressed thereby. And so now here Christ speaks
of a church, that as the Jews had a church, so likewise, under the New
Testament, there should be a church to which oifences should be brought ;
but that officers alone should be that church (supposing that the ruling
officers are called the chui'ch in the Old Testament), it foUoweth not. For
the word presbytery, which was given to the eldership of the great Sanhedrim
of the whole nation of the Jews, is now given to the presbytery of every
congregation. So as though he useth the same word to express the institu-
tion of the new churches of the gospel by, yet it follows not that it is of the
same kind with the old, or that it runneth in the same way. But,
4. We are rather to interpret it by what kind of churches we read after-
wards that the apostles erected. As Moses was interpreted by the prophets,
so is Christ's mind in this to be known by his apostles ; for the Spirit came
on them, and did reveal unto them Christ's mind and intention. The trial,
therefore, will lie upon this, what bodies, and consisting of whom, are called
a church in the Acts of the apostles, and in their epistles.
What that church is upon which the institution of Christ falleth, is not to
be argued merely out of the analogy of the Old Testament, for that will not
set up an institution in the New. But when we have found out what manner
of church in the New Testament Jesus Christ hath instituted, we are then
to consider the analogy of that form thereunto, so far forth as Christ hath
applied it.
Now both in the phrase of the New Testament, assemblies, consisting of
elders and people, and of the saints, are called churches ; and in the words
also of Mat. xviii. 20, ' Where two or three are gathered together in my
name,' Christ tells us his meaning of a church. And unto this church, say
we, doth the analogy of all the church under the Old Testament hold, if you
take the due proportion ; and as the excellent stories and allusions in the
Old Testament are brought into the New, to set forth things that come under
the New, in the book of the Pievelation, in their several proportions (there-
fore, speaking of Rome, he calleth it spiritual Sodom, and Egypt and Baby-
lon, &c.), so we find that all the types of the Old Testament are applied unto
these assemblies. Thus as to the temple, which was the seat of worship,
and the sacrifices there, congregational assemblies have carried away the
analogy of them by Christ's institution ; for they only are the fixed public
seats of worship, where spiritual sacrifices are ofi'ered. In congregations, the
living stones are built up together, to offer up living sacrifices, acceptable
unto God, as in 2 Peter ii, 5, Eph. ii. 22. And unto these assemblies are
the same promises made that were made to the whole nation of the Jews,
when they were a church encamped in the wilderness : ' Upon all their as-
semblies shall be a cloud, and a pillar of fire,' prophesying of the gospel,
sailh the prophet Isaiah, chap. iv. 5. And all the privileges which that
Chap. IV.] the churches of christ. 73
nation had as a church (take them in a spiritual respect) hath every congre-
gation of saints now. This, therefore, is called the house of God, over
which Christ is an high priest, Heb. x, ; which, in ver. 25, he interprets to
be the assembling of themselves together. In the compass of such an as-
sembly also hath Jesus Christ contracted appeals sufficient, for first (says
he) tell him of his fault thyself, then take two or three, and then go tell the
church ; and then he is bound in heaven, as the supremest judicature. Mat.
xviii. 15-19 ; and God hath so advanced the state of the New Testament
above that of the Old, that as the glory of the second temple exceeded the
first, so doth the glory of the saints now in these assemblies excel all former.
Every believer is a priest now ; yea, the allusion in the company of saints
assembled for worship, in Eev. iv., is unto the twenty -four priests that were
over the twenty-four companies of priests. And the officers now are, as the
four beasts in Ezekiel, Rev. iv. 8, and are as angels rather than priests,
called therefore the angels of the churches. Rev. i. 20. The saints all are
a royal nation, and the name of the city of God is written upon every as-
sembly. The great presbytery or Sanhedi-im of the people is the presbytery
of every congregation. Every church is a city unto God ; it is the city of
the living God ; it is the holy city, and hath a government within itself, of
elders within its own gates. Yea, here is the synagogue-government also,
unto which the allusion also is ; and these assemblies are so called, as I
proved in the foregoing chapter. Yea, and as God chooseth the mean things
of the world under the gospel, so he chose that synagogue frame, because
the worship therein was wholly spiritual and moral ; it was not the seat of
ceremonial worship, as was the temple. The government of the synagogues
was natural, to cast any person out of themselves, as all bodies have by the
law of nature, with a punishment suitable annexed, viz., to keep such from
the esteem of worshippers, and that they should be accounted as heathens
and publicans. Thus Christ hath chosen a way more spiritual, more natural,
suitable to the communion of saints, that hath less pomp and glory in it.
He hath taken this Bethlehem, that was the least, the lowest of the govern-
ments amongst them, and hath made it the greatest, and endowed it with
the privileges of all the rest. It hath both national and temple privileges,
and Sanhedrim privileges also ; it hath the spirituality of them all. There
they have the Lord's supper instead of the passover ; there they have the
altar, 1 Cor. x. 16, 17, &c. What glorious things are spoken of in Jer. iii.
14-16 : ' You shall say no more. The ark of the covenant of the Lord,
neither shall it come to mind,' &c. ; 'I will give you pastors, according to
mine own heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding;
and I will take you, one of a city, and two of a tribe, call them out, and
bring them to Zion.' That Zion is where the pastors are teaching, there-
fore meant of congregations. He doth not take nations, but select out of
nations, out of cities and tribes, saints here and there, and formeth them up
into congregations, because they have pastors that feed them ; and in such
congregations is the feeding of the pastors with knowledge and understand-
ing. And this succeedeth the ark of the covenant, having the privileges
thereof. It is a prophecy of the calling of the Jews under the gospel.
And yet if that judicial government (as we may so call it), that was in
Jewry, were the pattern of all church government future, although it would
indeed then, by the analogy of it, erect a national assembly over the lesser
churches, yet even that would conduce more to the establishment of the
congregational way we contend for than our brethren will yield them, and
will militate against the presbyterian pattern as it is practised, and that in
these particulars. For,
74 THE GOVEKNIVIENT OF [BoOK II.
1. First, each town, as well as each city, had all government within their
gates as much as cities ; and the elders in the towns were not to appeal to
the elders in the cities, but immediately to the national assembly. In Ezra
X. 14, there were the rulers of all the congregations (which was all the whole
nation) mentioned, and the elders of every city, and judges thereof; city,
according to the Hebrews, was every little town. Thus Moses is said to be
read in every city in the synagogues, that is, in every town ; for they had
synagogues in villages. Acts xv. 21. In Deut. xvi. 18 (saith he), ' Judges
and officers shall thou make thee in all thy gates,' that is, in every town ;
and therefore the rabbins do say, that if it were a big city, where there were
one hundred and twenty families in it, there were twenty-three sat in the
gate ; if it were less, then but three, for there was no court consisted of less.
2. Secondly, those towns were not ruled by a combination, but had a
government entire within themselves, unless things were too hard for them.
3. Thirdly, the appeals unto the Sanhedrim was only for the decision of
law-causes, in a doctrinal way (as if that the judges of Westminster Hall
should inquire of the parliament for the meaning of a statute ; and were
bound to pronounce sentence according to their interpretation of the law),
though still the judgment of the matter of fact, and to pronounce the sen-
tence itself, was to be done by authority and jurisdiction of each town, like
as we also contend that all censures should be by particular congregations.
Obj. If so, then their government was not uniform.
Aus. Yes, only in lesser proportions ; in the smaller towns, they had
three rulers, and in their cities and greater towns twenty-three, the law of
God not determining how many elders should make up the judicature, either
in the one or in the other ; as also in congregations, God hath not deter-
mined how many, but, according to their proportion and necessity, hath left
a liberty of choosing a greater or lesser number.
CHAPTER V.
That tJwvt/h it were granted that the power of the keys in Christ's institution,
Mat. xviii., ivas r/iven to the elders or officers, and not to tJie j^eople, that yet
in a f/reater probability of reason, the officers or ciders of a particular con-
gregational church are meant. — That in all probability, too, the institution
of such churches ivas designed by him, because tJieir conditions and order
best suits the ends of the edification of liis saints.
If by church, in Mat. xviii. 17, were meant the officers, yet still the
officers of a particular church, for there is a presbytery in every church.
And the mention of two or three doth rather carry it to that meaning. So
that if by church should be meant the elders, yet the question will return,
What elders, in relation to what church ? To a particular church, say we.
Thus when it is said, in James v. 14, ' Send for the elders of the church,'
it could not be the elders of a presbyterian church. Our presbyterian
brethren acknowledge that particular congregations are churches ; the}'' are
the first of the name in this institution, and are first intended, and are there-
fore called ecclesiic primir, the first churches, even by presbyterians them-
selves. We are sure also that particular churches have the name of a whole
church : 1 Cor. xiv. 23, ' If the whole church meet in one.' We are sure,
too, that the first churches in all places were but particular churches, even in
Jerusalem itself. The apostles did not forbear making a particular church in
any place ; they did not stay till Christians were multiplied, so as to make many
Chap. V.] the chueches of christ. 75
churches in one place. Now such a particular church, before churches ever
multiplied, had a government within itself, by virtue of Mat. xviii. 17.
And if so, if here be an institution, it falleth upon it, and it exercises its
government as a church by virtue of its charter.
1. That a particular church is meant in Mat. xviii. is evident, because
it is such a church that is spoke of, whereof a man is a brother ; and now
he is a brother first, and more peculiarly, of a particular congregation ; that
is the reason why you excommunicate him out of the particular church,
when out of none of all the rest. And when you bring the matter at last to
an issue, you tell the church of it more than any of the rest, for that con-
gregation being a church by the order of Christ, it is to be brought unto that
church first, which the offending person hath the relation of a brother unto.
Now, see who are in the right, our presbyterian brethren or we ; they think
themselves bound to tell the church, because he is a brother of it, but not
at first ; whereas Christ saith, Tell this church first, and if he will not hear
what that church says, ' let him be an heathen.'
2. The method that Christ here prescribeth evidently argueth it to be a
particular church; for, 1, saith he, do thyself deal with him ; 2, take two
or three witnesses ; 3, tell the church. This must needs be that particular
church, that is, the next body, for that particular church is a church, and it
is his church ; and it is a body in ascent next to the two or tbree witnesses ;
and if there be any such thing as a church classical, that is a degree be-
yond it.
3. All that are for presbyterial government, do by virtue of this place
in Mat. xviii. tell it to the congregational elders, the presbytery. And so
then, that the particular congregation is meant in this, Mat. xviii., both
their practices and principles do import ; for they argue from this place by
way of analogy. They argue from hence the power of many churches over
any church, because, look what power the first church hath over a brother,
that many churches hath over a church ; and therefore, according to their
own concessions, this first church is first meant as the measure of the other,
and, therefore, what is said here in Mat. xviii. must be first true of the par-
ticular congregation. For they make a combination of churches, for to deal
with oftending or disagreeing churches upon this ground, that a particular
church is that which is here appointed to deal with a brother. If, then, the
argument doth run by way of analogy, then the power of their greater
churches is fetched from the power that this particular church hath. And
they argue that therefore they have an entire power over many churches,
because that this hath an entire power over its own members ; and that
what power is in a particular church, is in the whole body of churches
jointly. And therefore, by the presbyterial concessions and principles, the
institution must first fall upon this church congregational. For if any man
would argue from what power a corporation hath over its members, that the
like power many corporations may have over that corporation, it would im-
ply that that corporation hath an entire power over its own members ; and
look how much of the entireness of the power you take away from the par-
ticular corporation over its members, so much you weaken the argument and
analogy for the power of many.
In a word, all the arguments of all sides, — of papists, that would have the
pope to be the church ; of the episcopal party, that would have the bishops
to be the church, — all argue from the word church. And they say, that a
diocesan hath power in a diocese, because a whole diocese may be one
church ; and so many elders may make up a presbytery over many congre-
gations, because many congregations make one church. So as all these, and
76 THE GOVEKNMENT OF [BoOK II.
the presbyterian government itself, can prove their claim only as they can
make it out that they are a church. Now, particular congregations do, and
may, put first in for it, that they are churches ; therefore, as a church,
they must have a power over their own members, as the other have over
churches, according to their own principles.
4. The first and primary institution must fall upon particular congrega-
tions as the seats or bounds of the first power, whether the institution be
supposed to fall upon them as churches or as a presbytery. If it falls on
them as churches, the greater churches consisting of many congregations are
but ortic, or sprung of this ; if it falls on them as a presbytery, they are but
compounds and decompounds. The native and first genuine church is the
congregational, the other are but representative churches, whenas this is
more real.
5. As the institution of a congregational church in Mat. xviii. most suits
with Christ's aim and design, the communion of saints, so it most agrees
too with that promise of his presence, ver. 20. What kind of assembly is most
likely to be pitched upon by Christ, to be made his court on earth, but that
wherein he is worshipped ; and where there is the personal presence of his
saints, for whose sake he is present with the oflicers of a church, and not as
the}' are oflicers abstracted from the church, or meeting without it ? And,
indeed, it was for the honour of the saints, and was becoming of their state
under the gospel, that not elders alone, but that saints gathered together
with the elders, should be those fixed bodies to which the power should be
given : for so the style runneth, ' the churches of the saints,' 1 Cor. xiv. 33.
And what is the church without the presence of Christ ? And what is more
a church, than that to which more of the promise of the presence of
Christ is made ? Now to the saints, and also to the elders, as joined and
united in bodies with saints, is the promise made. Those promises, ' I will
walk among you,' &c., 1 Cor. vi. 16, Ezek. xsxvii. 26, 37, is made to the
bodies of saints. So then, if we take the state of the saints under the New
Testament, where every one comparatively is said more to know the Lord,
comparatively unto those of the Old, it is answerably in a way of comparison
more suitable to reason, than if the government should be placed upon
bodies formed up, the institution should fall upon such bodies as have both
saints and elders. And if there were no other reason, yet this might be
pleaded for it, that the oificers have, though not formal power from the
people as oflicers, yet a virtual power, concurrence, and assistance (through
the promise of Christ's presence with them) as such from the presence of
the saints, in respect of the execution of their oflice and the blessing thereof,
which they do not carry about them alone, especially in such acts, wherein
they do things as for the people, and which do concern them, as acts of juris-
diction do. Although, as elders dedicated unto Christ, they might have a
blessing in preaching unto them, and that as elders, or in prayer, or the like ;
yet in all ministerial acts of jurisdiction that belong to a church as a cor-
poration, they have a virtual assistance from the concurrence of the people
with them, doing all this in their presence. Thus the elders among the
Jews, besides the blessing of their calling, as being elders, and united into a
body over that nation in a Sanhedrim or council, had also a blessing from the
place where they should meet, the place that God should choose, as also
their sacrifices had ; and should the same Sanhedrim have met out of that
place, they had not had that assistance, neither could the acts have been
counted acts of jurisdiction. This principle the papists themselves seem to
acknowledge, who make the assistance that the pope hath, when he speaks
infallibly as a pope, to be not alone, but in the cathedra, in the chair ; and
Chap. V.] the churches of christ. 77
so in council with the cardinals ; and so in a state or kingdom, though the
ultimate concluding and ratifying of laws doth lie in the king, yet he doth
not do it alone, but having all other estates of nobles and commons present,
or else what he doth is not legal nor binding. Now so, under the New
Testament, though all church power should be supposed to be formally in
the elders, yet not as abstracted from the presence of the saints, which is
instead of the place that God then chose among the Jews, in which they
had an especial blessing and assistance. Nay, he hath now chose a better
temple for elders to exercise their jurisdiction in, temples made of living stones,
that is, churches consisting of saints, from the concurrence of whose spirits,
prayers, and applications, the acts done by the elders in a church do receive
their strength. So Jesus Christ is in the midst of the elders, because his
promise is to be in the midst of the saints, their spirits join and concur
in the act, and so there is an efficacy running along therewith. And this
honour at least was meet to be given by Christ to his saints ujider the New
Testament. For what thongh the elders be as the loadstone, yet as the
virtue and efficacy of the loadstone depends upon its being set in steel, so
the virtual blessing of the elders' actions in matters of jurisdiction (which are
the highest acts of church government) depends upon their being in the midst
of saints that concur with them. And therefore, in Mat. xviii. 17, it is said,
' Tell the church,' that is, the elders joining with, and in presence of the
people. Although the eye is that member that doth see for the body, yet
it hath the virtual efficacy that enableth it to see, from its being placed in
the body ; and as the eye cannot see out of the body, nor can one body
bring in another body's eye to see withal ; so cannot this power of
the elders be carried out of its seat, nor a foreign power be brought in.
And therefore, when the apostle says, in 1 Cor. v. 4, ' When ye are gathered
together with the power of the Lord Jesus;' and so in 2 Cor. vi. 16, 'I
will walk among you ;' and in Mat. xxviii. 20, when Christ promised,
' I will be with you to the end of the world ;' he speaks not only of
ministers, and the successors of the apostles, but of those also that believe
through their word, for so in John xvii. 20 he interprets it, and likewise in
John XV. 16, ' your fruit shall remain,' and so be both with ministers and
saints as successors of the apostles ; this being the honour of the apostles,
not only to have ministers to succeed them, but churches and believers also,
with whom Christ is. And therefore in the Revelation, where Jesus Christ's
presence in the church of the New Testament is presented, with allusion to
that of the Old, chap, iv., although the vision is of the church universal
materially considered, yet formally the representation of it is made as it is
the seat of public worship, and therefore represented under the idea of a con-
gregational assembly, as appeareth (as Mr Brightman and Parker and others
have observed) in that it is set forth in order to acts of public worship per-
formed therein. Thus there is the laver to wash in, as in the temple there
was before they worshipped, unto which the apostle makes the allusion for
meeting in the house of God for worship, Heb. x. 21, 22, 25, verses com-
pared, ' Let us draw near with a pure heart and bodies washed,' which after-
ward (ver. 25) he expounds to be assembling themselves together. And in that
Rev. iv,, the four beasts, who are the leaders and the chorus for worship, when
they fall down and cast down their crowns, the elders do so too. Now those
assemblies, in which Jesus Christ hath thus set his throne and temple, they
consist of elders and beasts having eyes, &c., that is, saints and officers,* for
* See his exposition on the 4th and 5th cliap. Rev. in vol. 2 of his woiks. [Vol.
III. of this edition. — £d.]
78 THE GOVEENMENT OF [BoOK II.
snch is the advancement of the saints now in comparison of those under the
Old Testament, that they themselves are called the elders, and the four living
wights are those four sorts of officers of congregations. The thing we
cite it for is this, that the throne and presence of Christ is with the beasts,
as joined with the twenty-four elders, and in assemblies made up of both.
And therefore the officers are said to be set in the church, 1 Cor. xii. 28, and
so to work still as set in the church, but they are nowhere called the church
itself.
Yea, and though the apostles were made immediately by Christ without a
relation to any special or particular church, and in order principally unto
gathering and rearing up churches, yet the choice of one apostle was made in
a congregational church consisting of angels and people, Acts i. ; and Paul
and Barnabas, though made apostles immediately by Christ, yet received
their ordination in such a particular church, whilst the elders were ministering
unto the Lord in the church of Antioch, Acts xiii. ; yea, and they themselves
ordinaril}' did not exercise any acts of jurisdiction, either of ordination or ex-
communication, but as still present in a particular church. They did not
set up a court unto which churches were to come, but they rather came
themselves and visited churches, ordained elders in every church, with fasting
and prayer in the churches, and ordinarily they excommunicated not (though
they might give general directions) but in a church. And however, if there
might be cases wherein the apostles did excommunicate alone, yet they were
very extraordinary, and no way to be imitated, as their miracles are not.
They did not excommunicate when absent : 2 Cor. xiii. 10, ' Shall I come
with a rod ?' ' And when I come, I shall bewail some of you,' &c. As,
therefore, the apostles did not set up a court out of particular presbyteries,
so presbyteries are not to set up a court out of particular churches. Yea, in
that only instance of a synod which we have in Acts xv., the transactions of
the apostles and elders were in and with that church of Jerusalem, where
the brethren also were present. Thus hath God honoured the saints of the
New Testament, that the promise of the presence of Christ should be made
to them when gathered together with their officers, and that he will be with
the officers even as such for the people's sake. ' You know' (saith the apostle
to the Thessalonians) ' what manner of men we were among yon for your
sakes,' 1 Thes. i. 5. They have not only a ministerial power for them, but
they have a ministerial power through them, as having it for their sakes and
by virtue of their communion, God'spromise being to be in the midst of them by
virtue of their presence. So as although they have not a power derived to
them ah ecclesid, as from the church, yet they have it derived to them in
ecclesia, in the church, and also instrumentally ab ecdesid; and although
they act not the power that is in the church in their stead, and for their ease
doing such acts as otherwise the church should (as those of the separation
have held), yet the assistance of the execution of their power is virtually
in the church, the promise being made to them as a church. Neither are
they the church representative, having a power absent and abstracted from
the people, as is the nature of all representations (for nothing is represented
that is present), but the church itself is the scdes, the virtual seat, in which
this power is exercised, as the body is of the actions of the principal mem-
bers, the spirit, and strength, and vigour of the whole body concurring and
assisting in the acts of all such members, and therefore excommunication is
in the name of Christ, that is, as some say, invocato noniue, or of Christ
called upon ; and so as having the prayers of the people of God to assist, to
put force and efficacy into it. And so ordination is done with fasting and
prayer ; and the prayers of the saints, the least saints, have as much inlluence
Chap. V.J the churches of christ. 79
unto the virtual assistance of the officers in their acts before them as the
prayers of the elders themselves ; and, therefore, the presbyterial acts that
are abstracted thus from the people have not that efficacy in them as when the
body of saints and elders are joined together. So as the institution falleth
not only upon elders, but upon elders and people as a body formed up of
both, not only because all acts of worship and jurisdiction are for the edifi-
cation of the saints as well as of the elders, but it is because that Jesus Christ
will have the assistance of their spirits and of their prayers, &c., which have
as much efficacy in them to prevail with him for a blessing as those of the
elders had.
And in this respect the keys (as was said before) are given unto Peter both
as a saint and as a minister, as both respects considered did meet in him,
when the keys were given to him, so that the words to thee include both ; so
that at least the keys are so given to the ministers as to be exercised before
and in the presence of the saints, having an assistance from the concurrence
of their spirits and desires. The papists would have the keys given to Peter
alone, simply and absolutely, only they say indeed for the church, but they
do not make the church the subject to which the keys are given. Others do
make the church the fii'st subject to whom the keys are given, and not only
for whom, but then they make the elders the representative church, and so
that they are given to elders only to be exercised instead of the church. But
we say they are given so to the church as that if they should not be the
formal subject of parted power together with the elders, yet they are the
virtual subject in which the elders should exercise them ; and hence it is
that the denomination of church is from the saints, and not given to the
officers anywhere in the New Testament. The officers are said to be set in
the church, but they are not called the church. For the church of Christ
must needs be a body to Christ, that still is the periphrasis of a church.
Now, as in 1 Cor. xii. 12, 'A body is not one member but many,' (and from
thence it is rightly argued that a bishop is not the church, for he is but one) ;
so nor is a presbytery of elders, although many, the body, for they bear not
the immediate relation of a body to Christ himself, but are only the repre-
sentation of his body. And as members of all sorts do make a natural body,
not only members that are the principal, and rule the body, but also those
that are ruled and ordered, so is it here.
And when Christ in Mat. xviii. saith, ' tell the church,' having first told
the party alone himself, then brought a brother or two, as the sin of the
ofiending party doth by this increase and grow more heinous, so the number
of those by whom he is now to be rebuked, that are called the church, must
be supposed to increase also, and therefore not two or three elders of a
congregation alone. This last is the last and the highest remedy, and there-
fore the publicness must not lie only in respect that they are public persons,
officers ; for if it be told privately only in a consistory, it is as private as if
it were told to two or three of the bi'ethren before, or^it may so be that the
same elders had been taken to be the brethren that should admonish him.
By the word church, therefore, is meant a greater company, and therefore
not the elders alone, but the elders before the church, or rather the elders
in the church, with whom the church is to join in the admonitions and re-
bukes of him.
If it be said that by making the people thus the church rather than the elders,
it argues that more authority is given to the people than the elders in the
church. The answer is, that that follows not ; it only follows that there is
more efficacy and virtue by reason of the church, and the presence of the
elders in the church, although the authoritv should lie in the elders them-
80 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK II.
selves, as the virtue by which the eye seeth lieth in the body subjectively and
virtually more, though the eye alone is the instrument of seeing.
We ar^ue also for this congregational institution to have been rather ap-
pointed than the other, because that the bounds of this are certain, and are
natural. God (as Baines saith) did never set a church but he did set cer-
tain bounds of it ; as when he made the Jewish church a nation, he set the
bounds of it to be that of a nation. Bellarmine argueth that therefore
bishops are not divino jure, of divine right, because God did not make
dioceses, and did not set them out by lot, as he did that of the tribes. And
it was therefore a great contention among bishops of old, in those times of
the fourth and fifth century, to whose jurisdiction such and such villages
or towns should belong. In a word, the church is God's house, and God
hath not left it unto man to frame his building to what proportion he
pleaseth. Christ's body instituted (which is resembled unto the natural
body throughout the epistles) is to have set limits of it, a maximum quod sic,
and if it have all the parts that can have communion natural in the same
common acts of nature together, though it be never so small, it is a perfect
body ; so as it hath a prescription, and bounds are set it, both for parts,
and a maximum, quod sic for degrees of stature. Now we have natural and
set bounds for all instituted churches, in this way of congregational churches.
1. The same assembly that doth meet for worship is to meet for disci-
pline, so that discipline and worship is of equal extent as touching the seat of
it. Now the public worship is upheld by no other society in a constant way,
nor can be, but by congregations, as many as can meet to edify in one place.
And therefore by preserving of fixed congregations, God hath always pre-
served the essentials of a ministerial church, that although it suffered addi-
tionals of corruption in power, and of tyranny in popish bishops and popes
and the like over them, yet still because the institution of a church fell upon
concreffations, there were true ministerial churches, and a true baptism and
the like in all ages.
2. The congregational government hath its bounds natural from a suf-
ficiency of elders, for the sorts and kinds of them. There is no sort appointed
on purpose or alone for presbyterial government ; as for episcopal, it was
pretended there was ; but even all the sorts that are, the seats of them are
congregational ; and where all are, there is a sufficiency of eldership, as we
shall after shew. A congregational church had elders of all sorts appointed
to it, as for what belongeth to worship, pastors and teachers, and as for what
belon^eth to men's lives, ruling elders ; and there is no more elders but of
these sorts in the greatest presbyteries over many congregations. Yea, the
presbyteries themselves of many congregations must come furnished of all
these sorts, out of their having all these sorts in their particular congrega-
tions. And our presbyteries cannot say. This church shall have a pastor, and
this church shall have a teacher, and this church shall have a ruling elder,
and so we will make up a presbytery out of all these ; but every church is
the seat dejure, by divine right, of all these, and every church hath need of
all these, and Christ hath appointed these to congregations first.
3. We can derive the limits of congregational churches from the time that
is instituted for worship, which is the Lord's day, which God hath fixed,
and on which day no other churches meet, and so there is no set time for
the exercise of a presbyterial church. It is Baines his argument against the
bishops, that God did appoint for all church meetings under the law a time.
And in Tertullian's time we read that the censures of excommunication were
executed upon the Lord's day, and admonition and the like, though things
mi'^ht be prepared upon the week days. And the apostle's words in 1 Cor. v.,
Chap. V.] the churches of cheist. 81
that they shall cast him out when they are met together (he doth not bid
them meet together on purpose), seems to incline to it. We know of no
time that God hath appointed for all ordinances (whereof this is one) in a
set way as the fixed season of them, but only this Lord's day, and upon this
day pi'esbyterial churches cannot meet for government.
4. That the duties which lie upon the relation of elders to preach and to
rule should all be of the same extent (for the subject of them over which
they are exercised), all this fallethin naturally with the institution of congre-
gations, and elders over them, and the relation of elders to them. Men
should not govern ordinarily beyond their preaching. This is evident from
what the New Testament holds forth concerning elders in their relations to
their flocks committed to them, the exhortations and charges to them of
duties towards those flocks, founded upon that relation ; as also the duties
of their flocks to them, which is like to be the truest measure to find out the
extent of their power and bounds of their flocks, whether for the ordinary
way it be hmited to one congregation or many. For those exhortations
must needs be supposed suited to the boundaries of churches, and to that
constitution and extent of relation wherein the elders of these primitive times
were placed over them. And like as in the question about polygamy, what
the Scripture hath said of the duties of man and wife, which were given and
suited to the extent of that relation, as God from the beginning bounded it,
manifestly evinceth that one man cannot have many wives, but one ; so it
may be argued as to the point in hand.
We have hitherto taken this for an undoubted maxim, that as a mutual
relation is the fountain of all power, whether economical, civil, or ecclesias-
tical, so the extent of all power is commensurable with the extent of that
relation. A master, as a master, hath power but over such servants of
whom he may say, * I am your master' ; and they of him, ' We are your
servants;' 'for what hath any man to do to judge another man's ser-
vant ?' as the apostle speaks, Rom. xiv. 4. And so correspondently here,
those elders that assume to be over either one or many congregations,
must have, as the office of elders, so the relation of elders unto that one, or
those many congregations, that they may be able to say. We are your elders,
and you all our church ; which two are, in Scripture expression, the relate
and correlate, as king and kingdom, magistrate and commonwealth ; all
which falls in naturally for the set bounds of a church to be those of con-
gregations. Whereas the bounds that the presbyterial way goeth by in all
their subordinations are uncertain. You have not a certainty of number of
oflicers. Some particular congregations have as many officers as some
classes have had. Neither is it essential to that government that there
should be many congregations ; for they acknowledge that it may so fall out
that there may be but one congregation that may have all the government in
it in cases of necessity. But it is essential to upholding worship in all the
parts of it, that there be a fixed congregational church.
And to make the jurisdiction of cities to be the pattern of ecclesiastical
government cannot be a certain rule. For London, or greater cities (as
suppose Grand Cairo was converted), would vastly exceed the lesser ; and so
the rule would fall in disproportion if you come in the country towns and
villages. And indeed what reason can be given that God should proportion
an ecclesiastical government to the boundaries of the civil '? What ! Be-
cause the cities under the Roman empire had a jurisdiction in them, and
they over their suburbs, must their churches have so too ? Hath God thus
conformed his church unto the government of this world ? And besides, all
VOL. XI. F
82 THE GOVEENJVrENT OF [BoOK II.
states have not the Hke government, neither was the government of all
countries a city government ; and so thei'e could be no certain rule for
church government, if it were to be chalked off by these measures.
Neither is the government of nations a certain rule for that of the church,
for the Jews after that rate, when they were two nations, should have been
but one church. And, indeed, to form the institution of a church to that
boundary had been to do it from what is accidental ; for that they should
grow up to a nation is accidental. God did find the Jews a nation entire,
entered into a covenant with them, and so made them a national church.
And if God had designed a national church under the New Testament, he
would have given laws aforehand, as he did for the Jews when they should
come into cities ; so that, although they were now in the wilderness, and they
were not to come into cities, till they came into Canaan many years after, yet
he giveth a law for that condition of their being a nation and living in cities.
CHAPTER VI.
That conf^rcgational churches were desir/ned in the institution of Christ, proved
from instances of the primitive churches planted hj the apostles. — The first
instance assigned from the states and order of the church at Corinth.
Now, for the proof of all or most of the particulars of which I have dis-
coursed in the preceding chapters, I shall bring, as the conclusion of all, the
instance of the church of Corinth, which is the greatest and surest pattern,
and the most complete of all other. It is the greatest pattern, because it
answers to the institution in Mat. xviii. (as in the directions given to that
church in the 1 Cor. v. and the phrases that about excommunication are put
into it, being compared with that in Mat. xviii. doth appear.) As there
Christ, in the promise that he makes to the church, when it bindeth sin,
useth that phrase, ' Where two or three are joined together, I am in the
midst of them,' Mat. xviii. 20 ; so here likewise, in 1 Cor. v. 4, the apostle's
direction runs in the same phrase, ' when you are gathered together.' As
there Christ saith, ' gather together in my name,' so here the apostle saith,
. ' when ye are gathered together in my name, and with the power of the
Lord Jesus.' As Christ there in his promise saith, ' I will be in the midst
of you,' when ye are so gathered ; so here, speaking of their gathering to-
gether, and throwing him out of the congi-egation, the apostle useth the
same phrase, ' Take him from the midst of you.' As there, upon his being
cast out, he is to be reckoned as an heathen and a publican, with whom the
Jew'S would not eat, so here, if a brother be thus, they are not to accompany
with him, no, not to eat with him. It is the surest instance of the ordinary
power left in a church, because it was a church that was formed up, in which
there was that ordinary government which was to continue to the end of the
world. The instance of the church of Jerusalem is an instance, though of
the first church, yet for the government of it hath this extraordinary in it,
that it was then governed by the apostles, and therefore cannot make a pat-
tern of the government of churches, and the power of elders therein, which
should ordinarily and for continuance be exercised. But this is an instance
of a church Vv^hom the apostle Paul leaves to their own power that is within
them ('Do not ye judge,' &c., 1 Cor. v. 12), which they had exercised and
practised. The church of Jerusalem also had many other things extraordi-
nary, as that about having their goods common, &c. But the rules that he
gives to this church are such as he gave to all churches ; so when he speaks
about laying up, not making their goods common, as at Jerusalem, but the
Chap. VI.] the churches of chkist. 83
ordinary way that was to be observed conceruiug alms, * Lot every man lay
up' (saith he, 1 Cor. xvi. 3, 4, vii. 17) 'as God hath blessed him; and so
I ordain in all the churches.' So as the pattern hereof is held forth, as that
which held correspondency with the ordinances in all churches in the primi-
tive times. And therefore is* an argument against the bishops ; when they
urged the instances of Timothy and Titus, presbyterian divines used to
answer, that the instance of their government will not hold as a pattern for
episcopal government, because that their government was extraordinary and
for the present, but that we must take that which was the ordinary govern-
ment that was left in the church, and make that the pattern. So we may
say of the church of Jerusalem, and the government thereof at first by the
apostles, whilst they were there, comparatively to this of the church of
Corinth, that it is not so great a standing pattern to us. And this of the
church of Corinth is the most complete pattern of all other churches, for he
doth give direction almost about all sort of things concerning worship and
government, and he utters more rules in his epistles to this church than any
other. Thus he gives instructions concerning the sacrament, 1 Cor. xi. ;
about ministers' maintenance, chap. ix. ; about matter of scandal and offence,
chap. viii. ; about collection for the poor, chap, xvi.; how to order their
meetings, chap. xiv. ; about covering and uncovering in their assemblies, he
saith he had left ti'aditions with them, and wherein they practised according
to his traditions he commendeth them, 1 Cor. xi. 2. He speaks also of the
power amongst them to judge of doctrine, chap. xiv. ; and that they were a
church that had power amongst them to order things for matter of worship
in a decencj' — ' Let all be done decently, and according to order,' 1 Cor.
xiv. 40 — and many things of the like natui-e. And last of all, it is the only
instance and example of excommunication, the highest censure which the
apostle gives direction about, and tells them they had power to do it, 1 Cor. v.
Now, concerning this church, there are all these things appertaining to a
church, and the institution, and power, and government thereof held forth
here ; as,
1. Here is a church ; so it is called.
2. Here is the qualifications of the members, a church of saints, 1 Cor.
i. 2, conformable to which all other churches were to be as to the constitution
of their members also : chap. xiv. 33, * As in all the churches of the saints.'
All the churches consisted of saints then, that were visibly such, as this of
Corinth also did.
3. It was a church formed up into a body, as all those phrases imply, that
they are called a whole lump, chap. v. 6, and a whole church, chap. xiv. 23,
entire, complete within itself; which whole lump would be leavened, not only
by way of infection by the incestuous person, but by way of guilt, if ho were
not cast out.
4.1 It was a body which had power to judge them that are within : ' Do
not ye judge them that are within?' chap. v. 13, that is, within your own
body, and society, and fellowship; therefore he saith, 'Put away from
among yourselves,' chap. v. 13 ; therefore he useth those phrases, ' Forni-
cation is committed among you ; that he that did this deed may be taken
from among you,' chap. i. 1, 2. It was a church formed up that had a
jurisdiction over them within (and to them without he could not reach) ; and
if they had power to cast out, they had also power to take in ; it was therefore
a formed body.
5. It was a fixed body in respect of the relation of the members one unto
another. Why else doth he bid them to tarry one for another when they
* Qu. 'in'?— Ed.
84 THE GOVEKNMENT OF [BoOK II.
were to eat the Lord's supper ? chap. xi. 33. And that they should not take
the sacrament alone, one company by themselves, and another company by
themselves, which, if such a promiscuous unfixed way was lawful, they might
have done, but thej' were to tarry one for another, that all the church might
as one body at once receive. Now, if they had not been a fixed company,
why should they have been obliged thus to have tarried, or who could have
known who was absent and who present ?
•6. It was a church also that had elders over them, and those more than
one; for speaking of the ordinary teachers that were ministers amongst
them, some say (saith he), * I am of Paul, and I am of ApoUos, and I am
of Christ,' 1 Cor. i. 12 ; which he in a figure transferred to himself and to
Apollos, herein speaking in his own person ; but it tendeth to represent the
persons of their teachers, the ministers to whom they did give maintenance,
and were therefore officers : 1 Cor. ix. 12, 'If others be partakers of this
power over you, are not we rather?'
7. It was a church having set bounds, by which they might know who
were within and who not ; for when he saith, ' Do not ye judge them that
are within ?' 1 Cor. v. 13, he doth not mean all saints in all churches, but
it must be tliose within themselves. The bounds set by this, that they
might be as many as could meet in one assembly, 1 Cor. xiv. 23. ' K the
whole church be come together in one place,' &c.
8- It was a particular congregation. 1. This is evident from their divi-
sions and contentions, which he findeth fault withal, as in a whole church,
a whole body, ' that there be no schism in the body,' as he himself expresseth,
1 Cor. xii. 25, applying it to them, ' now ye are the body of Christ, and mem-
bers in particular.' He speaks of these divisions as being among those that
did meet in one for worship : 1 Cor. xi. 18, * For first when ye come together
in the church, I hear there be divisions among you, and I partly believe it.'
And this division was in their meetings in the church for worship, 1 Cor.
xi. 22. And ' have ye not houses to eat and drink it, but despise ye the
church of God ? ' the assembly of the saints, as he reproves their divisions
and disorders in respect of the sacrament. To remedy these divisions, he
bids them tarry one for another, ver. 33. Thus these directions concern
them that are one congregation for worship, that use to meet in one place ;
and, chap. xii. 21, he saith they were members of one another in particular,
in a more special relation. Now, that special particular near relation is that
between those of the same congregation, where they meet fixedly for wor-
ship, by the consent and before the people, of which a man is therefore cast
out, which he is not out of any other church in the world. 2. In this respect
he calleth them a temple to God, spealdug against them that caused divisions
in the church : 1 Cor. iii. 16, ' The temple of God are ye,' and that he that
went about to destroy it by divisions, God would destroy him. He speaks
not personally of each member, as in chap, vi., but in respect of their church
state, as they were a body, in opposition to divisions. Now the temple is for
all the ordinances of worship, therefore called the house of God. 3. He
gives directions to them as to a whole church, chap. xiv. 23, ' If the whole
church be come together in some place.' 4. He speaks of it also as a
church, which was to receive edifying together by the ordinances adminis-
tered, so chap. xiv. ver. 5, ' I would that ye all spake with tongues, but
rather that ye prophesied : for greater is he that prophesieth than he that
speaks with tongues, that the church may be edified ;' so ver. 12, ' See that
ye excel to the edifj'ing of the church.' And if the whole congregation, &c. ;
and ver. 2G, he speaks this in application to them all in respect of their
meeting : ' How is it then, brethren, when ye come together,' &c.
Chap. VI.] the churches of christ. 85
As their assembly for worship proves them to have been a particular con-
gregation for worship, so also the directions given concerning excommuni-
cation evince it, chap v. ; for if they had been many congregations in respect
of their members, 1. He would have written to that particular congregation
whereof the man was, as that congregation (at least the elders thereof) which
should (according to presbyterial principles) be told first of an offending
member before he is brought to the classical. He would have named that
church he was thus a member of, and written to it in a peculiar manner,
whereas now he names none, but writes to the whole church. 2. When his
dii-ections come to fall upon the execution of the act, he doth not mention
the sentence so much that was to be passed (according to our brethren) in
the presbytery, but the act of execution, the act of delivery to Satan, was to
be done when they were met together ; which being to be done in that par-
ticular church whereof he was a member, if there had been many congrega-
tions there, he would have named that church as that in which it should
have been done. Especially considering that the apostle in his writing
pitcheth upon that solemn act of excommunication, which completeth the
throwing of a man out, which, as all grant, is done and performed in the
gathering together of that particular congregation, whereof a man is a mem-
ber. 3. If there had been a classical church over many congregations where
the elders meet, and a congregational church too, where this person did meet
with the elders of his own church and the congregation, if there had been
these two several sorts of church meetings, it would have been obscure and
dark, unto which the apostle's directions should refer him ; so as there
would have been need of new distinctions of meetings as well as of elders
and churches, when the apostle speaks but of one. Yea, the apostle saith,
' when met together,' 1 Cor. v. 4, namely, for other ordinances upon the
Lord's day, that then they should give this sentence of excommunication.
He doth not give directions that they should meet together on purpose for
that, but as discipline is to keep worship pure and subserveth it, so also is
it to be performed when the whole meet together for worship, that the person
also may see out of what a communion he is cast. 5. Saith he,. ' Do not ye
judge them that are within ? ' If there had been congregational churches,
one whereof he had been a member of (for he could be but a member of one),
and another classical church, here had been two vHthins, and which of these
should the apostle intend ? Our presbyterian brethren say, that the con-
gregations have power to judge things within themselves, so that they must
needs have one u-ithiii, and why should not their within be the within here
intended for the ultimate throwing out of this man ?
9. This church at Corinth also had an entire judicature within itself, not
depending upon the advice of any for sentence, and the like ; for he speaks
of the whole act, ' Do not ye judge them that are within ? ' He useth the
same word that he useth of himself and his power, ' Do not ye judge' (saith
he), speaking of them ; ' what have I to do to judge,' speaking of himself.
And (saith he) ' when ye are gathered together with my spirit, and the
power of the Lord Jesus, to deliver such an one to Satan.' So that they
were not dependent upon the apostle, to come to him for the sentence ; only
in their neglect the apostle writes to them as an apostle, with this rule, to
excommunicate such an one if the parly be found guilty, which the apostle
did never know but by hearsay, therefore could never pass a judicial sen-
tence ; but he finds fault with them, because they had not done it, for do
not ye use to do it ? saith he. Have not ye power to do it ? ' Do not ye
judge them that are within ? ' He doth not say, * whom I have delivered
unto Satan,' but directs them as a church of Christ having such power to do it.
86 THE GOVEBNMENT OF [BoOK II.
Object. But it is objected by'some that he did it for a trial of their obedience,
and therefore their act was but an act of obedience in them, but the power
was in him.
Ans. The answer is this, that the power might completely rest in them,
and yet they obey the apostle in the act, as an apostle directing them, when
they neglected it ; as when a prophet in the name of God bade the magistrate
to do his duty, though it is an act of obedience in him to do it thus com-
manded, 3'et he hath power as a magistrate in himself. And as in case a
minister had neglected to baptize, and the apostle had sent to him or com-
manded him to have done it, the power of baptizing must be said to be in
him that baptizeth.
10. If this church of Corinth had been a church that might have asso-
ciated, it would have done it, for it had neighbour church near it, the church
of Cenchrea, which was a port town to Corinth, as Leith is to Edinburgh ;
and Cenchrea was but a small town, not a city ; but he writeth to the church
of Corinth as an entire church distinct of itself.
That the people have an interest in judging, we refer that to the proofs
out of this place, only we name it here to shew the completeness of this
pattern, for the forming of congregational churches answerable to it.
CHAPTER VII.
That the nam^ of a church given in the New Testament to conrjregational
churches rather than any other [as is proved from several texts, 1 Cor. xi.
18, Rom, xvi. 1, 5, 1 Cor. iv. 17, dc), proves congregational churches to
have been intended by Christ in his institution of a church, they most pro -
2)erly being both in name and nature such. — T/iat a presbyterian assembly of
elders cannot lyroperly be called a church, evinced by several arguments.
To decide the controversy about the divine institution of a congregational
church, we may put it to the trial, whether single congregations with their
elders have more the style of churches in the New Testament, than the elders
of many congregations as assembled in a consistory, and let that determine
it. Now that those congregations where God is publicly worshipped, and
the preaching of the word, and the sacraments administered, are called each
of them a church, is evident.
1. In 1 Cor. xi. 18, ' When you come together in the church,' he speaks
of their meeting for the Lord's supper, ver. 20, and in ver. 22 he calls it so
again. So their meeting for preaching and for singing of psalms, he calls it a
church, chap. xiv. ver. 2, 19, 23 ; he calls it a whole church meeting for
those ends. And there he gives not the name to the meeting or assembly,
but to the state and company, ver. 28, for the rules he giveth there are for
ordering of worship. So too in Rom. xvi. 4, saluting Aquila and Priscilla
(who for his life would lay down their own necks), he giveth these congre-
gations the name of churches ; 'unto whom' (sai'h he) * not only I give thanks,
but also all the churches of the Gentiles ;' and ver. 16, ' The churches of
Christ salute you.' Were those a company of elders over many congrega-
tions met ? presbyterial churches, that did testify their thanks unto Aquila
and Priscilla ? Or were they congregations of saints and strangers also
where Paul had been ? He had related unto them his own danger, and
Aquila's, and Priscilla's, exposing their lives for his ; and can it be
supposed that the saints, as making several presbyterial churches (who
are so vast, like ours, as the people never meet to do it), did salute
Chap. VII.] the churches of christ. 87
the Eomans, and Aquila and Priscilla ? No ; rather the several con-
gregational churches might well have an opportunity to express the re-
membrance of them at their meetings. And the first verse and the fifth
verse of Rom. xvi. "will easily prompt us what manner of churches he
meaneth, when he speaks of all these churches, that they were such as
was at Cenchrea ; ' the church which is at Cenchrea,' saith lie, which was
a small port seven miles off Corinth ; and ver. 5, saith he, ' Greet ye the
church that is (i. e. that met) in Priscilla's house.' Such churches as these
were the churches of the Gentiles, who saluted them. If we come to the
epistle of the Corinths, saith the apostle, 1 Cor. iv. 17, ' As I teach every-
where in every church.' Doth he mean these presbyterial churches or con-
sistories, or congregational ? Surely the churches where Paul still preached
and taught must be congregational ; for those assemblies are the subjects
and seats of teaching. Take also the 17th verse of the 7th chapter, and
bring it along unto the 11th chapter, ' So I ordain in all the churches ;' and
* We have no such custom, nor the churches of God.' What ! presbyterial
or congregational ? Let but this one consideration decide it. The custom
of which he speaks that the contentions were about, was whether men should
be uncovered or covered praying or prophesying. Now, all the meetings for
worship where men and women, and where the angels (whether celestial or
elders), were present, these assemblies where these ordinances were used he
calleth churches, and he saith they had no such custom. And in these re-
spects of meeting thus for worship they are distinguished, churches, and are
made several churches, in the plural ; and the general usages of all these
churches, as constituted and ordered by the apostles everywhere, he here
presseth. If we come to chap, xiv., he there gives order about prophesying
in their meetings, into which strangers came and were converted ; ver. 25,
in which they had psalms and doctrines ; ver. 26, where men and women
were present ; vers. 34 and 35, and therefore congregational meetings are
meant. And he enforceth these directions he gives, with the examples of
all the like churches in all their meetings : * God is not the author of con-
fusion, but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints,' ver. 33. These
must needs be congregational assemblies and churches that met, for he speaks
of the churches of the saints in common. Yet still, you see when he speaks
of churches, yea, and of all churches, he speaks of them as such. And, chap,
xvi. 1, when he writeth about laying up contribution for the saints (the
gathering and disposing of which belongeth unto particular congregations,
for the money, to be sure, is had from thence) : ' As I have given order,'
says he, 'to the churches of Galatia, so do ye;' he meaneth those churches
of Galatia he wrote to. Gal. ii. ; and these must be all congregational, for
to order that collection belongeth to the several congregations. And ver. 19,
' The churches of Asia,' saith he, 'salute you.' Now, the many congrega-
tions under a presbytery, they do not meet to give salutes ; they were there-
fore congregational, for with a congregational church in this salute he doth
join them all ; for he addeth, ' Aquila and Priscilla saluteth you, with the
church that is in their house,' and why should we not think that he speaks
uniformly in the same verse ? This, we see, is the uniform style of the
apostle when he speaks of churches, and of all churches.
2. As for the very name church in the New Testament, the place of con-
gregational meetings almost in all languages hath the name of church, which
name no places for general councils or presbyterial meetings over many con-
gregations at any time have had. Not that we think the place of meeting
to be properly called the church, but only ■/.arayjniartxZic,, but yet it had
originally its name from the meeting and the persons, which were properly
88 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK II.
called the church, and from their stated condition to meet in one place, the
place was so named. The clergy, indeed, hath been called the church, but
not as met or assembled in any synod, but in the indefinite universal notion.
But the place for the congregation is called the church, and the meeting of
the saints hath the same name : 1 Cor. xiv. 34, ' Let your women keep
silence in the churches.' And their constant meeting in a fixed manner, and
their state in order thereto, is called the church, Acts xi. 26. The sacra-
ment also was anciently called eum^ig, i. e. the meeting, their meetings being
said to be to break bread. Acts xx. 7. And in the great Bible the word church
is always translated by congreyation. And among the Grecians, ' 'Exx'f^riGia
was never used for a representative meeting only of officers, but of the people
also ; and so it is in Acts xix. 39-41, where the people making a tumult, it
is called 'ExxX^ff/a, although an unlawful one. And although that Christ,
Mat. xviii., used the Hebrew phrase, yet churches being to be set up among
the Gentiles under the New Testament, that phrase was used also which was
conformed unto what theirs signified.
Also, under the New Testament, the name church imports the saints, the
people, in a more peculiar manner ; and therefore the meetings where elders
are severed from the people are not called the church (Grotius in Mat. xvi.
18). And this too the expressions which are used in 2 Cor. vi. 16 shew ;
' Ye are the temples of the living God ; I will dwell in them, and walk in
them ; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.' And in Acts
xii. 5, ' Prayer was made of the church,' i. e. of the saints, ' unto God for
Peter.' Yea, this word church is taken for the people of Israel under the
Old Testament, as Acts vii. 38.
3. We desire one place to be given where the name church in all the New
Testament is given to the meeting of the elders alone. When the apostle
speaks of all the churches, he gives them this appellation, ' all the churches
of the saints,' 1 Cor. xiv. 33 ; but he nowhere expresseth the churches of
the ministers or elders, no, nor of the apostles neither. Now, can we think
that Christ in his first institution (Mat. xvi. and Mat. xviii.), which the
apostles were to interpret afterward, and to give directions to us about it,
meaned the word church in a signification different from what the apostles
used ? This would be a strange procedm-e indeed. How, then, can the
elders lay a claim to the things, when they have not a sufficient ground to
challenge the name of a church ? As Parker, replying to Dr Billson's asser-
tion of the keys being given in Peter's person to the church of ministers,
very well says,* that it may be denied that the name church is ever in the
Scriptures restrained only to the priests. Clemens Romanus, when he
writes to the church of Corinth, writes to the church, and not to the presby-
ters (so the apostles too in their epistles), and writes also from the church
at Rome. And when all the apostles were met at Jerusalem, yet they alone
are not called the church, being but (as Moses is said to be, Heb. iii. 2-5, a
part of the house, but nowhere called the house) a part of it : Acts viii. 1,
' The church was scattered except the apostles.' And indeed, if the elders
were the entire church, then they were the house of God, whereas they are
but stewards in it, 1 Cor. iv. 1. The apostles, though they had the care of
all the churches, and that power in their hands which the generality of elders
would never claim, yet they were but officers in the church, not the church.
Many churches become one church to no officer in the world but Christ; but
this pretence of the elders being the church, would make many churches one
church to a company of elders, that they may govern them ; and in relation
to them as representers of the church, they must be called one church.
* Parkerus de Polit. Eccles. lib. iii. c. i., Clemens Epist. ad Coriutb, p. 1.
Chap. VII.J the churches of christ. 89
What though the Old Testament frame or language be urged, we grant
there was then a church representative, but the gospel knows no such now.
4. Surely a settled congregation of saints deserveth the name of church
more ; and suppose places could be found in Scripture where it is taken both
for elders and the people apart, yet those meetings that have both elders and
people of both sorts must needs have more of church in them. We can give
instances that the disciples apart are caUed the church, in distinction from
the officers. You cannot give one instance where the officers are called
the church in distinction from the disciples. Certainly those that have
the power have the name, and not those only that have the name equivocally
or metaphorically.
5. A presbyterial church is called a church in relation to the people of
those congregations, by their own confessions, when they interpret the church
of Jerusalem, the church of Ephesus, to be many congregations (and the
presbyterial's argument is built thereon), and that the people of all those
congregations make one church under that one eldership. Now, it is strange
that they should have a name of church only as they are the subject or ob-
ject of discipline, and yet not so much as meet for that discipHne actually
neither, for so they cannot in a presbyterial church. The poor people of
those churches have no communion of saints together herein, but such as
they hold with all other churches that are not under the same presbytery ;
and yet they are, according to presbyterial principles in their officers, as re-
presenting them, a distinct church classical from all churches else. So they
make use of the name from the people, when the people enjoy not the thing.
The poor church of Jerusalem, Acts viii. 1 (when it is said that the church
was scattered), affords you an argument that therefore there was but one
church for discipline in Jerusalem, and in that respect it is called one
church, when yet the scattering was not upon the presbyterial church that
exercised discipline, but upon the people. They were not in the repre-
sentative body persecuted, and yet though they were scattered as a church
personally, and not representatively, and persecuted as a church personally,
not representatively only, yet, according unto the presbyterian principles,
they never met as a church personally, but only representatively.
If it be said that the people in classical assemblies may meet ; yet it is
no otherwise than the people in the next classes, which if they will may come
thither, neither can they all possibly. You lay no more obligation on them
to be present than you do upon the people of the next classes, and therefore
in that respect the people of that particular classis are no more of that church
than those of other neighbouring presbyters.
6. Those assemblies must have more of church in them, not only that
have both elders and people, as congregations have, but that have constant
worship in them, as well as government ; and our presbyterians allow some
government to congregations, i. e. to the elders of congregations. Worship
is the chief end of a church. The formal notion of a church is to meet and
communicate in worship ; and where there can be no church- fellowship and
communion to the edification of the whole, there cannot be a church, which
may be illustrated by the natural body, to which still instituted churches in
Scripture are compared. The eye, the hand, the head, they serve to several
uses m the body, yet they are so united as they are all nourished with the
same individual nourishment, and from the same stomach, and therefore
this is a several body, having all these parts, from another body. So is it
here in the churches instituted, they are such as have a communion in all
the common ordinances, not only in the same kind, but in the same ordi-
nances individually in a constant way. And the analogy of the church uni-
90
THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK II.
versal, and the churches particular, will help to illustrate this further, for
the church universal being one body, is therefore fed by one kind of ordi-
nances. As there is one body, so there is one baptism for kind. But the
particular churches which are instituted, are such bodies as are fed with one
and the same individual baptism, and one and the same individual Lord's
supper, and so are one bread. In a word then, all can come to those
classical churches, or they cannot come. If they come, then they are to
make one church for worship too ; if they cannot come, then there cannot
be a fellowship for the edification of the whole ; and when the communion of
saints cannot be exercised, how can that be a church ? Every chui'ch is a
temple : Eph. ii. 22, 1 Cor. iv. 16, ' The temple of God are ye.' Now the
temple did chiefly relate to worship, and was the subject of all ordinances,
and the place where the Sanhedrim sat too. Answerably under the New
Testament, the preaching of the gospel is called serving at the altar, 1 Cor.
ix. 14.^ tio 1 Pet. ii. 5, the saints are built up to oiler sacrifices. God's
house is called an house of prayer. The church is called a body to Christ :
' One body and one bread ' (as was said afore), 2 Cor. x. 17, because they
partake of one bread. But none of these do belong to a presbyterial
church ; they may pray occasionally, but the ordinance of prayer and con-
stant worship is not there. Public worship lies in a commuuion, therefore
it is to be only with those that can enjoy communion together. Yea, it is
made the very definition of a church in the article of the church of England,
which article we hope will never be changed, Ecclesia est numerus fidelium
(so others also defiine it) in cultu divino et discipUna commmiicantium. The
church is a number of believers communicating in divine worship and dis-
ciplme, which a presbyterial church is not. The end of a church is that
God may be publicly worshipped ; he would not have instituted churches
else, but principally for that, therefore he had cougregations to do it, in
which only it is done ; and discipline superadded is but to keep that kind
of worship pure, for government is but casting out of the body impure
members ; and therefore the great ordinance of discipline, of excommunica-
tion, is when they are met together, then they are to cast out from amongst
them. As the intent of it is but to keep the worship pure, so answerably it
is to be exercised then when they meet to worship ; but presbyterial churches
meet not for worship, but discipline only. Now as the body is ordained for
meat principally, and nourishment, and is not ordained for physic but
occasionally, so it is as to the state of the church, and therefore our divines
make the essential notes of a church to be the word, sacraments, and dis-
cipline ; but in these presbyterial churches the word and sacraments are
wanting, and there is only government. The general assembly of the saints
in heaven is a church in relation unto worsbip, and though there is no dis-
cipline there, yet they are never more a church than when they are there.
And the apostle also, speaking of the church in the New Testament in Heb. x.,
saith that now there is an house of God, because there is an high priest,
as well as before, ver. 21 ; and therefore (he saith) ' Let us draw near ' (he
speaks of public worship), ' not forsaking the assembling of ourselves to-
gether,' ver, 25, and that in synagogues, for so the word signifies. And
therefore in Mat. xviii., as discipline, so prayer is meant, and unto that is
the promise of Christ to be in the midst of them more peculiarly made, and
upon occasion of that. And indeed it were exceeding strange, that seeing
the chief end of churches (which are congregations) is for worship, and that
is the great business for which they are appointed, that if there were many
congregations in those of Jerusalem, and those of Antioch, and the hke, as
is pretended, that there should not be mention of those many congregations,
Chap. VII.] the chukches of christ. 91
under the names of churches, but that discipline only must carry away
the denomination of their being one church, though many in relation unto
it. If there were one word in any of those instances, that there were many
churches among them making one church, it were something ; but there
is not.
7. If such a presbyterial company of elders were a church, then discipline
must merely constitute a church as a church. And so the objection against
the episcopal government, viz. that for government alone there was an order
of priesthood, namely, a bishop, will come with greater force here, as being
very strange, that for government alone there should be a church instituted.
And that discipline doth never constitute any kind of church is clear, because
that which can abesse, not he, and adesse, be, without the destruction of the
subject, will never constitute it. But so all divines do say of discipline,
that a church may be a church, though it be defective in discipline, there-
fore it is not that which doth constitute a church. And this principle the
church of England is concerned to hold up, or else they will justify separa-
tion from them, as having been hitherto no true churches. But lo, here is
a church, a presbyterial church, that is a church upon no other considera-
tion but for discipline.
8. And add to this, that since presbyterial government makes congrega-
tions (which are churches, having each their elders over them) to be united
for government unto one presbyterial church, let us but consider how many
several churches it makes.
(1.) For, first, there is the particular congregations, consisting of people
and their elders, for worship ; they are one sort of churches.
(2.) There is, secondly, the eldership in everyone of those congregations,
which, according to their principles, is the church, for they interpret Mat.
xviii. to be, tell that eldership, that is, tell the church ; there is a second
sort.
(3.) Then, thirdly, there is all these elders met in one for the government
of any of these congregations ; there is a third sort of churches. For these
elders must be a church in a true sense for the people, or they cannot meet;
and if they will challenge government by virtue of Mat. xviii., they must
needs challenge to be a church. Now let it be considered, that those are
not so much subordinations as national and provincial (which are but sub-
ordinations of the same kind, for the same ends), which consists of greater
or lesser number of elders ; but these are diversifications, several sorts of
bodies going to make up one church, that it might be complete both for
worship and government. And that it is a diversification is clear by this,
[1.] Because they are churches for difi'ering purposes. The congregations
are churches for worship, but the particular elderships and presbyterial
elderships are only for discipline ; now ends do diversify such bodies.
[2.] They are not the same churches by way of accumulation, as many
things of the same sort laid together, which is clear by this, because the
particular churches consist of people and elders, but these have elders of
chui'ches only. And as we urge in our argument that is drawn from elders,
that this presbyterial government would make one man to be a double sort
of elders, both a ruling and a teaching elder, — a ruling elder to some
churches, and a teaching elder to others, — so also this makes them several
sorts of churches.
[3. J It must needs make a diversification of churches. For as when
many families unite into a city for government, there is a new relation and
notion, so now here, there is the notion of a new church. And then,
[4. J Add to this (which heighteneth the absurdity of it), that whereas the
92 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK II.
presbyterial church is made the complete church, they yet do want those
great and main ordinances for which principally a church is said to be a
church, as the saci'aments and the like. So of the two, this greater church
is the less complete, and therefore is less the church than a particular con-
gregation.
And if 3'-ou say they are made complete churches by being both, yet you
make at leastwise two sorts of churches, as we said before ; and you make
a whole church more uncomplete as it is in the whole than it is in the parts.
If it be said that the church universal is one, and yet hath no ordinances
as a church, as preaching the word and sacraments, and yet it is truly a
church, we answer, it is not a church instituted in relation unto ordi-
nances, but a church mystical in relation unto persons and personal graces.
This also farther addeth confirmation to us, that the supposition of there
being many congregations in all, or many of those cities, under a common
presbyterian government of many elders, thus in the general only held forth,
leaveth room for, yea, is the occasion of, a variety of suppositions of several
frames and forms of government which those congregations might be cast
into, both in relation to their officers and to the members mutually among
themselves. 1. As that either they were conventus promiscui (as Didoclavius
calls them), promiscuous unfixed assemblies, some meeting together at one
place or time, some at another time with others, having no fixed relations.
Or else that they were fixed meetings, in respect of the members divided
into set determinate companies meeting constantly together. 2. Or else,
otherwise, supposing them set and fixed congregations in respect of the
members, yet there are other as various and more difficult suppositions that
may still be made concerning the relation of these officers and elders, how
they were disposed of to the right performance of their duties, which the
command of the word lays on them toward their flock ; as whether they
were either fixed and appropriated to these several congregations respectively,
some to one, some to another (as it is in most of the reformed churches,
and is with us, and we suppose will not be altered amongst us), or else un-
fixed in respect of all the congregations, so as equally and mutually in their
course these ministers might preach and officiate to them all by turns (as
in some cities in Holland). And then, 3, if you suppose them fixedly
divided into several congregations, then another question cometh, what
power those elders that are appropriated to each congregation should have
over the flock ? Whether over all, or none, or some part ? Now it is the
supposition of there being many congregations under one presbytery, that
only is the ground of this uncertainty, and bringeth in this variety of sup-
positions of these several ways how these things should be cast, whereas the
supposing of them to be but several distinct churches, though great ones,
will make all things fall in naturally. For then there could be but one way
of casting and moulding members, nor could there be but one common re-
lation of elders ; and so all those duties and things that are spoken about
the power and duties of elders, and of the members amongst themselves,
and whatsoever is spoken of churches and elders, their dues and duties, run
all but in one channel. And then consider too (supposing them many con-
gregations) that the designing out which of those suppositions was the pat-
tern left by the apostles, was a matter of as much moment (as touching the
point of the right ordering of congregations) as this common presbyterial
government can be supposed to be of, inasmuch as it concerns the execution
of all mutual duties between people and pastors, and the administration of
all holy things amongst them, appertaining to this particular government of
the several congregations ; and upon the right ordering and settlement of
Chap. VIII.] the churches of cheist. 93
them, and of these elders' relations to them, doth the right government and
administration of all holy things depend. And yet consider too, at the
same time, that we do not find the Holy Ghost making so much as a men-
tion of any such distinct subordinated congregations to a classis (only the
multitudes of behevers are looked upon through multiplying glasses to argue
it), much less giving any hints to discern by, in the history of the apostles,
or in the epistles, what the frame was of these supposed churches, and what
their particular special relation to elders in this supposed variety was.
There is not anything to any such purpose extant, in either that instance of
Jerusalem, or any other of those examples of cities, that are pretended to
hold forth this multitude of congregations making one church under one
common presbyterial government. This hath long and doth still stick in
our consciences, because the Holy Ghost is silent, and hath not left us the
least footsteps in the sacred history, to discern in which of these ways (sup-
posing many congregations thus making a church for government) the
apostles did settle the constitution of this church, and how they did dispose
the relation of these elders and officers to those several congregations.
CHAPTER VIII.
The instances of the churches settled by the apostles in the lesser cities and
villages, prove a congregational church to be according to the apostolical and
primitive form.
Let us now go over all the examples of the churches in the New Testament
(which must interpret Christ's speech in Mat. xviii.), and let us see whether
they were classical or congregational. For the instance of the church of
Jerusalem and the like, we will speak to them under the consideration of
the churches in greater cities. But let us now go over all the other.
The first churches we read of in the beginning of the gospel are in Acts
ix. 31, ' Then had the churches rest throughout all Judea, and Galilee, and
Samaria, and were edified,' &c. These are called churches in that common
notion whereby churches constituted by the apostles were distinguished one
from the other. And is this their diversification and title of churches like
to have been in a classical respect or congregational, as here he speaks of
them generally ? Let the words and circumstances of the story be consi-
dered.
1. It was in the beginning of the gospel that these churches had been
raised ; and the special means we read of whereby they were erected, was
Peter and John's ministry, of whom we read, chap. viii. 25, that ' returning
to Jerusalem, they preached the gospel in many villages of the Samaritans,'
as also some of the dispersed from Jerusalem had done. Ver. 4, ' They
went everywhere, dir/Xdov, they went through all or about,' namely Judea and
Samaria, as Philip in Samaria, ver. 5. And as their preaching had been
everywhere, and in villages, which is chiefly noted, ver. 25, so accordingly
the churches that were constituted out of those converted, are said to have
been in all Judea and Samaria, &c., and therefore in villages. For that the
Holy Ghost should aforehand in the Acts so remarkably relate their preach-
ing in many villages of Samaria, and then make mention of churches through-
out Samaria, argues his intent to have been to shew that these churches were
those in these villages ; and these not as gathered into cities, but remaining
throughout Samaria, as the gospel had been preached in the villages. Nor
needed they now (for they had rest) forbear to hold up their church-fellowship
94 THE GOVEENMENT OF [BoOK II.
in the several places of tbeir abode. And therefore when upon this rest Peter
took the opportunity to visit them (as in the next verse of that 9th chapter
it is said Peter passed through all, namely, as it is translated, all quarters
where these churches were scattered, some here, some there, up and down),
all of them, whether in cities or in villages, are in one uniform respect called
churches, for his speech wherein he involves them all promiscuously is
similar, and so meant of the same kind of churches. Now is it imaginable
that throughout these regions or countries the churches whereof he speaks
should be all such classical churches as are now amongst us, when at the
beginning of the gospel but a few saints and professors of Christianity can
be supposed to be scattered everywhere up and down ? It was well if, by
reason of their being so thin sown up and down in those regions, they could
make up congregational churches with elders to them.
2. When it is said that these churches had rest and were edified, is it
likely he should speak this of these churches as classical, as such which
meet but in their elders for exercise of discipline ; or rather of these churches
as enjoying rest in the ordinances of worship on the Lord's day, public
prayers, the word, sacraments, and all other means of edification and com-
fort, for the preservation of the purity of which, discipline doth but sub-
serve ? They are the congregational churches, and the communion the
saints have therein, that are the great means of comfort, edification, and
multiplication of churches ; and the enjoyment of these, in rest, is that
which is the greatest outward mercy and privilege. And therefore when
he sets out the condition of those times, ' Then had the churches rest, and
were edified,' he means congregational churches. And when he says the
churches were multiplied, which if understood of more and new churches
erected, doth he reckon their multiplication by presbyterian churches, that
do consist of many congregations each of them ?. Is it likely a multitude of
many more such churches were erected ? No, rather they were so many
fixed congregations of believers.
2. Let us come to the next mention of churches in that story. Acts
xiv. 23 (slipping over that church of Antioch, chap, xiii., the demonstra-
tion of which to have been a congregational church, we refer to another
place, when we examine the state of churches in cities), 'And when they
had ordained them elders in every church, and had prayed with fasting, they
commended them to the Lord, on whom they believed.' That these were
congregational churches, will appear in like manner by the like circumstances
of the story. In Acts xiii. 14, we read that Paul and his company came to
Antioch in Pisidia, where the Jews refusing the gospel, * Lo, we turn to the
Gentiles,' said Paul and Barnabas, ver. 46, ' For so the Lord hath com-
manded us ; I have sent thee to be a light of the Gentiles, that thou shouldst
be for salvation to the ends of the earth, and many believed ;' and ac-
cordingly, ver. 48 and ver. 49, ' The word of the Lord was published
throughout the regions.' Then chap, xiv., Paul and Barnabas fled to Derbe
and Lystra, cities of Lycaonia, and ' unto the region that lieth round about,
and there they preached the gospel.' Here again, as afore in Pisidia, so
now in Lycaonia, not in cities only, but in the regions they preached. And
this is noted to shew the spreading of the gospel (for to what end else should
the preaching of it be recorded ?). And ver. 21 it is said, that when at Derbe
they had taught 'r/.avouc a sufficient competent number in that city, they
went again to Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch, the chief cities of those
countries Lycaonia and Pisidia, in the regions of which they had preached
the gospel, as well as in those cities. And the story relates that the end
and purpose of this second visit of these places was to confirm the disciples,
Chap. VIII.] the churches of cheist. 95
ver. 22, and to gather them into churches, and ordain elders over them,
ver. 23, whom they had afore preached unto and made disciples. Thus
they made fit matter for churches by making disciples, ver. 24, and then
moulded and formed them up into a way of order for worship and govern-
ment by elders established in the several congregations. For these churches
they thus formed and ordained elders unto were surely congregational. For,
1. If we suppose them to have been only the disciples in these cities of
Lj'stra and Derbe, Iconium and Antioch, yet it is not supposable that in
each the number of disciples should arise to more than one congregation in
a city, now in this beginning of the gospel, and in so short a time ; and yet
they were formed up into churches, and had elders in every church. Or,
2. Can we suppose that the apostles stayed gathering them into those
churches with elders till their number would arise to many congregations in
each city sufficient to make classical churches, and that they did not till
then constitute them churches, nor placed elders over them ? Can it be
imagined they would keep men out of ordinances so long, or that themselves,
being apostles, and to sow the gospel in the world, would still stay so long
till everywhere such members did arise ? Yea,
3. The 21st verse intimates (in the instance of Derbe) their manner to
have been (and as there so in other places), that when they had preached the
gospel to that city, and had taught many (or as the word is, '/-/.moiig, made a
sufficient and competent number of disciples, and sufficient for what ?
ver. 23, to make up a church, and whereof some might be fit persons for
elders therein), then they used to leave that city and went to other places,
as there it is said they did, and so long to stay there till there were a suffi-
ciency for a church and elders ; or if before they could accomplish this, they
were driven out, then they either returned to form them into churches with
elders (which was their end of coming this second time to Lystra and those
cities, to confirm the disciples, and ordain them elders, as now to become a
church), or else afterwards sent evangelists to them.
And 4. As those disciples were in the regions about as well as in the
cities (for afore it was noted in the story, that in the regions about, both of
Pisidia and Lycaonia, the gospel was preached), so it must be supposed that
these churches were set up in the countries about, as well as in the cities.
And it is hard to think that all the Christians should leave their callings and
dwellings they were bred and born in, to come up to the cities to make
classical churches, or that they were so many converted in the villages as to
make classical churches there. Paul saith, 1 Cor. vii. 10, that he ordained
in all churches, that men should abide in the callings wherein God called
or converted them in ; and to suppose that husbandmen in the countries
should leave their callings of husbandry, &c., and come up to the cities,
where they could not exercise that calling, to leave their livelihood, and
wives converted to leave their husbands, children their parents, servants
their masters, and come to dwell in the cities only, and not rather have
churches made up in the countries also, is hard to think. But,
5. And lastly. These could not be classical churches here, but congrega-
tional, for it is the first ordaining of these elders to these churches that is
here mentioned, and not an associating of many congregations into one
eldership ; and therefore here is a gathering congregational churches, and
ordaining elders thereunto apart, -/.ar sxx.Arj(jiav. And there must be a
sufficient company of Christians ere a congregational church is made up, as
a number of congregations with elders must be supposed ere a classical
church can be framed. This being therefore the first framing them into
churches, and ordaining them elders (or else you must suppose churches long
96 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK II.
afore tlaey had elders), it must be in a congregational way. And further also,
there is this reason, that these congregations being then fixed for officers
and elders, if these elders were ordained to these churches, their ordination
as elders must be to their several churches respectively, and not to the
common eldership made up of them. And such were called churches, endowed
with elders proper unto them, and so much the word (and that is added in
that Acts xiv. 23) doth import, ' they ordained or chose auroTi to them
elders in every church,' that is, to every church they chose their own proper
and pecuHar elders, fixed and appointed unto them.
That this was the primitive way of planting the gospel may further be
confirmed by that parallel place to this, Titus i. 5, where there being many
believers already converted (as many passages in that epistle do argue) and
vet not in most places formed up into churches with elders, the apostle left
Titus an evangelist (whose proper office it was, as appears by the epistle,
and that to Timothy, to settle believers and churches in their right frame and
order, according to the apostle's directions given), to ordain elders in every
city or town (as shall be shewn by and by) where any number of believers
were to make a church, and where fit and meet men for elders might be
found to set over those churches. And that which Luke, in the fore-cited
Acts xiv. 23, calleth ' ordaining elders in every church,' Paul here calleth
' ordaining elders in every city,' and the one interprets the other. And the
apostle's practice there is here turned into a command or direction, as given
to Titus, which therefore, as it bound him, binds us to the ends of the world ;
and he adds, * as I appointed thee.' Now his meaning is, not that elders
shoiild be ordained in every city simply as it was a city or body of men,
for elders and church were relatives, as shepherd and flock, and therefore
elders were not ordained but to a church ; and therefore to say he ordained
elders in the city, necessarily supposeth a church extant in that city unto
which these elders were ordained, and therefore the ordination was only in
such cities or towns where a church was, and a competent sufficient number
of behevers to make a church. For that must needs be the reason why
Paul himself did not cast and mould these people in Crete converted by him
presently into churches with elders as fast as thej^ were converted, because a
church should have a convenient competent number, and fit men to be
elders unto them, before they be formed into such a body. And therefore
he being called away too soon, he left Titus behind him to finish that work.
The writers for episcopacy have made use of this place to shew that in
the apostle's times they planted churches only in cities (and it is certain
that they bestowed their pains chiefly therein), so that they make the apos-
tolical institution to be, that look how many believers soever were in a city
and the villages about it, so many were to make one church diocesan for
government ; and therefore to ordain elders, xar' IxxKriaiav, in every church,
Acts xiv. 23, is all one, and to ordain elders Kara <7r6'Kiv, in every city, as
here, Titus i. 5, and this by the apostle's own ordination, ' as I appointed
thee,' i.e. over these cities, and so the churches therein and the vicinity
thereof, he as one man was as a bishop set. And some of those for the
classical government do make use of the same notion, that all churches in a
city, when multiphed, were by apostolical institution to be but one church
for government, as well as at first when they were but one congregation ; and
the elders at first planted in that first chm-ch were still to continue, together
with all the elders that should anew be set over those churches, as one elder-
ship, a presbytery unto them in that city as one church. The appearances
for this opinion we shall speak to when argumenis for the presbyterial govern-
ment come to be discussed. In the mean time, as to this place, if we inter-
Chap. VIII.] the churches op cheist. 97
pret it by that former, and consider all circumstances, it makes for congre-
gational churches and elderships over them. For,
1. This direction was given to Titus, now in the first beginning of the
gospel in Crete; for Paul having newly been there with him, and having con-
verted many up and down in the island, he left Titus behind, to ordain them
elders. So as here was the first erection of churches and elders ; and there-
fore it was in the beginning of the gospel, at which time all the saints, in
each great city converted, were but as many as might make but one church.
And it was the duty of saints, that all the saints in a place cohabiting should
join in one, rather than in divers companies, for worship, and all ordinances,
and not divide, both because of unity and more presence of the Spirit, and
the solemnity of the worship, and for all these ever to continue one church,
till absolute necessity would cause a division into many ; hence in this be-
ginning of the gospel, he writes to him to ordain elders in every city, because
his ordination was, that saints cohabiting should make one church, and
not divide for all ordinances, and that they should have elders, more than
one, set over them, both for worship and government, because, de facto,
there were but so many in the greatest cities as would make but one church.
And,
2. This being interpreted by the former, xara 'ttoXiv by xar s-/.zXri<rlav, city
here therefore is not meant literally the extent of a city, but metonymically
it is put for the church then extant in any city, and so doth not necessarily
import that the extent of the church government should be by God's ordina-
tion equal to the extent of the city ; as if because there were in a city so
many as would make more churches, he was not to ordain them elders, xar
exTiXrisiav, in every church in those cities, as the apostle had done, for they
were not to be elders to that city, as a city, but to the churches in that city ;
and as congregational churches are meant in Acts xiv., so also they are
here intended. But,
III. And chiefly, as church by church, in Acts xiv., was not in cities
only, but in villages, or market country towns, so here also zara mXiv is to
be understood, for the word mXig, when indefinitely used (as here), is taken
not for great cities only, but country towns. And according^, in the New
Testament, when the planting and propagating the gospel is mentioned, the
business here spoken of and concerned, we find that when the commission
to preach the gospel is given to the apostles and disciples, that the word
mXig is taken for villages as well as great cities, as being those they were
sent to preach unto, as indifterently and promiscuously as to cities ; and,
therefore, when like directions are given to frame churches, and set up elder-
ships over them (as here), it is answerably to be taken. Thus in the com-
mission given, Mat. x. 11, whereas Christ says, 'Into what city or town ye
enter,' the evangehst Luke says, chap. x. 8 (uttering the same commission),
' Into what city ye enter.' That word therefore is put for all and both, and
therefore he useth a general indefinite word, hg nv 3' av toXiv, ' Into what-
ever city ye enter;' that is, city of any sort or kind, small or great, as in-
tending towns, as well as cities strictly so called. And further, he, in his
speech, useth it as the contradistinct term to house or family, of which he
had said before, 'into what house ye enter,' so now into what city, and there-
fore intended to take in all sorts of towns, consisting of more families than
one. And the practice of the twelve apostles, who had received commission,
in Mat. ix. interprets it ; ver. 6, it is said they went through towns, preaching
the gospel, where the word towns is only used, as including cities, as in Luke
the word cities only is used, as including towns ; and so the one promiscuously
VOL. XI. G
08 THE GO\^RNMENT OP [BoOK II.
is put for the other ; for in the preceding verse, ver. 5, Christ, in his com-
mission given, calls them cities; 'When ye go out of a city' (says he) 'where
you have preached, shake off the dust ;' and then, in the execution of this
commission, they are called towns, 'they went through the towns preaching,'
ver. G. And further, in Mat. x. 23, when Christ teaching them if they
were persecuted where they preached, to fly ; if they persecute you in one
city, fly into another ; that is, if persecuted in one town, fly into another ;
what, were they persecuted only in great cities? Yes, in towns, for they
were whipped in synagogues, and synagogues were in villages. Mat. x. 33.
And is the direction given to them to fly into smaller towns, if they might
be safe there, as well as into cities, or there only were they to have the pro-
mise of protection ? So Acts xiv. 6. Paul and Barnabas fled to Derbe and
Lystra, and the regions about, as well as to the cities, and there had safety,
and preached the gospel. And Christ further adds in that place, ' you shall
not have gone over all the cities of Israel,' &c., that is, the towns, for in
towns they preached. And so Christ himself preached in all cities and
towns, and so did the apostles, and it was their commission so to do.
And it seems there was something special in the state and condition of
Crete, why the word '^rokig should be there used. Crete is but a small island,
and there are at this day but three cities in it. In the apostle's times, there
were four hundred cities (for so Pliny, who lived not long after them,
relates) said to have been in it, which were but small towns. And there-
fore Beza hath translated it opjyidatim, town by town, as also so under-
standing it.
Now, therefore, if the word 'ttoXiq be indefinitely taken for country towns,
as well as great cities, when commission was given to preach the gospel,
why should it not be taken also in that sense, when direction is given to
make up churches, and ordain elders to them, in the same places where it
hath been preached ? And therefore to ordain elders, Kara tgXiv is not to
be confined to cities only (where many congregations, as is supposed, have
been), but in country towns, or very small cities (when in Crete there were
so many), where churches may be supposed to have been, and those to be
sure but congregational, and in both such cities and towns only where
churches and saints, havoi, sufficient to make churches, were found. So
then -/M-d 'xoXiv, city by city, Titus i. 5, and zar exxXriaiav, church by
church. Acts xiv. 23, are all one. And if in greater churches there were
more than one elder, then their elders were ordained y.ar r/tyCkriSiav, church
by church.
And surely it is a hard supposition to suppose that in Crete the apostle
Paul, and Titus the evangelist, had preached only in the cities, when the
commission was to teach all nations, and therein towns as well as cities, as they
. had occasion. Was God's elect in cities only ? and were not country souls
as precious ? And if they be converted unto God, were not they to be
taught to do what Christ commanded, as well as those in cities ? and to be-
come churches, and to have the privilege of all ordinances ? Or were they
to come up to the cities for them, and to the elders there, as the tribes did
for judgment to Jerusalem ? These are harder suppositions than what the
presbyterians put upon us, as an absurdity, that the fruit of the apostles'
preaching should in great cities arise to the conversion but of so many, as
to make but one congregation.
And besides, if city should here, Titus i. 5, be taken strictly for greater
cities, then here is no commission to Titus to ordain elders to churches else-
where. And so then the institution of the bounds of a church, and the ex-
tent of the jurisdiction of elders, should be cast rather to the mould and
Chap. VIII.] the churches of cnrasT. 99
extent of great cities ; that if one city, then one church, one eldership, though
there were never so many congregations in it ; and thus elders in every city
is to be understood of greater cities, then not of the churches in towns and
villages, where there could rationally be but one church in a town. But
why the pattern of church government should fall upon, and be framed
rather to the example of a city, and so conformed to the mould of the civil
government in cities especially, and not as well upon the way of country
towns, when Kara 'jtoXiv will import the one as well as the other (and the
pattern surely was uniform in both), we see no ground of reason for differ-
ence. Why should we imagine that the apostle should still so have in his
eye in these directions to Titus, classical presbyteries (which are but the
external government of the church), as to take care of the ordaining elders,
as in relation hereunto, and not much rather for the ordaining elders in
order to the worship of God in churches, and for the establishment of their
relation of elders to congregations or churches.
Let us go on fi'om, these fore-mentioned, to all other that are either called
churches, or where the saints, written to by the apostles, may by circum-
stances be supposed to have been gathered into churches, under elders and
officers.
In the epistles of James and Peter, written to the scattered Jews, we find
mention of elders, and therefore there must be supposed churches, whereof
they were elders ; and we find indeed mention of elders of the church ; and
let the circumstances be considered, whether those may be more rationally
supposed congregational or classical. Let us consider their condition.
1. They were Jews scattered, and as some probably conceive, were many
of them of those scattered. Acts viii. And as such, both of these apostles
did write to them ; and as scattered up and down vast regions, whole coun-
tries, Asia, Bythinia, Cappadocia, and therefore not thick sown (being
strangers), nor in multitudes, living so near, that they can be supposed to
have made associated churches.
2. Those scattered persons, therefore, must rationally be supposed to have
made up churches of themselves, as those of the Dutch strangers do in Lon-
don, and the English in Holland ; and not to have promiscuously mingled
themselves with those natives of the countries they were scattered into ; for
they had a differing language from the Gentiles, though turned Christians.
And this we find in Aquila and Priseilla, who being Jews, and having had
a church in their house (namely of Jews), in Rome, as chap. xvi. of that
epistle ; and afterwards the Jews being banished from Rome, Acts xviii. 2,
Aquila and Priseilla removed, but kept their church together still distinct
from the native Asiatic Christians. Therefore, in 1 Cor. xvi. we read of the
church at their house in Asia, and as some think at Ephesus, and there
joined or mentioned with the rest of the chui'ches of Asia, in Paul's salute
unto the Corinthians, and is mentioned apart from them, because it was a
church of Jews, strangers scattered among them, and kept distinct from
them. And yet it was such a kind of church (though less) that all those
churches in Asia, made mention of together with it, were of (both that par-
ticular church, and all the rest, being alike spoken of promiscuously under
the name of church and churches, as being all like churches) ; and it will
easily be granted, that that church in Acjuila and Priscilla's house was con-
gregational, for it is an instance alleged by the Assembly at Westminster, of
many congregational churches in Ephesus, whereof that was one particular.
Now look as Aquila and Priseilla, and their fellow strangers, kept a distinct
church of their countrymen (which is the reason that church is in two
epistles so apart singly mentioned), so in like manner did these scattered
100 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOZ II.
strangers cast themselves into churches of themselves, and their own nation,
distinct from the other Gentile believers in the places where they came.
And it was usual then for the Jews to have synagogues for them of their
nation in several cities. And, therefore, both James and Peter writeth unto
them apart as strangers ; and they involve not the mention of any Gentile
Christians with them, because they themselves were apart from them. And
yet they -writ to these thus scattered and kept distinct, as to churches that
had elders, ' The elders that are among you' (says Peter), 1 Pet. v. ver. 1, 2,
sv v/uv. The phrase is of distinction, that as they writ to these Jews apart
from the Christian Gentiles, so the elders that are h ufj,Tv, elders of you Jews,
peculiar to you, that is, that belong to any of you. And therefore James,
chap. V. 14, also exhorts them that were sick among them, or of them, to
send for the elders of the church, not as if these had but one church, for
that was impossible, being scattered over so many countries ; therefore he
speaks indefinitely, as giving a direction that they should send for the elders
of those churches where they were, so as they had churches and elders. And
these elders must be considered (in that speech) as elders of congregational
churches (as was afore observed), for how can it be imagined that men scat-
tered so far ofi" from one another, should be commanded to send (when sick)
for the elders of a church classical, and such a church and elders, as com-
mon to such churches, to be intended ? The sick persons could not send but
for elders that were ready at hand ; and therefore a congregational church
is meant and intended, and the elders of it. And, therefore, farther in the
second chapter, the same apostle James, speaking in the like indefinite man-
ner, ' if a man come into your synagogue,' s'lg rriv auvayuyTiv (says he, ver. 2),
that is, into any of your synagogues where you worship, a phrase proper to
express their church meetings unto the Jews (seeing, as was said, they had
synagogues in several places). And what in the 5th chapter he calls the
elder's of the church, here in the second he calls a synagogue, calling their
assembly (as it is well translated) such. And these elders of the church
(which was a phrase suited to the Greek idiom) is in analogi€al phrase of
speech, or by way of simihtude, all one as to say, rulers of the synagogues
among the Jews, their churches being congregational, of as many as could
meet to worship, like as the Jews' sjmagogues were ; and their elders as their
rulers, and the government of these Christian synagogues of Christian Jews,
like to the government of those Jewish synagogues, that were scattered up
and down out of Judea in Gentile cities (whereof we so often read), which
was an entire government within themselves, for they were therefore called
rulers of their proper synagogues. And according unto the analogy of those
assemblies of churches of theirs, with their elders over them synagogue-
wise, is that in Peter (who wi'ites to the same persons) to be understood :
1 Peter v. 1, 2, ' Let the elders among you feed' (by preaching and ruling)
' the flock' (indefinitely taken as synagogue in James, and for the several
flocks respectively) ; and in that he writes to them to feed by preaching as
by ruling, and the same to do the one that did the other, it falls in with the
former notion, that he means congi-egational elders, who as they are fixed
for feedinfT by preaching to one flock, so they must be for ruling also, or else
these are divided in their extent, when yet the precept both is alike given,
and made of like extent. But of this hereafter.
Chap. IX.J the churches of christ. 101
CHAPTER IX.
That the account which the Scripture gives us of a single chnrch established by
the apostles in one city, demonstrates congregational churches to have been
by the primitive institution of Christ.
We now will go over all other instances of congregational churches, as they
appear settled by the apostles in cities.
1. The church of Colossians was but one, which is argued by this, 1. That
the apostle, writing to that church, writes to them as a whole church; and also
that their ministers that were over this whole church were fixed ministers unto
them ; and, if so, then that whole church could be but one congregation, for he
that is a fixed minister hath a relation, for hia teaching, but to one congre-
gation. Now their chief minister Epaphras was a fixed minister to that
church : Col. i. 7, ' who is for you a faithful minister of Christ :' chap. iv. 12,
' Epaphras, who is one of you.' If there had been many congregations, to
one of which he had been fixed, he had been more that congregation's
minister than all the rest ; and his special rela/tion had been to them, and
therefore his salutation would have been mentioned, as especially to his own
church, more than to all the rest of the congregations, as his labour and pains
(when constant among them), was more to that particular congregation than
any other. Since, therefore, his salutation is to all the Colossian Christians,
it is evident that they were but one congregational church, whose pastor he
was. And again, the apostle writes to the whole church, as those that had
learned the gospel of Epaphras, who was for them a faithful minister. Now
if Epaphras had been a fixed elder to one congregation, and there had been
many more there beside, that one congi-egation had been the congregation who
had comparatively learned the gospel of him, more than all the congregations
besides ; and Paul would not have written thus indefinitely, and alike of all,
if there had been many. For he had been a faithful minister only to that
congregation he was fixed to, and properly theirs as concerning communion,
by way of learning and teaching, wherefore the apostle would have singled
out that congregation in his speech from all the rest, if there had been more
than one. And then, as to their other ministers, Archippus,- Col. iv. 17,
the apostle enjoins them to say to him, ' Take heed to the ministry that
thou hast received of the Lord, that thou fulfil it.' Had he been a fixed
minister to one congregation, and there had been many congregations there
besides, the main of his ministry lying in his preaching and personal watch-
ing over that one congregation he was fixed to (for that which a minister
doth in ruling in common over all the congregations, according to the classi-
cal suppositions, is the least part of his ministry), the apostle would have
singled out that congregation, with whom he walked continually, as those
that should have said to him. Fulfil thy ministry ; because that they who
were his constant hearei^s must needs be best, if not only acquainted with
what the fulfilling of the main and constant part of his ministry was, and
with what were any neglects or defects therein. Seeing, therefore, he
Avrites to them thus indefinitely, in relation to their own ministers, without
any distinction, it argues that they were but one church, having these elders
fixed to them for preaching and government. And of this church he saith,
that for their faith and order, for their doctrine and worship and govern-
ment, they were complete, and his heart was comforted, as well in the one
as in the other. Col. ii. 2, 5 ; and he encourageth them to walk in both,
according as they had received of Jesus Christ the Lord ; and, if so, then to
keep that order too (which akeady they had), without any alteration, to
102 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK II.
which he would never have exhorted them, if it had been their duty (when
multiplied to more chui'ches) to enter into another diJSferent order and form
of government, xar' sxx>.»j(j/ai/.
2. There is the church of Philippi. The apostle speaks of them in the
beginning of the gospel as a church, saying, Philip, iv. 15, that 'in the
beginning of the gospel, no church communicated to him by way of giving
and receiving, but only them -, ' and in the beginning of the gospel, even in
the greatest cities, a church was no more than could meet together in one.
Now, look what manner of church they were at the first, he speaks of them
as such still, and useth the same style : ' No other church but you,' saith he.
3. The church of Antioch is another that is to be considered. It was an
entire church, having government within itself. For if it could have dis-
cerned that controversy in Acts xv., and so had been capable of deciding it, it
had power to have done it, and need never have sent to Jerusalem. They did
not, therefore, as wanting power, appeal thither as to a court of judicature,
but only sent for advice and counsel in a difficult case, wherein their opinions
disagreed. ' And the church at Antioch ordained that Paul and Barnabas
should go to the apostles at Jerusalem, to consult them about this question ' ;
and it was as one church that they did thus determine ; also of Barnabas and
others, that * for a whole year they assembled themselves with the church,' or
in the church, h <rfj h.yJ.yjdi'a, ' and taught much people.' And the word
sKzXrjaia relateth to assembling together ; so the kind of the church must be
answerable to the kind of the assembling ; and if the assembling was for
worship, then the church in which they met was a congregational church,
which is the seat for worship ; and we believe that none will say that many
churches are ever called one church in respect of assembling for worship.
But here that they assembled for worship is plain, for they assembled them-
selves in the church and taught much people. Now the church in which there
is teaching is a congregational church. And besides that, he saith it was
in the church (as the Greek hath it), not only with the church. If there had
been several congregations in this city where the word had been taught,
speaking of assembling for teaching, if ever, or at any time he would have
mentioned those many congregations, surely he would have done it upon
this occasion, especially relating to matter of fact, he would have spoken
distributively. For why should he call congregations churches upon other
occasions (as often he doth), or in any other relation, and not upon this ;
whereas the relation here is purely congregational, for it is for teaching the
word and worship ? Again, 2, we read twice of the meetings of that church
together, Acts xiv. 27. When Paul and Barnabas came back to give an
account to those of Antioch, from whom they had been commended to the
grace of God, it is said, 'When they were come'and had gathered the church
together, they rehearsed all that God had done by them.' Did they make the
relation to the classical elders only ? Did not the rehearsal concern all the
people, as well every soul amongst them as any sermon, it being to shew
how God had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles that they might
glorify God ? And in Acts xv. '30, it is said when they came to Antioch to
deliver the epistle from the church at Jerusalem, they gathered the multi-
tude together, and at that time made a sermon, an exhortation to them; and
he calleth this multitude brethren : ver. 32, ' They exhorted the brethren
with many words, and confirmed them.' Thus, as the meetings in the
church of Jerusalem are six or seven times mentioned to be in one, so the
church of Antioch is here twice so mentioned.
4. We have an account of the church of Troas. A church they were,
for they had elders ; and elders they had, for they had the sacrament ; and
Chap. IX.] the churches of cheist. 103
it was at a meeting but in one place, Acts xx. 70, and Paul stayed there
seven days, till they met. They all met to break bread, and all in one ; for it
was in an upper room where Paul preached to them, and if there had been
more congregations than one, he would have preached to one at one time,
and to another at another time.
5. By the churches of Galatia (as they are styled 1 Cor. xvi. 1), doth he
mean congregational churches or classical ? Congregational only ; for, first,
when he speaks of them, it is concerning collection for the saints : ' Even
as I have given order to the churches of Galatia, so do ye.' Now the order
for collection for the saints concerns congregational churches, not classical :
' Let every one of you, upon the first day of the week, lay up in store as
God hath prospered him ' (i. e. lay up in the common treasury of the con-
gregation), ' that there be no gathering when I come.' And then, 2, if they
bad a provincial church, he would certainly have called them so in his
epistle to the Galatians ; but when (as we see there) those churches were
corrupted with corrupt doctrine, and he exhorts them to purge out the old
leaven. Gal. v. 9, he then writes to them as to churches that were apart, to
purge out the old leaven, as the church of Corinth did, and each to become
a new lump. If they be considered as one lump, yet it was as being
leavened by way of infection, but that in 1 Cor. v. is by way of guilt.
6. The church of Laodicea, mentioned in the epistle to the Colossians,
was also but a congregational church. Col. iv. 16. * When this epistle is
read amongst you, cause it to be read also in the church of the Laodiceans.'
That church wherein reading the word is, is a congregational church, for
reading is a work of worship. And if in other places he had ever called a
church in relation to government consisting of many churches, yet here,
if there had been many churches, and many churches for worship, he
would have said so, and have thus expressed himself, ' Let it be read in
the churches of Laodicea.' He would have spoke of the duty, and of the
subject of the duty, in a suitable way. When he speaks of the reading of
the word among the Jews, he saith it is read in every synagogue every
Sabbath day ; he speaks distributively, and so he would have done here.
7. I shall now proceed to prove that the churches of Asia were congrega-
tional churches.
1. That the church of Laodicea was a congregational church we refer to
what hath been said.
2. Five of these Asiatic churches even Downam acknowledgeth not to have
been in great cities ; and such are to be supposed probably to have but one
congregation, those smaller cities containing but Christians as made one
church in each of them.
3. The constitution of all those churches for worship and government was
one and the same; and therefore, if Laodicea and some of the rest were but
congregational churches, then all the rest were so too. For they are in-
tended all as types of all churches to the end of the world. Now, if some of
them had been congregational churches, and others had been classical, they
could not have suited the state and condition of all churches, both congre-
gational and classical, which have a government and a constitution different.
And the apostle, Rev. ii. and iii., writes to the angels of those churches, as
having an entire government among themselves ; and he writes to them
about matters of discipline, and therefore regards them as uniform for the
matter and seat of government. And if that be true, which some historians
have reported,"" that Laodicea was destroyed by an earthquake in Nero's
reigu, long afore the time of John's writing the Revelation, then it must
* Tacit. Annal. lib. xiv.
lOi THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK II.
needs have been intended only as a type. And that all these churches were
uniform, appears by this also, that in the closure of this epistle, what he
writes to one church he writes to all, ' Hear what the Spirit saith unto the
churches,' which is all one with the conclusion of the whole book in Rev.
sxii. 16, *he sent his angel to testify these things in the churches.' And
if congregational churches be acknowledged churches in the Scripture phrase,
they must be intended in that speech ; and that those should be mainly in-
tended appears by this, because that the book of the Revelation was only to
be read in such churches. And likewise that they were congregational
churches appears by this, that he writes to them as to the seven candlesticks
which Christ walked in the midst of, and he threateneth them that he would
remove the candlestick. Now, by candlestick he interprets the churches,
chap. i. 1. ; and they are candlesticks especially in relation to worship. It
was an ordinance of worship in the temple ; and it is therefore in Zech. iv. 2
put for the completing of all the temple for worship, and all the utensils of
it, for though their Sanhedrim for government might be complete before, yet
the temple was not then built, in which God was to be worshipped ; and
indeed the promise of the presence of Christ is most in respect of worship,
which the saints are most constant in ; and when he threateneth to remove
the candlestick, certainly the chief threatening falls upon their church state,
and the enjoyment of the ordinances of worship, such as preaching, the
sacraments, &c. And whereas some would argue many congregations to have
been in every one of these churches ; bishops have done so, because in the end
of each epistle he concludeth, ' Let them hear what the Spirit saith to the
churches,' as having many churches in each church of them ; we answer,
1. That it is a speech all one with that in Rev. xxii. 16, ' I have sent
mine angel to testify these things in the churches ;' for as that is the closure
of all, and is meant of all churches, so this is the closure of each epistle, and
is meant by way of example of all churches in the world, he singling out
seven for all the rest.
And 2. It is but such an indefinite speech as that in Rev. xiii. 29, ' If any
have an ear, let him hear ;' so here the meaning is, let every church hear.
And 3. If that notion be true of Mr Brightman's, that they are types of all
churches to come to several nations (as it is most probable they are), then it
hath a clear other meaning than that of there being many particular churches
in each of those cities.
To conclude, we find that in all those epistles of Paul when he writeth to
the several churches of Philippi, Colossus, Thessalonica, &c., he writeth to
them most .and chiefly concerning the duties which lay upon them in respect
of their particular relation to that particular congregation whereof they are
members, and with whom they have a fixed communion, and do ordinarily
converse with both ofiicers and people. Now, if there had been more congre-
gational churches than one in each of these cities (as is supposed), there is
far more reason why he would rather have written to them under the style
of several churches in such a place (as he doth when he writes to the Gala-
tians), when he urgeth such duties upon them, rather than to have given
them the title of one church, in respect of an association for government only.
If he had written of matters of government only or chiefly to them, then the
expression of calling them one church had been suitable to the duties he
exhorts them to ; but the duties principally concerning them, as they were
members of distinct congregations, having a nearer communion both towards
their officers fixed to them, and the people fixed in a near communion with
them, he would rather have used the style of churches than of one church,
if there had been many churches in those cities. And farther, since, according
Chap. IX.] the churches of christ. 105
to this supposition, the primary relation of pastors to churches being in the
several distinct congregations, but the relation of these members one to an-
other, as they are a classical church, being but a secondary relation, it were
strange that when the Holy Ghost writes and speaks to such and such
churches in such and such a city (supposing many), he should write to them
only under the notion of a classical church, and mention that only, and not
mention their other church state as being several churches, making one
church, nay, not so much as speak, that they were several congregations.
Since they are churches congregational in the language of the Holy Ghost,
and that the main of what is a church (as hath been shewed) falls upon
them as such, how can we think that this association into oim church, which
is a secondary thing, should wholly carry away and swallow up the name, style,
and title of the other ? And that which further strengthens this consideration
is, that when they write to churches, in a nation or in a province (as in
Galatia, and in Asia, and in Judea, and the like), if that a politic association
(such or the like association to this whereby it is afhrmed that in one city
many particular congregations are made one classical church for government),
if such a one were intended, then they would as well, and by the same reason
(in writing to such churches in a nation or province), have written to them
under the notion of one church as well as when they did write thus to them
in a city. But the apostle when he writeth to a whole province, then he saith
churches (although according to presbyterian principles they are as truly one
church in the same political respect that a classical church is one in respect
of many congregations of a city) ; but, on the contrary, when he writeth to
a city, he doth give them the name of church, without the least mention of
churches therein as making that one church. And the reason is strong, that
he should have done the one as well as the other ; for if many churches were
called one church in a city, because that is the greater association whereby
the lesser churches were governed, by the same reason he would much rather
have called the churches of Judea one church, because the association in a
province or nation is larger and greater than that of many congregations in a
classical church in a city.
And whereas some argue from the multitude of believers in a city, as too
great to make but one congregational church ; if the case had been so, it
had been then more conducible for the apostle to have expressed the multi-
tude in such cities by the name of churches in a city than by calling them
one church. And it is strange that when the story is told of the apostles'
coming to such or such a city (as in the Acts it is), it is still said they called
the church together, as when the people were called together in Antioch,
Acts xiv. 27. For if they had been many congregations, and had met in
parts by way of distribution, it had been a much more proper phrase to say,
they called the churches, if there had been more in such a city.
Object. The apostle still, in writing unto th« saints in great cities, calleth
them one church ; and it were strange if that, in the apostle "^s times, they
should not have multiplied in such great cities to more than one congregation.
Ans. 1. As you say it is hard to think that there were no cities that had
but* one congregation, so it is as hard to think that all the churches in other
places, villages and cities, should not be uniform.
2. There might be some cities where there might be more churches than
one, to whom they wrote, as the city of Rome to whom Paul wrote, might
have more churches than one ; for he doth not in his epistle call the saints
there one church ; and though he speaks of a church in Aquila and Priscilla's
house, yet his phrase of writing otherwise is only to the saints at Home.
* Qu ' more than ' ? — Ed.
106 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK II.
3. All those that write against episcopacy, both of the Scottish nation and
of our own, have with one mouth affirmed, that it cannot by manifest argu-
ment be made out that the chui'ches mentioned in the New Testament were
more than could meet in one congregation.
4. The meaning is, that when the story of the Acts and those Epistles were
written, that then there were no more, but not that afterwards there were no
more.
5. Although the apostles did specially preach to cities, yet let it be con-
sidered how little time they were forced to stay in cities, because they were
to lay the foundation of the gospel in all the world. And though Paul stayed
three years in or about Ephesus, yet it doth not appear that he sta^-ed so long
time in Ephesus itself; but, as in the 13th and 14th chapter of the Acts it is
said they went into the countries, so likewise he did.
6. The apostles did teach the saints in every city to become one church,
and to hold together so long as possibly they could continue in one congre-
gation with edification. And how great and large a synagogue in a city was,
we may see by that instance of Capernaum. And the Christians met in the
cities, and built synagogues for meeting-places, as well as the Jews were
allowed to do in the cities of the Gentiles.
CHAPTER X.
The constitution of a congregational church evidenced to be by the ivise appoint
ment of Christ, because it is so exactly accommodated to the various condi-
tions of saints.
Let us now see whether of these two should in reason be the institution
of Christ, and which, a classical or congregational church, would suit most
with the condition of the saints under the New Testament. God hath still
moulded his institution, and varied it himself according to what was the
future condition of his church. Whilst the church was continued in
families, as under the old law, he sorted his government and ordinances
accordingly. When they grew up to a nation, he fitted a new government
on purpose for them. When in the wilderness, a tabernacle only ; when
fully settled under a kingly power, a temple. Now, under the gospel, the
•condition of saints in nations varying in several ages, he hath framed his
ordinance of church-state suitably.
If it be said that therefore when churches should multiply to a nation, then
the government is to be suited unto that nation as such.
We reply, 1. When we see v/hole nations truly turn Christian, an answer
is to be given.
2. God saw it would fall out otherwise with his saints in the New Testa-
ment, that they would still be redeemed out of nations, therefore still suited
his government to his own design.
3. If in his providence he foresaw that nations, being turned to him, should
have an answerable government, as the Jews had, he would have given rules
answerable. As although the church in the wilderness was not grown up to
a kingdom, and had not a set place for worship, and was not come to be dis-
posed of in several cities (as when they should inherit the land of Canaan
they should), yet God, foreseeing what he would bring them to, did not give
laws only that suited their church state in the wilderness for the present, but
he told them that when they should come into Canaan he would choose a
place to which they should bring their oiicring, that this should be the law
Chap. X.] the churches of chkist. 107
of their king, and also appointed what their government should be when dis-
persed into several cities and towns. And so answerably if he had intended
a national form of government for his saints under the New Testament, and
all things suitable thereunto (when as j-et they were not grown up to national
churches), he would aforehand have prescribed laws accordingly.
Now, 1, this institution of congregational churches was such as would
suit all times, of the beginning of the gospel and of the continuance of the
gospel. The first churches were such necessarily, as was said afore, and
when multiplied did still continue so, and might govern themselves, without
foreign oppression.
2. It suits all places, villages as well as cities ; and we must suppose saints
to be as well in villages as in cities. And those villages had elders for wor-
ship and government, and the rights of a church. And if God were to make
one uniform law, why should the institution be conformed to cities, as is pre-
tended, and that made the pattern and the jurisdiction of all the rest, rather
than that of villages ; for God is the God of the valleys as well as the hills,
and there must be the same uniform rule of both ? But now, though the in-
stitution, to have the saints with their elders malie one classical church, might
be supposed to suit cities well enough (for it was but having many churches
in them), jei the lesser towns it would not suit, thus to form them up, under
the government of a presbytery of many congregations, especially in those
times when they were scattered.
3. This institution of congregational churches suits also with all conditions
of the church of Christ.
1. With the tilnes of persecution as well as the times of peace. I may
say of this congregational government as of faith ; it is said of faith that it
is a standing grace, it is the materia jviina, the first matter, out of which all
riseth and into which all resolveth. A man liveth by it in prosperity, and
if he be in desertion, all is resolved into it. And so it is of congregations,
it agrees with all estates, with all times. And though you suppose other
governments, yet that always existeth, a^nd all begin from thence ; therefore
these are called ecclesim prima',, and the other ecclesia ovUp.
2. It suiteth the condition of the saints, being scattered all the world over.
Whole nations are not saints fit for churches, for the saints are but a com-
pany redeemed out of nations. As therefore among the Jews, when they
were scattered, their government was a synagague government (therefore
some think they began that of synagogues when they first went into Babylon,
which we will not dispute), therefore as synagogue government suited with
the scattered, the dispersed condition of the Jews, so this suits best with the
scattered condition of the saints under the gospel.
3. The constitution also of churches was certainly uniform, in cities and in
villages, or wheresoever or in what time soever, the government of them was
uniform. When Christ bade them teach every nation to do what he com-
manded them, he intended that the rule should be uniform, whatever govern-
ment the nations had ; and therefore also the aj)0stle's phrase and style is
still, 1 Cor. xvii. 17, ' So I ordain in all the churches.' And that which will
suit all churches, all states, all times, is certainly rather the pattern than any
other. Christ did not make one form for cities and another for villages, one
form for times of persecution and another form for times of peace, for what
suited times of persecution would suit times of peace also ; and, as the laws
of men consider what is best for the generality of men, so the institutions of
Christ considered what was best for his church of the New Testament,
throughout all ages, and all conditions and places whatsoever.
4. It suits best for the condition of churches, in times, whether pure or
108 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK II.
corrupt^ reformed or to be reformed, when the churches are generally over-
grown with corruptions.
5. By reason of this, that th-e institution of Christ doth thus fall upon
congregational churches, to be those churches which should be the complete
seat of worship and government, there was a provision made (and in the
event it hath fallen out prosperously) that the truth and the substance of
his ordinances, and of church state (taking it as it is itself, a ministerial
ordinance), and of the ministry, might and hath continued in all ages. For
there being a necessity (if there should be any worship at all) to have con-
gregations for to continue, and uphold the public worship of God ; and to
that end, to have ministers over them to perform the worship, in this funda-
mental institution of his, all that profess the Christian name throughout the
world in all ages have agreed ; and by this means, Jesus Christ hath pre-
served the truth of a church and ministry, and substance of worship, in the
midst of all those varieties of government of several sorts of patriarchs,
archbishops, and bishops in that hierarchical way, as also of general councils
and other assemblies subordinate to them ; and so whatsoever false super-
structions have been made, or whatever interruptions, yet still this funda-
mental constitution of his hath remained, and could not have been secured
to continue in all ages (fall out what would) in any other way.
But the great thing, upon which all depends, is to find out what essential
thing it is that church institution should fall upon. We say, that the end
of churches is a fixed and immediate communion of saints in all ordinances,
and that the formal and external part of the institution is but suited so as to
attain this end ; which is, that saints should be knit together to meet in one
for ordinances, having their officei's that have relation to them, by whom the
ordinances are externally dispensed. So as it is not an accidental thing, or
mere external thing (as that they should meet in one place) that the institu-
tion falleth upon, but it is the most solid, and substantial, and essential
thing, that can be supposed to be the ground of so great an institution.
We shall gradually make out the meaning of this assertion, by these follow-
ing considerations, which will make the glory of Christ in this institution,
and the consentaneousness of it to spiritual reason, and the highest ends
that may be supposed to be aimed at, to appear.
1. Communion of saints is the adequate end of a church as such, be it
what kind of church soever ; and therefore in the creed, the church catholic
and communion of saints are joined together, and do follow one another, for
the one is the end of the other ; and all particular churches are therefore
also called the churches of the saints. And as the church is framed and
formed, answerably, such is the communion ; and such as the communion is
to be, such is the church to be reckoned, the one being suited to the other.
The church catholic (as now it is called, in respect it is in all nations),
although it is one body to Christ, yet the saints therein cannot have, as
saints, a fixed, standing, set communion, but occasional ; either occasional if
outward, or secret and invisible if inward, such as the church, in one age,
hath with the church of another age that went afore ; such as the church
now in heaven and in earth may have together, and in that respect, an ordi-
nance or an institution could not so well fall upon it. But meet it was, that
besides this kind of communion, there should be on earth a communion of
saints, suited to the state of the church whilst on earth, that should be most
entire, and the nearest that can be, and most resembling heaven, for the
public worship and glorifjdng of God in a common enjoyment of ordinances.
2. Under the gospel, the communion of saints is nearer and more inti-
mate than was under the law. As the church exceedeth it, so the communion
Chap. X.] the churches of christ. 109
is to exceed it ; and as their ordinances are more spiritual, so their com-
munion. There is a greater distance of the saints of the church catholic in
their habitations under the gospel, than of the Jews under the law. The
Jews were nearer as people dwelling in one land, and so were capable of a
nearer communion all together than the church catholic now is capable of;
yet because it was a nation, therefore their communion was ordered in the
way of a national polity, as a government by representation and a represen-
tative worship, wherein the females were represented in the males, and yet
not frequent and often neither, for it was but three times a year. The com-
munion therefore of saints, then, was carried on in a worldly way (as the
state of men in kingdoms, and commonwealths, and in civil things is), and
therefore it was a worldly external frame, and the communion answerable.
And that of the synagogues was but for the reading the word and prayer
only, and not for all sorts of ordinances of worship. The catholic universal
church cannot attain to so general a communion under the gospel, as the
national church of the Jews did, by reason of the difference of language, and
distance of places, and dispersions into all nations ; and yet they were to
attain to a nearer communion, and more intimate, and the entirest that the
saints on earth are capable of, and so to have churches framed as to attain
to this.
3. The greatest and entirest communion that saints are capable of, must
therefore be by parts on earth, to have communion in public worship and
ordinances. It is therefore necessary that the saints should be cast into
such assemblies, wherein they might partake of one spirit by 'one bread,'
whereby they might partake of one and the same bread individually, which
is therefore called the communion of the body of Christ, and whereby they
are made one bread, as in the 1 Cor. x. 17. And therefore it is that the
Scripture doth express that communion by that word meeting, or beinq toqether,
in ordinances. Acts ii. 46, oiJ^oSiifLabov, ' with one mind or spirit,' importing
that which is the spirit and life of public worship, which (above all other
actions done by a multitude) is to have the nearest union of spirits, wherein
the entire communion of saints lieth, and whereby God is glorified. And
for several churches to meet in the same manner, or at the same time, for
the same kind of ordinances, herein doth not lie so much communion, as an
uniformity between them. But this is the most internal lively communion, to
join in the same act, at the same instant, altogether to God, and is the
greatest imitation of heaven, where one spirit will run through all, and God
will be all in all at once.
4. And to make yet the communion nearer (for it is to be the nearest), it
must be of persons fixed and constant in such a communion ; for that is
still a more entire nearness, that the same persons should still in an ordinary
way meet to join in their spirits in the same ordinances, and so inwardly
and jointly thus to glorify God as well as externally. The continuance and
the fixedness of the same persons, makes still the union the entirer. And
therefore, if, for to enjoy the entirest communion of saints on earth, it was
necessary to part the saints for public worship, then also it is needful to
part them into fixed bodies, which still also is the nearest resemblance to
heaven, which is the perfection of communion.
5. To make this communion yet more entire, it is necessary that, as they
should fixedly join in ordinances of worship, so in all other; and that the
same persons should enjoy the same ordinances, and one kind of ordinances
as well as another, that as they are preached to by the same elders, so they
should join in the same prayers, have the same breathings of the Spirit from
those prayers, partake of the same bread, feed at the same table ; as in a
110 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK II.
family, the entireness of it lies in this, that they have the same father and
mother, the same master and misti'ess, partake of the same bread every way,
and of the same family duties and family comforts ; and so now this com-
munion, in a particular church, both as to worship and government, is uni-
form. Yea, and acts of government being worship (which the souls of men
are edified by, as well as they are by sermons) are wholly spiritual. It is
not here as in Israel, whose government was more carnal ; for it was the
judging of civil causes (civil and ecclesiastical government being all one,
mixed together, as the church itself was), it was in such controversies and
cases, as now men plead in civil bars about estates ; only God was pleased
to give laws himself for ordering of such things. But the apostle in 1 Cor.
v., and in 1 Cor. vi., severeth the judging of matters in the church, as a
church, by way of excommunication, &c., from their judging of things about
this life. A church as a chui'ch meddleth not now with them, for these
affairs of it are wholly spiritual.
So that, for a conclusion, if all the wits of the world should have studied
a way to contrive what kind of church to erect for the entircst communion of
saints, to attain to that end which is the end of a church instituted, they
could have pitched upon no other but this ; neither could there have been
such a way found out of all other as this is. If that the church universal,
the communion of it, had been only occasional, the saints meeting only by
virtue of being members of the catholic church promiscuously and indefinitely,
sometimes in one company, sometimes in another, though by this promis-
cuous and indefinite way, there had been a more extensive communion of
saints indeed (that is, each saint might have come to have joined in public
worship with more numbers of saints, at several times, with more variety) ;
yet it had not been so intensive, so near and high a communion, as for the
same saints under the same ofiicers fixedly to meet. And besides, they could
not have had an excommunication out of this communion, unless first knit
into fixed bodies ; neither could they have chosen ofiicers, unless such whose
office should cease with the act and performance, which indeed is not an
ofiice ; for that is a separation of a man to a continued performance of a duty.
Nor would it have brought that blessing, that a constant dedication of men
to an ofiice for perpetuity would do, which could not be done in that occa-
sional fluid way.
If that such congregations and officers, though bounded within such a
compass of a city or so, should have remained unfixed, though associated
together within such a circuit or compass, yet this would not have made
this entireness of communion of saints, as by this way of fixed congregations
there is. And also, in this case, the institution of a church would have been
pitched upon some one part, or particular kind of communion, and upon
something less principal in it, and not upon the adequate and full founda-
tion of it.
For, first, in this unfixed way of people and officers, though bounded in
a compass, this number of saints should have heard this minister to-day,
and with other saints have heard another to-morrow, none meeting one day
together, that do another day, in which also all might run to one officer still
where he preached and leave the other, which would not breed an orderly
communion, but rather a confusion ; but to have the same officers to be fixed,
and the same persons to enjoy the dispensation of the same officers, as in a
family children and servants are under the same governors, this is a nearer
and entirer communion.
Secondly, in this classical way, there would indeed be a constant and a
fixed communion in government, of the elders (namely, of such a circuit)
Chap. X.] the churches of christ. Ill
who, when matter of government was to be exercised, should all meet ; but
they would not permit (in such a way) or let in the elders of the same pro-
vince, to meddle as often as they would come, no, not though occasionally
they were present there, or came thither to that end. But now to have the
same elders and people fixed for all acts of government, and yet to have them
unfixed in respect of performing of worship (when that is the main end both
of the communion, and for which elders are appointed), and not to have the
same fixed companies of people that communicate in this company with those
elders, as in this unfixed way they have not, this would put too great an
inequality between communion in government and communion in worship,
and make the inequality on the part of worship rather, because government
is fixed of the same persons, people, and eldei-s, and yet worship, wherein is
the nearest communion, is left unfixed. And surely, if communion, and
entireness of public communion, be the end of a church, the frame and
mould of the church should rather be cast and shaped to that which is the
entirest communion, than unto that which is more loose. Now, in worship
(as to the acts and duties of it performed) there is a capacity of an entirer com-
munion than in government, because the duties thereof are more constant.
If, thirdly, the people be fixed for worship in several bodies, but the elders
fluid in a circulatory preaching (as it is pleaded), and so they are made one
church, because the same elders that teach do also govern them too, and so
they have a near communion in worship too, because they are at times taught
by the same elders ; if this (I say) be made a ground of moulding these
several congregations into one church, yet it is defective, for it makes the
people's communion, in enjoying the same elders at times successively, to be
the foundation of church institution (yea, and in this case of the first church
proprie dicta, or properly so called), rather than the communion of saints, and
of the same persons of the saints meeting fixedly for worship. But it is hard
to conceive how the oneness of a church should be settled, rather on such a
temporary communion in elders, than on a constant communion in ordinances,
whenas the same elders are enjoyed by these persons but at times (which is
an uninterrupted* communion also) ; yea, and there are no times neither,
wherein as to acts of worship they enjoy the same elders all together. Now
that such a relation of elders, and communion in them, in such a broken
way, should carry away the great privilege of a thing (becoming the ground
of the institution of it) from constant communion, both of the same saints
and elders, and be preferred thereto in this respect, seems strange. And if
it be said, that yet the saints themselves in this way meet, and have all
communion in those acts of government, though not in worship, yet first,
however, it cannot be thought that an occasional communion (as acts of
government comparatively are) should carry away the formation, the shaping,
and the institution of the first church ; secondly, the women (who though
they have not the interest of jurisdiction, yet of communion, and of depriva-
tion, and of virtual assistance by their prayers, &c., they have) are excluded,
unless such churches be so framed that they also be present.
Fourthly, if we take that other presbyterial way that is practised, wherein
they are fixed for communion in worship, both elders and people, but not
for government, yet even here that fore-mentioned entireness of government
is parted, and the communion of saints in that one respect divided ; and,
being divided, the ground and foundation of all and either being (as was
said) the communion of saints, is thereby weakened many ways. For,
1. Still this communion is partial, and by that means each stands but upon
one single basis, whereas both joined it might stand on two. For now, in
* Qu. ' interrupted '? — Ed.
112 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK II.
this case, the communion in worship (the blessing of which should strengthen
that of censures, which is a casting out of the communion) is the gi'ound of
the meetings of each congregation ; but communion in government in com-
mon, is the foundation of another church over all congregations. 2. A com-
munion of elders, rather than of the saints, is the foundation of this supposed
institution of a church ; and the communion of saints therein is but repre-
sentative, and at second hand, themselves being absent. It is a communion
for them, but not a communion of them ; yea, they have no communion, not
of presence in the sentence and in the execution, but are only congregations
of those elders, that did make a church concerned therein ; but, on the con-
trary, a communion of saints, even in government, is the ground and end of
erecting of a church, and therefore it is called one church in relation princi-
pally unto them.
Now, then, to wind up all : if there may be such a communion of saints
under the gospel, so adequate and entire, and churches so formed, as that
the same saints should join in the same worship, with a joint, constant,
inward, individual communion therein, and these saints may have, and do
enjoy (as our brethren gi'ant) fixed elders, by whose ministry and dispensa-
tion they partake with them in the same worship, which makes their com-
munion yet comparatively more entire (for, in the presbyterial way, there
communion is principally by elders, and therefore in this also, a due consi-
deration is to be had, as adding a farther entireness) ; and these elders being
a presbytery, yea, and enough to make a presbytery for all acts of government
(as we shall after shew a company of elders in congregations to be), at all
which acts of government, which are for the edification of the saints, they
can be present and have a personal communion, as well as in those of wor-
ship ; if, also, the communion of saints be the end of erection of particular
churches, and is the measure fitted ; for finis dat viensuram mediis, the end
gives measure to the means; and if this end may be adequately and entirely
attained this way, why should partial ends be preferred to total and com-
plete, all ends meeting in one ? Yea, if communion of saints in worship be
the chief communion, yea, and the communion of saints be the principal
fundamental cause of all church institution, why should not it draw to itself
communion in government also, when there is a sufiiciency for the performing
the acts thereof? Why should the communion of elders be taken ofi" from
the communion of the saints ? Why should a presbytery be erected that is
taken off from a church and assembly of saints, when yet there is a sufficient
presbytery over a church of saints, that meet for all acts both of worship and
government, and when yet these greater presbyteries would challenge their
power from this lesser presbytery of churches, rather than from the name
church, and yet take it oif from these churches they pretend to be a presby-
tery unto ? Yea, why should any aflirm that, although a particular congre-
gation had a sufiiciency of elders, yet it is God's ordinance that they should
associate, for whereas the avoiding of division is pretended, it makes a worse
division, dividing worship from government, and elders from the particular
churches of saints, and so parting from them, that wherein they ought to
have the entircst communion. So as, all things considered, the institution
of a particular church falls most happily, uniformly, and adequately upon a con-
gregation entirely and alone, and upon no other manner of assemblies at all.
Chap. XI.] the churches of christ. 113
CHAPTER XL
That the forming of saints into churches, under the government of elders, is a
matter of that needful order as requires a divine institution for it. — That it
teas also requisite that the extent of those churches, and the limits of the elders'
jurisdiction, should he set and determined by Christ,
But this being granted, that churches in the New Testament are formed
and fixed bodies, which are either the seat of worship or of ecclesiastical
government, and likewise that there is a necessity it should be so, yet the
next question will be, whether the settled form and order of these bodies,
the extent, bounds, and compass thereof, into which the church universal
should be parted and divided, and which should be the seat of government,
be set out by Christ's special appointment and institution, or hath been left
by him to men to frame and order, according to the common rules of edifi-
cation, as matters of circumstantial order use to be. But we humbly con-
ceive this to be a point of such order, and of so much weight and moment,
and belonging to the substance of government, as that, if there were any
special institution and designment of other things belonging to the order of
church government, then also of this ; as appears to us whilst we take esti-
mate and comparison with any other particular acknowledged to be the
subject of institution, as also established by more direct wan-ant. For the
satisfaction of this query, we shaU give the general demonstration of the 6V/
of it, that it is and must needs be so, whatever the form and extent of
these churches and bodies that are the seat of government shall prove to
be, which, whether congregational, classical, provincial, or national, we yet
dispute not. What at the present we endeavour to make forth is only tliis
in the general, that whatsoever kind of form or extent they are moulded
into, this form and extent must be set out and taken ti-om some institution.
The quale, or what sort of bodies, and what measure thereof Christ hath in-
stituted, is to be afterwards discussed. And although the proof hereof will
not be full and complete until the demonstration of the quale, or of what is
the particular form or boundary and extent, both of church and the elders'
jurisdiction, and this be shewn to have been instituted, yet we shall for the
present endeavour such a demonstration as shall be sufficient for a general
foundation to that which follows, and enough to confirm the point as in the
general.
Now, for the more distinct proceeding in this, there is a double seat of
government conceived to be in these bodies of saints and elders, whether
according to our brethren's principles or our own. According to our
brethren's, all government is put into a body of elders, and so they make
the elders the suhjectum inhasionis, the inherent subject of all power ; and
the church or the company of the faithful to be suhjectum occupationis, that
is, the subject committed to them to be governed. Even as in a corpora-
tion, where, though the power and government is in the magistrates alone,
and so they are the subjects of inherency in whom the power resides, yet a
limited extent of jurisdiction, namely, a corporation of people, in such a
compass or precinct, is the suhjectum occupationis, the seat, the circuit over
whom and among whom their government is extended, and within which
confined. But if, according to our principles, the government is instituted
by Christ to be mixed of an aristocracy of elders and a democracy of the
114 THE GOVEENMENT OF [BoOK II.
people, yet still the like supposition necessarily ariseth, that there is, and
must be, a limited scat or precinct in which this ecclesiastical government
is exercised, which we call the seat of government. And look what autho-
rity is in the body of elders, as elders, it is within that seat or compass.
That which therefore these following general arguments and demonstration
aim at, is to prove that the extensive limits and bounds of such ecclesiasti-
cal authority, and accordingly the proportion and measure of those bodies,
or churches, the seat thereof, and in which it is exercised, is a matter of
that nature, weight, and moment, as to have a special line of institution, by
which it may be measured forth. And to that end the demonstration hereof
shall be framed and fitted to prove these two things.
1. That the forming up of elders into bodies or presbyteries, and the
limits and boundaries of the extent of their power, is a matter of that nature,
as must be set out by institution.
2. That, answerably thereunto, the setting out the compass, measure,
limits, and extent of those bodies of saints and elders making churches
(which are the seat or subject in which a company of elders shall have a
jurisdiction, and that company of saints the privilege of government, and
unto which the extent of their jurisdiction is to be limited), must also be set
out by a special institution, and that their privilege to become such de-
pends upon a special charter also.
We might speak to each and either of these severally and apart, but that
indeed these two, the setting the limits to the extensive power of elders,
and also the setting out the measure of those bodies unto which their go-
vernment (whether joined with the people, or alone, we yet argue not) shall
extend and be confined, are both commensurable each to other, and do
mutually argue each other. For all power and government, in what com-
pany or body of rulers soever, that are the subject in whom it resides, must
have a seat, compass, or precinct of men united in one in which to exercise
their power. And the true measure of their extensive power is from the
measure of the extent of that seat, so as the proving of either of them to be
necessarily done by institution is to prove both ; for they mutually argue
each other, and the extent of the one is resolved into the other. And there-
fore if the extent of any one be of divine institution, the other must be of
divine appointment also, as we shall after shew.
Seeing, therefore, that these two are so conjunct in the nature of the
thing, and mutvially the demonstrations each of other, we will, in discours-
ing of them, put them together, sometimes having demonstrations that
jointly concern both and are common unto both, sometimes such as concern
either of them singly, in such a method as may best serve to clear the truth
of this assertion, which to us lays the foundation of deciding this groat con-
troversy, as in the sequel will appear.
We shall rank our arguments under these four heads :
1. That these two fore-mentioned are substantial points of order, and
therefore are to be fetched from institution.
2. That they are matters of such order, as other things are of, which we
do find (and all do so acknowledge) to have been matter of institution.
3. That the wisdom and prerogative of Christ (who is the supreme in-
stituter and lawgiver to his church) is as much concerned and interested
in the institution of these, as in any other things he hath instituted about
ofilcers and church government.
4. That spiritual reasons, suited to the nature of the things themselves,
fall in to confirm this.
^ The truth of the consequence of these three first is justly founded upon
Chap. XL] the churches of chkist. 115
what we have already said of institution, as that the Colossians received
their order from Jesus as the Lord, as well as their faith. And besides, that
the substantials of church government should be set out by institution, all
sides have acknowledged, and the case therefore must needs be like, in all
matters of like order and substantialuess ; for the wisdom and prerogative of
the lawgiver is alike concerned to appoint one as well as another ; and else,
too, church government consisting of things of like rank and nature, some
of them should yet be divine, some human, and so it would consist some
part of gold and some of wood. So as here we need but apply those gene-
rals to the confirQiation hereof; but yet we shall further endeavour to con-
firm them all along, in the mention of, and together with, those particular
proofs which we shall allege for the heads fore-mentioned. And those rea-
sons shall not only or simply be drawn from paralleling these two points of
order with other things, which are substantial in all government, and are
acknowledged almost by all, especially by our brethren, to be matter of
divine institution, in and about church officers and government. We shall
not thus only deal by consequence in the closure of the proofs for the second
head, but also by Scripture, more directly holding forth the truth thereof,
and all backed and seconded with an harmony of spiritual reasons, accord-
ing to the nature of the thing, falling in and suiting to it.
Only let this be taken along and remembered, that the scope of these
reasons in this place is only to demonstrate this in the general, and in the
6V/, that it is so, and not now to prove the point, by laying out the very par-
ticular bounds and limits set by the Holy Ghost ; for that is to be tried out
afterwards by our brethren and us, who of us can shew the surest and most
ancient landmarks hereof; which particulars, when they shall come to be
delineated and set out, and confirmed by Scripture and reason, the proof of
this general truth will be found more full and complete, by whatever either
side can shew to be the true and notive characters of the institution thereof.
But till then we must necessai'ily, here in this place, content ourselves with
general arguments, and which are accordingly suited to this scope, and none
other.
1. I shall begin with the first head, that both these are as substantial
matters in church government as any of those other about the institution of
officers' power, &c., can be supposed to be. To evidence which, what fairer
estimate can be taken, whereby to judge of what is substantial in this govern-
ment, than from what is in all men's apprehensions such, in any government
whatever ? Now, take any society of men that are embodied for govern-
ment, and if the officers and laws of it are defined, the commonwealth or
body itself, the bounds and limits of its jurisdiction, are defined also, and by
the same hand the one at first is constituted, the other is too ; and this is
true especially of such bodies as hold, from a supreme power, the charter
for then' government, as all churches do hold their order from Christ the
supreme founder. In this case, it is every way as essential to have the
body of people itself formed up into an unity, and the extent of their juris-
diction set by that supreme power, as to have officers over it, and laws by
which they are governed^ The first is necessary in itself for the good of
those bodies (in relation to orderly government), and it is as necessary as
the setting out the extent of every man's lands which he possesseth, and
of which the abutments and limits are as exactly mentioned in their deeds
ab anything else ; and thus necessary is setting down the extent of jurisdic-
tion of every incorporate town, and accordingly set forth in their charter.
Thus Loudon is differenced from Westminster, which otherwise would be
judged but one city and one incorporate body ; and this was necessary in
116 THE GOVERNMENT OP [BoOK II.
their first edition, and to preserve distinction and entireness of government,
without confusion and usurpation.
2. For the other particular, it is as necessary to confine those officers
and their jurisdiction within the compass of certain seats and bodies poHtic,
as to define and limit the acts of their power, and wherein to judge and
intermeddle. In all civil bodies, kingdoms, commonwealths, &c., their laws
are as exact to set down the limits of jurisdiction, the extent of power, as
the degree, or kind, or sort of acts of power to be put in execution by those
entrusted with it ; and all ofiicers in several provinces, or bodies incorpo-
rate, that get a commission of power from the supreme power, have in their
commissions and charters as express a mention and definition of the cii'cuit
and extent of power as of their acts of power, so as a greater nullity ariseth
not from any other thing than from extending power committed beyond the
bounds of jurisdiction ; and it is a pramunire as well to do an act of govern-
ment out of their jurisdiction as an undue act M-ithin it, as to arrest or
imprison out of their jurisdiction. And that mayors or bailiffs shall judge
only within such a town or borough, is as express in their charter (or at
least that the limit of their jurisdiction being determined within the same,
theu' power without is null and void), as that they shall be mayors and
bailiflfs there. And thus this parallel confirms both parts of the argument,
both that it is alike substantial, and also that therefore it alike depends
upon the determining of the supreme lawgiver. And although this estima-
tion be taken from man's law and civil government, yet it is in a matter
that is alike common to both. If indeed church government could be sup-
posed to be a matter of that nature, that such boundings and determinings
of the seat and extent of elders' jurisdiction, in order to government, were
not existent in it, and necessary thereunto, as well as to other government
also, but might be transacted promiscuously without any such boundings,
then indeed the form of the parallel would not carry it to erect anything in
church government by a parallel from the civil. But all that do or will
acknowledge any ecclesiastical government, as they do acknowledge fixed
bodies of saints and elders (which the former assertion cleared), so withal
they must acknowledge such a determination necessarily to be made to
bound those seats of government and extent of elders' jurisdiction, either by
God or men. Now, therefore, in this we only argue that the determination
thereof is of that nature that it must be set out by the supreme Lawgiver, as
well as other things are that concern this government. Thus much, how-
ever, is preparatory to what follows, that this assertion is most rational and
coincident with the like principles of reason human, though of and about a
matter spiritual. Yet because it will be said it is but an argument from
men (which yet in the case of ministers' maintenance, as in other things
also, the apostle useth to produce and confirm thereby the rationality of a
divine ordinance about this matter, when yet there were other grounds
also for it in the Scripture that it is such), therefore we will proceed to the
other general head, that the forming saints into churches, and setting the
bounds thereof, are matters of such order as God and Christ hath instituted,
we shall endeavour to make forth (proceeding by degrees) both by paralleling
these with other matters of order about ofiicers and church government
which God hath instituted, and by demonstrating that these are as great
points of order as those other which Christ as a Lord hath given ; and we
shall also evidence it by the addition of such Scripture proofs and instances
as do directly hold forth the truth thereof, and so confirm too that other
parallel reason about them.
Now, to prove the parallel between this and other matters of order, let
Chap. XI.] the chueches of christ. 117
this be premised and taken along, that this second sort of reasons, drawn
from comparing these, or either of them, with other things that are insti-
tuted, and thence proving the institution of these also (though we insist not
only or wholly on them) is in this case just and sure ; for we stretch not
the argument from parallel or hke reason to find out any new thing in
church government, whose existenoy is argued and founded merely upon
parallel reason. That way of reasoning we leave to our brethren, in rear-
ing up their whole fabric upon the parallel reason of a particular church,
Mat. xviii., to the prejudice of that foundation which these are built on.
But the limiting of elders' jurisdiction and the seat of their ordinary govern-
ment being a thing that necessarily existeth, and which must be acknow-
ledged to have place already, or else no orderly government can at all be
supposed to be (as both sides do acknowledge) ; if, then, the question shall
be (which is the thing now before us), whether the setting out those limits,
&c., be a matter of that nature, as should be set out by the institution of
Christ, as other matters of parallel nature are, or whether Christ hath left
them as things of that inferior alloy and nature, and so of small moment as
to be determined by the common rules for edification, as other circumstan-
tial matters are ; in deciding this case and question, and for the general
demonstration of it, certainly parallel reason will carry it, that these things
are to be set out by God and not left to men, especially when there shall be
added unto these, scriptures that directly speak the same thing that
parallel reason doth. This being premised, we shall speak to each singly.
I. We begin first with that of the bounding the extent of the power and
jurisdiction of elders. That this is to be found sot out by institution will
appear, for the on of it in the general, both ways, either, 1, by comparing
it with other matters of order, &c. ; or, 2, by what the Scriptures do more
directly hold forth about setting the limits of the extensive power of officers ;
or, 3, by reason falling in therewith.
1. It is evident, by comparing this point of order with other things which
our brethren themselves, according to their principles, do hold to, and
acknowledge to be matters of instituted order, in many of which we also
concur with them. Let but an impartial comparison and estimate be taken
and made with other things, concerning church elders and their power, which
they cleave to, as instituted, even to a nullity for the want of it in other
persons and things. They do shew themselves sufficiently tender and jealous
of having institutions, for the exercise of any part of ecclesiastical power,
and will allow none but persons authorised by an institution, and in such
and such a way, to the exclusion of others for want of institution. For ex-
ample, 1, why else do they exclude the body of the people from having an
interest of sufi"rage in excommunication, or casting out of the church, or
ordaining eldei's, and confine these acts, and all other supposed acts of
government, unto elders only? 2. Although to excommunicate, &c., be an
act of government that belongs to the office of eldership, yet they would
allow no one elder to excommunicate alone, no, not in that church whereof
he is pastor in a special fixed relation, but it must be elders united into an
ai-istocracy, because it is by institution so implied, ' Tell the church,' &c.,
which is always more than one. Yea, they assert* that such an act of ex-
communication is null and void, if but by one elder alone. Yea, 3, if any
one pastor, though never so eminent, should be set up in a lawful presbytery
to be of the quorum in that presbytery wherein he is a member and an elder,
so as nothing should be done but with and by his consent and suflrage,
though not without the rest of the presbytery also (which was all that power
* Mr Piutherford's Temperate, Peaceable Plea, p. 5.
118 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK II.
that bishops anciently challenged and exercised), yet this would be, and is
denied to any, as a thing beyond that degree of power given any one man
among the rest. And, 4, those that are acknowledged elders, namely,
ruling elders, they would strictly debar from preaching, from praying in
public, or blessing the people, or administering the sacrament, because these
are acts of the preaching elder's office by institution, or else why are they
excluded if Christ would not have them so ? Yea, 5, though the substance
of the act of ordination (which they call missio potestatira) be an act of the
whole presbytery, ruling elders and others, yet the right of laying on of
hands, which is the lesser, they allow not to ruling elders, but appropriate
it to preaching presbyters in the presbytery. And, 6, although there may
be many elders in a particular church that make up therein an eldership,
who, when alone, without neighbour churches, did exercise all, and had
complete power of excommanication, &c., within themselves (as they grant),
yet vhea churches come to be multiphed, or there are neighbour churches
whom they may associate with, many of our brethren hold that in this case
they have no longer warrant or power (at least not as to the exercise of
government within themselves), but are to join in common with those other
elders of churches for all acts of government. And all this must be because
Christ hath, by institution, so fixed the power of governing (in respect of the
acts thereof), as they are not, by any other or any otherwise, to be put in
execution. Yea, 7, if that the churches go and choose, &c., cull out a cer-
tain company of their officers, and all the churches in a kingdom should
choose them that should be set apart for acts of jurisdiction only, and attend
them in a set and constant way (as the Sanhedrim in Jerusalem was chosen),
our brethren would say, that although here were elders chosen out of all the
churches unto such acts as are the acts of elders, according to their prin-
ciples, lawfully thus chosen, and that they make up (according to them)
one body or corporation representatively of all the rest, as the national as-
semblies use to do ; yet if these should be thus constantly set apart unto
such a work, they would deny this to be lawful ; and the unlawfulness must
lie in this, that they are not formed up according to the institution. So
that a little variation, in this kind, must still have a new institution for it,
according unto them. And shall there not be the like for the bounding the
exercise of elders' extensive power, which is of as much, if not far more
moment, than many of these things can be supposed to be of? And then,
lastly, add to all these an eighth principle, which singly and alone concludes
the general point in hand, but, joined with those other, brings the forces of
them all more strongly up to the conclusion. In the controversy with the
bishops, there is a distinction of a double ecclesiastical power ; the one 2^otestas
■ intensiva, the other extendva. The one imports a further degree or kind of
power, the other a further extension of power. And in both these respects they
distinguished a bishop from an ordinary presbyter. In respect of power in-
tensive, a bishop might do some acts a presbyter might not do, even as a pres-
byter might do acts a deacon might not do, which constituted these three several
orders in the church. A bishop might ordain and excommunicate, not so a
presbyter. And as they made them to differ thus in acts of order, and intension
of power, so in respect of jurisdiction, and in that respect chiefly, that is, that
an ordinary presbyter was set over some particular flock and congregation, but
a bishop was, for acts of ordinary government, set over a whole diocese, and
over many congregations, to rule them in common, as making one church.
And so an archbishop, though he was of the same order with a bishop (for they
made those two not to constitute two several orders), yet, in respect of a larger
extent in territory or jurisdiction, they were said to differ in respect of ex-
Chap. XL] the churches of christ. 119
tension of power. Now our brethren, and all those who writ against this
further power of extension and jurisdiction in bishops, called for an institu-
tion for such a further degree and extent of power, as well as for a new order
of power, and that not only as to the large pretended power in a bishop be-
yond a presbyter's, but also of an archbishop over a bishop. So do we also
require an institution for that power which our brethren claim. An usurpa-
tion lies not only in an undue form of government that Christ hath not in-
stituted, as to set up one man to rule, when it is in the hands of many,
which is to erect a monarchy when Christ hath ordained an aristocracy,
which is the ground of exception against episcopal power. Nor doth it only
lie in usurping undue acts of power, which Christ never instituted ; but, fur-
ther, it lies in a company of elders taking on them an extent of power, for
territory and jurisdiction, larger than that extent which an evidence of in-
stitution can be produced to warrant. In this case, although a company of
elders do in their proceedings take on them to execute none other but such
as are due acts of government, for the kind of them, and those regulated
according to such rules as the word warrants (as in respect to the sins pro-
ceeded against), nor none other acts but which belong to the office of elders;
yea, and though all this be done by them, as cast and combined into a
joint body (no one man amongst them assuming more power than the rest),
and so this government be carried in an aristocratical way (which is the right
form that Christ, according to them, hath instituted), yet if they stretch
the extent of their power unto a larger line or circuit than Christ hath made
the territory or seat of church government, this must needs prove an usurpa-
tion, let the pretence be never so specious, and the proceedings otherwise
never so just. For extensive power must be warranted by institution, as
well as intensive, or the measure or kind of power ; whereas yet we perceive
many that are zealous for institutions in those other things, would (so far
as we can understand) have the boundaries of the extent of power ecclesi-
astical to be left (with other things of less moment) to be ordered only ac-
cording to the common rules of edification, and of the law of nature, as
human prudence shall think fit to dispose and set them out.
II. Unto which add, secondly, that God hath, both under the Old Testa-
ment, as also the New, made the bounding and setting the extent of church
officers' extensive power the subject of his own institution and designment ;
which confirms the truth of this point in the general.
1. First, in the Old Testament (which we have not now recourse to, as
our brethren use to have, as an instance that the same particular extent of
government that was then should be the model of Christ's institution under
the New, we shall confute that largely afterwards) ; this was the matter of
Christ's institution. As therefore, under the Old, the several sorts of
officers were appointed, and also their limits of jurisdiction, so now under the
New, as Christ hath instituted the kind of officers and elders, so he should
set out the extent of their jurisdiction ; especially since we suppose such
officers having such a power (as our brethren and we suppose) by institution,
it is therefore necessary that it should be determined, either by God or man,
what the extent of their jurisdiction should be. We do not herein urge the
analogous like reason, of the Old Testament and the New, to raise up the
like particular rule and institution, for the extent of elders' power, now as
then ; but only as a proof of this general maxim, that when we find the like
subject of institution in the New, the reason will hold, that as there was an
institution set for the bounds of the intensive power of officers among them (as
of the order of priests above Levites, &c.), and their several work accordingly
designed, so the bounds of jurisdiction and of extensive power, in the govern-
120 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK II.
ment of that state and church, were set out by the same hand also. So, in
like manner, Christ hath ordered things in the new gospel administration.
They under the Old Testament had those that were their elders of cities and
towns, whose power was bounded within their several cities and territories,
and this set out by a law. They were, in the case of murder, to measure
the ground, and the elders of that city unto which the field a man was killed
in was nearest, were to intermeddle in it. And they had their general elders
for the nation or people distinguished from the other, so that the extent of
their jurisdiction was general, proportioned to the extent of the nation, who
are therefore called ' the elders of the people' in general, Luke xxii. 66, and
which were that Sanhedrim and ' state of elders' at Jerusalem for the nation,
Acts xxii. 5, and so distinguished from those they called elders of a city,
Ruth iv. 2, Judges ix. B, 2 Kings xxiii. 8. And as in these scriptures
singly, so Ezra x. 4, we have both mentioned with their titles of distinction :
' Let the elders of all the congregation stand, and with them the elders of
every city, and the judges thereof.' The one had the whole body of the
nation for their jurisdiction ; the other had only their several cities. Thus
also the bounds of extensive power, as well as intensive, was set out by the
word of the Lord in the hand of Moses. The several charge of four sort of
Levites^ in the things of the sanctuary, was divided amongst them to have
care of, and the limits of extensive power of jurisdiction were fixed in the
hands of four men over each of those companies and bodies of those
Levites, as you have it, Num. xiii. 3, which were called overseers over the
rest. Num. xi. 14, 22. The like might be shewn in the order of priesthood ;
there was the intensive power, which was equal among them all ; and above
the Levites (for order of ofiice) there was by institution, in the high priest
(as Aaron), a further or intense power of ofiice, for some services above the
rest ; which degree of intense power was by the special call of God, Heb.
V. 4. And as of a power of intension, so of extension or jurisdiction, there
was a settled appointment. There were set over several companies of priests,
chief priests that were in those several circuits superior to them. Mat. ii. 4
and xxvii. 1, Acts xix. 4, 2 Chron. xxxvi. 14, who were twenty-four in number.
2. Secondly, In the New Testament, we find the several extent of officers'
power and jurisdiction to have been matter of institution. Our scope is not
here to set out what the particular hmits are, for that belongeth to an after
discussion. But all that we shall now produce, is but to confirm the point
in the general.
(1.) We find difiering extent of officers' jurisdiction to have been, not only
matter of institution, but also to have, among other things, put a difierence
upon officers, such as, in imitation hereof, the pope and the bishops chal-
lenged, in difierence from ordinai*y presbyters. This was one thing made an
apostle differ from an evangelist, and an evangelist from ordinary pastors
and teachers, that an apostle had the care of all churches committed to
him, whereas an ordinary elder was designed to an actual care of a church,
as a governor in a family is of his house, 1 Tim. iii. 5. In the 1 Cor. v.,
the apostle strongly intimates the difierence by a comparison of his power as
an apostle, and theirs as Corinthians, and that this power differed in extent :
'Do not ye,' says he, 'judge them that are within ?' Namely, yourselves,
and within your own body : ' What have I to do to judge them that are
without ?' His main scope is to shew, that in their proportion they had
power to judge all within their jurisdiction, as he had in his ; and that as
his jurisdiction was, in the extent of it, limited to all within, that is, all
churches of Christ, in opposition to heathen, and he had no power, he had
nothing to do to judge them without, so theirs was also extended to all
Chap. XI.] the churches of cheist. 121
within themselves, but no further. I that am an apostle (says he) have a
limited jurisdiction in my kind, and you in yours, and as I am to do my
duty in my jurisdiction, so you in yours. And if the apostle would not
stretch himself beyond his line (as his own phrase is) of jurisdiction set out
to him, then ordinary elders much less are to go beyond theirs.
(2.) The New Testament is express for it. The Holy Ghost hath appointed
the extent of elders' jurisdiction over their own flocks, and to extend to every
soul therein in particular, even over the whole flock whereof they are elders,
and that as a whole flock, importing an entire body of persons committed to
them. Therefore, the extent of a like kind of power any further, or over
any other, ought much more to have a special institution, which so far as it
wanteth and cannot produce and shew the bounds for, from institution, so
far it is a nullity. Now we have an express scripture concerning the elders
of the church of Ephesus (whether it be congregational, or presbyterial, or
diocesan, we do not now dispute, but shall afterwards try it out upon which
the institution falls), that they all and every one of them had an extent of
power by express commission given them to that whole flock, and that the
Holy Ghost set them over that whole flock,, as in charge commended to them :
Acts XX. 28, ' Take heed to yourselves, and all the flock, over which the
Holy Ghost hath made you overseers.' Men had not chalked out the limits
of this flock,^ nor set them out this their bounds of power and care over it,
but the Holy Ghost made them overseers, that is, constituted them, as, Heb.
iii. 2, it is said of Moses. And when it is said the Holy Ghost made them,
it is not meant in respect of the personal call of those elders, for ordinary
elders were not chosen by an immediate revelation of the Holy Ghost, as
Paul and Barnabas was : ' The Holy Ghost said. Separate me Paul and Bar-
nabas,' Acts xiii. 2. But so these elders were not made here : the consti-
tution, or making, or appointing and instituting them, must therefore
necessarily be meant of the Holy Ghost's appointing that ofiice of elders in
which they were, and that he specially was the author by his institution of
that kind of designment of elders to an whole flock as elders, as their special
charge, within which to take care as elders of all, and by virtue of which
(they undertaking the charge) the institution and commission of the Holy
Ghost fell upon them. As when a king hath granted a charter to such or
such towns, to have such and such rulers over each of those whole towns,
though the king put not in the ofiicers, yet because the towns choose them,
as authorised by his special charter, ordering their choice and designing their
jurisdiction, it may in charge be given to them, that the king hath set them
over this whole town to govern it. And what is attributed to the Holy
Ghost thus, respects not a prudential management only, but the Holy
Ghost's ofiice being in a special manner to be the author of that word, and
those directions of Christ, by which the apostles did give forth the pattern
of ordering and framing churches to these Ephesians and other churches,
therefore it is peculiarly appropriated to him to be the author of all such
constitutions ecclesiastical, and this by so peculiar a prerogative, as is as
proper to him as to redeem is to the Son. And therefore man may no more
assume to set up a new kind of olficers, or appoint them the bounds of their
jurisdiction in the church, than he can redeem us. And therefore, as to the
work of the Holy Ghost to the church herein, mention is made of it, parallel
with Christ's redemption, in those words : ' Take heed to all the flock over
which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God,
which he hath purchased by his own blood.' And one special thing which
is attributed to the Holy Ghost (as an instituter and ordainer of matters in
the church, and for which we cite this place) is, as to constitute the ofiice of
122 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK II.
elders, and the form of government, that all should take care in common
(for elders, not elder, are mentioned) so to fix also the extent of their care,
charge, and commission to all that flock, the church of Ephesus, whereof
they are said to be elders, ver. 17. It is his institution that elders should
take care, according to the extent of their relation to a particular flock, as
their whole flock committed to them ; and by virtue of this his ordination
had they the full power of elders unto this flock. So as that such an office
of elders (not one elder only), that such a flock, as an whole flock, should
stand in relation to these elders in common as the seat of their care and
jurisdiction, — all this was the ordination of the Holy Ghost ; and if so, then
the extent of jurisdiction over such a flock is instituted, as well as the office.
Therefore, if these all, or any company of more elders, will challenge a new
and further extent of jurisdiction, than to such a flock as Ephesus was, they
must shew the like commission for that extent from the Holy Ghost ; for it
was by a special commission from the Holy Ghost they had power of juris-
diction to this flock. And by the same reason that their commission over
this flock was by the Holy Ghost, by the same reason they must shew the
like new commission for a larger from the same Holy Ghost. We will only
add this, that in cases of this nature a negative argument holds ; for when
extent of power depends upon a superior appointment and designment, no
further power than what is affirmatively declared and extended in the com-
mission can be extended but with a nullity, yea, and with the greatest
danger ; and so, unless the Holy Ghost declares affirmatively the extent of
elders' powers as elders, in a body united (as here he doth) over a larger
company of churches, as the seat of their jurisdiction, all the elders in the
world met together cannot, nor may not, challenge it. A defect of commis-
sion affirmative is exclusive in this case. Yea, farther, in that he mentions
this flock as that whole flock they had commission over, he thereby speaks
exclusively of any other, that as elders in a body they were to exercise
authority in. As in the like case, if a king gave a charter to a mayor and
company of aldermen, to rule such a company or body of men in a corpora-
tion as an whole body they were set over, it manifestly imported, not only
that the extent of their power therein being by his charter, therefore they
must not exercise it as such a company out of the confines thereof, without
the like charter renewed ; but also, on the contrary, he who is the founder
of their power, and of whom they hold it, in his charter, makes that com-
pany committed to them to be all or the whole flock committed to their
charge. This evidently argues that his charter sets bounds to them, re-
straining them from taking on them to exercise their juridical power else-
where. So far is it from what the presbyterial principles hold forth, that in
an analogous way they may make new extensions of jurisdictions, and in the
same form model them.
(3.) Add to this that the Holy Ghost hath been pleased to set limits and
bounds of power to several ordinary officers in the same church, wherein
they are, in respect of a continual charge and service, ordinary standing
officers, and where all of them are in a joint and common commission for
the government thereof. And look what distinction there is in their offices,
and what is proper to each office by his appointment, his command is
answerably that the one should not, by assuming to exercise the part of
another, entrench upon the office of another ; so that he who is a ruling
elder should not take on him to teach as an ordinary pastor, no, not in the
church where he bears the office of an elder : * But let him that teacheth,
attend on teaching ; he that exhorteth, on exhortation ; he that ruleth, on
ruling,' Eom. xii. 6. Now, if Christ hath so set these bounds in the same.
Chap. XI.] the churches of christ. 123
church and body, as for any to usurp the other's office, is that v'rss(ppovsT\/,
or ' takmg on him above his proportion' (which he condemns, ver. 3, and
prefaceth that general rule with special aim to keep each in their due bounds
and station) ; then much more, or at least as much, hath his care extended
to set down the bounds of extensive power, which they might know, that as
in the same church the officers might not vt-co^sohTv, so the elders of other
churches ought not aXkorPiociszo'^uv, intermeddle as bishops in another's
jurisdiction (to use the apostle's allusion), nor stretch themselves beyond
their line, as the apostle would not. Thus I have proved that the extent of
elders' jurisdiction is to be fetched from an institution.
What is next to be demonstrated is, that the constituting and setting out
the measure and extent of that church which is to be the seat of govern-
ment, is also matter of divine order, and so to be fetched from an institution.
The popish and episcopal divines have appropriated that word order unto
the constituting a church officer, and unto his ministry, whether bishop or
presbyter, &c. This, in their phrase, they called being in orders, which in
the thing carried this with it, viz., their being of such orders or kinds of
offices as Christ had by his order appointed. But surely they narrowed the
signification of it too much, for it may be extended to all institutions what-
ever, and, among other, to this of church state, and the constitution thereof,
according to an order set by Christ.
For, 1, in that order of the church of the Colossians, in which the apostle
rejoiced, the right constitution and formation of their church state must
needs be a main part intended. Order (says Bishop Davenant) denotes their
coadunation into one body, namely, such as in an army useth to be, and so
respects the whole body itself, as united and consenting together, and so
made the seat of order. Now, as the disposement and appointment of the
bulk and body of the army itself, and the form, the extent, the wings thereof,
is a matter of as much order, and as essential, as to appoint what officers
shall be over it, or what discipline in it, so it is here ; and the order of this
body of the church itself must be by some hand, either human or divine ;
and sure it was a divine order the apostle here rejoiced in, as we have before
shewed. And this will appear,
For, 1, if we consider the moment of this their church constitution and for-
mation, we shall find it was meet and necessary that the Lord Jesus himself
should appoint it; for this is the form which the efficient always gives, as well
as the matter. As in natural bodies, the form constitutes them, as well as mat-
ter, so in all bodies that are the seat of government, their ordinary frame
and form, wherein they are united according to a law or fundamental custom,
constitutes them such (that is, as they are politic bodies), as much as being
men of such a function or qualification and rank. Yea (as was said before),
since a judicial power of government depends as much upon a formality of
order, as it doth upon a material qualification of persons, hence, therefore,
it is as necessary (as was shewed by many instances) that Jesus Christ should
design out, and constitute, and authorise the form and order, and the bounds
of his church, as that he should determine the qualification of the persons
or functions to Whom the power is committed. For acts of government,
being to have his blessing in a peculiar manner, to accompany them with a
spiritual efficacy, as well as acts of worship, it is as necessary for him to
appoint the form or orders of that body, in which he would accompany them
with that efficacy, as it is to assign out the material subject of persons and
functions that are to execute it ; and this our brethren assent to, making it
as necessary for Christ to institute the form of government, namely, an aris-
tocracy of elders, as to appoint the function or the persons, namely, elders
124 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK II.
themselves. For it may fall out, and often cloth, that for the matter hereof,
the members of a church are not such, in respect of their lives and qualifi-
cations personal, as should be in the members of a church ; and yet, be-
cause they take on them to be a church,, professing the name of Christ, and
public worship, &c., hence ministerially they are a true church, as truly as
an ungodly, profane minister is a true minister, not in respect of his per-
sonal qualifications, but as his office is an ordinance which he bears, and
whence it is that all his administrations, while in that office, are not null,
nor to be reiterated. The like is to be said of the church itself, whereof he
is a minister ; it subserves ministerially as a church to God, rightly to have
baptism and other ordinances of Christian communion administered in it, so
as those ordinances are not null, though administered among such as are
generally corrupt, and not fit matter to be a church. That, therefore, these
ordinances come to be rightly and lawfully administered, in this church as a
church, must be by virtue of Christ's institution and charter, that hath made
such a company of men, so and so meeting for such ends and purposes, to
be a ministerial church to him, and to be that great ordinance, which is the
seat of all other ordinances.
2. It is no less than the seat, the iboaioyixa, the grand repository, as of
truth (as 1 Tim. iii. 15), so of government and worship, and so it is the
next receptive of all the promises that are made to accompany the ordinances
administered therein. We say it is the seat, as of truth, so of government and
worship ; for, by comparing the 5th and lith verses with that 15th, we
shall find that the church of God is the same with that house of God men-
tioned ver. 14, and likewise ver. 5 : ' If a man know not how to rule his
own house well, how shall he take care of the church of God ?' A church,
that is, the subject of government, as compared to an house, wherein the
governor of a family ruleth. And it cannot be intended of the church uni-
versal, though universally, or rather indefinitely expressed, namely, for any
or for all the particular churches that are by God's appointment the sub-
jects of government, of an elder's care and rule, as a family (to which it is
here set in comparison), is of an economic or household government ; for
the church there spoken of is such a church as ordinary ministers take an
actual special care of, like as he that is a master of a family doth of his
own house more than all other. And this kind of church, to which the
proper care and rule of elders is limited, as it is the subject of government,
so it is the seat of truth, where by God's ordinance it is held forth with a
promise to preserve it among them, and to provide that it shall be sown in
the hearts of the people of God, in that great ordinance of preaching by pas-
tors, which are God's own institution, and accordingly gifts are preserved and
continued. As, if the officers, the laws and statutes by which a college or town
is governed, be by charter, the incorporation itself is such much more ; so
now, if the church be the seat of oflioers, then truly if God instituteth the
officers themselves to feed the flock, the flock, over whom they are set, is
appointed and ordained much more, and to it, as to an ordinance of his set-
ting up, the promise of preserving truth is made. And if it be the seat of
all ordinances (as the apostle says, 1 Cor. vii. 17, ' I ordain in all the
churches'), then the churches themselves, which are in this respect the or-
dinance of these ordinances, where he reposeth and betmsts them, and in
which he blesseth them, is much more Christ's ordinance.
Yea, 3, whereas if either of these two, the bounds of elders' jurisdiction,
or the churches over which they are elders, are to be fetched from divine
right, it necessarily argues both ; yet of the two, the institution of the bounds
doth mainly and principally fall upon church, primarily upon church, and
Chap. XI.] the churches of christ. 125
but secondarily upon the extent of presbyteries. That of church is the
more fundamental measure of the division of jurisdiction, and that of pres-
b}i;eries proportioned thereunto. Thus, when it is said, ' The apostles or-
dained elders,' %ar ixyCkr^eioLv , ' in every church,' or church by church, it is
not said that churches were made, xara Tssff/Sursoou?, according to the mould
or cast of presbyters, but elders were assigned according to the mould, mea-
sure, or latitude of churches, and so the several bounds of church power is
limited by the distinction of church. Thus the style of the Scripture runs,
and churches were settled, and not presbyteries ; and the distinction was
not then taken from the names of classes and presbyteries, provincial and
national assemblies, &c. And in Rev. xi. (where John takes the measuring
reed in his hand), what is the subject that reed is applied to, and whereof
the measure is taken ? It is the temple, the church, and not presbyteries
or elderships. Therefore also Mat. xviii., the style runs thus, ' Go tell the
church,' which if it should be granted to be meant of the elders, in our bre-
thren's sense, yet of elders in relation to a church, and in that respect so
styled, as they are relatively the representation of some church, within which
their jurisdiction is bounded. So that if there be any institution that limits
the bounds of their power, it must necessarily fall upon the bound of church
first. Again, our brethren's reasonings doth confirm this, for the chief
weight of their arguments for the extent of the power of elders over many
churches, in those instances of Jerusalem, Ephesus, &c., is taken from hence,
that many congregations are called one church ; and so, from the extent of
elderships and elders, power is derived, and measured thereby ; and the
chief power that is exercised, is to cast out of the church, i. e. to judge them
within then' circuit.
To conclude : If either of these, the jurisdiction of elders, or the measure
of churches, are to be fetched from institution, or set thereby, then both are
to be so. The reason of this consequence is clear from this (which was but
intimated afore), that all power in governors, or any other company of men
whatever, must have a territory, a precinct, a seat in which, and among
whom to exercise their power, and accordingly the extent or limits of that
seat, is the true measure of the extent of these governors' power and juris-
diction, the one being resolved into the other. If the one be divine, the
other is also ; yea, so as although the Holy Ghost should not have expressly
and directly set down both, yet having done either, it is sufficient ; for the
one follows upon the other, and so consequently (as was said) if either be
of divine institution, they both are so. Now the reason of this consequence
is clear, not only from common reason, in its parallel of all jurisdictions else
(wherein the measure of the officer's extent of power is resolved into the
measure of the bodies of men knit together in one, to such or such an extent,
whether taken from place, or whatever else is made the boundary) ; but
further, it may be particularly demonstrated, that this ecclesiastical govern-
ment is according to the order of the New Testament. For suppose the
power of government, whether in whole or in part, be in a company of
elders, yet it is not given them simply as elders to their persons, no, nor
simply as a presbytery abstractedly considered (that is, as a company of
elders merely as such, continuing as they please over these and these churches,
or as few as they will), but whatever jurisdiction is in them is given in rela-
tion to a seat ; so as the division and partition of elderships and presb}-te-
ries, &c., and their extent and compass, ariseth from the partition and
division of churches, and the extent thereof. And although what these due
limits of either are is to be afterwards considered, yet these general do
argue, that such are to be found set out by the Holy Ghost. ^
126 " THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK II.
CHAPTER XII.
lliat it is the prerorfative of Christ's poiver and wisdom to determine the due
limits of churches, and the boundaries of the elders' power.
The prerogative of Christ the instituter, is as much seen in assigning a
due extent of power to elders, and in measuring oat the just bounds wherein
their authority is to be exercised, as in anything which he hath instituted.
1. Christ useth his great prerogative in setting out, and in constituting
and bounding of the church that shall be the seat of government, which is
his house.
1. In all civil government (and if there be a government spiritual derived
from Christ, this parallel will hold) the stamp of royal and supreme authority,
which is the fountain of government, is seen and exercised in nothing more
than in the grant of privileges unto a company of men dwelling together to
incorporate for government, as also in setting the bounds and limits of such
a jurisdiction ; and this is fundamental to all the rest ; and answerably speaks
the Scriptures. Thus in Heb. iii. 3-5, the prerogative of Christ above
Moses is argued from this as the highest branch of it, that Christ was he
that built the very house itself; and therefore, answerably, this is for the
honour of Christ. If a king had an infinite number of subjects scattered
over all the world, which could not be governed in the whole or lump, but by
pgrts, distinguished and formed up into several bodies knit together, were it
not his prerogative as much, yea more, to appoint out the several provinces
or territories, and the bounds thereof, which he would have governed exactly,
as to appoint the kind of officers, or acts of government ? Sui-ely it is more.
Therefore, the founders and disposera of the bounds of commonwealths at
first have been esteemed great, and more renowned than those that gave
laws or established the several kinds of officers. It cannot be denied, but
that there must be a commission from Christ to empower a company of
saints, that live in a neighbourhood together as saints, to become a church
to Christ, not in a mystical relation only (for that they are as saints, though
they become not a seat of pubUc worship, and of an orderly government here
on earth), but further to become a subject of public worship, and also to en-
joy a government among them. As the things themselves thus enjoyed are
such as nothing more concerns God's glory in the world, and the good and
benefit of the saints, so their becoming a church, which is the foundation of
this, and unto which, as such, the privilege of these is vouchsafed, is as great
a favour and privilege as could be bestowed on them ; which, therefore, must
needs hold as much upon a free gift and charter of Christ, the head and lord
of his church, as any other thing can be supposed to do. A gift and favour
it is, over and above their being saints and members of the church mystical,
electively bestowed, for such they might have been, and yet never have been
ordered so to meet. As to be a minister to the church, it is a favour beyond
a man's being a saint, or having gifts, and none is to take that honour to
himself, but he that is called of God, and hath a charter from him for the
kind of ministry designed (and therefore Paul makes that great character of
himself from God's putting him into the ministry) so for a company of saints
to take on them the title and honour of a church, and an whole church, as
every particular seat of worship and government doth, which is the title of
the whole universal body of Christ, yea, to take on them the relation of a
body, an whole body to Christ, this must be by a special charter and war-
rant, whatever company of men there be that do it. Kone can give that
title of church, unless Christ hath given it, as none can take the title of being
Chap. XII.] the chukches of christ. 127
a city in a kingdom, or of being a privileged place, but by charter. If none
can take on him the dignity of an earl, or of a viscount, or of any officer of
state, so no company of people can of themselves presume to be a city, but
by special charter, much less to be a seat of government, whereby they be-
come not simply a company, but a body politic. Church, in this sense, is
an authoritative word, and such authority ariseth not from place or any
external circumstance, no, nor from meeting, but from a charter that adds
authority, aud above such considerations, unto such a company.
2. That it should belong to the prerogative of Christ to determine the
bounds of elders' jurisdiction, as much as to appoint the elders or kinds of
officers themselves, evidently appears by its parallel. When any officers
derive their governing power from a supreme state, it concerns the honour
and prerogative of that state to define the extent of the division of their
jurisdiction, as much as the kind of officers. If, therefore, it be universally
found to be the wisdom of all supreme powers, with one consent to judge
and account this bounding as justly to concern their prerogative, shall we
think that Christ hath been less jealous and careful of his honour herein ?
Surely, either is no government at all defined by him, and no sort or kind
of officers set and distinguished by him, but all is alike left to human pru-
dence, as in civil government all these things alike are, or it must be ac-
knowledged, that the one concerns the honour and prerogative of Christ to
determine, as well as the other.
I know it may be said, that though it is necessary, yet it must be safely
left to the law of natui*e, and to the rulers-^' of prudence for men to appoint it ;
aud that yet however the partition or measure of churches' and officers' ex-
tent is divine, because God hath appointed that to be the measure which men
in their prudence shall think good to appoint. But this is, indeed, to make
both the extent of officers' government and the measure of the churches, and
the seat thereof, to be both human, even as the extent of the power and office
of civil magistrates is, and is called, 1 Peter ii. 13. And magistracy is
called an ordinance of man, because the extent of it is left to men to appoint
as they shall think meet. And yet, if God had either set the bounds and
extent of officers' jurisdiction, or of commonwealths, which are both con-
siderable, then had both been of divine institution ; but since neither of
them are so set, they are human, although in the general God hath com-
manded that magistrates shall have that measure of power which men and
commonwealths shall give them.
I will add one thing more to strengthen Christ's prerogative in this case,
that spiritual reason, suited to the nature of the thing itself, falls in to prove
both the bounding the elders' power, and the bounds of churches as the seat
of government.
1. I argue from the rise of the call of elders. For though it were true,
as some say, that all saints as saints, or as they are mystical members of the
church universal, have a full and immediate right, without any further rela-
tion of order and union to a particular church, ipw facto to enjoy all ordi-
nances, yet take elders, or ministers, and church governors as such, and
they cannot be supposed to have it simply as members of the church catholic,
nor have they it from their having gifts. The law of nature they cannot
plead, why they should have that power rather than other persons in the
church ; and Christ's charter immediately they have not, as naming their
persons. From whence, then, must it be that they have their power as
elders, but from an instituted relation ? This must be, then, some other
instituted right and privilege given them. They are given to the church,
* Qu. ' rules ' ?— Ed.
128 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK II.
and so their rise must be from their relation to a church ; and by the same
reason, the extent of the jurisdiction of their office must depend upon the
like ; for what else should give them power over these, or these churches,
and not others ? As it is asserted by some that the power is given to saints,
yet not to saints, but as formed up into bodies ; so those that will say it is
wiven to elders, must at least acknowledge it is given to elders as knit into
bodies, and set over such formed bodies. So as their jurisdiction doth de-
pend upon a relation to, and a rise of call, either from that body, or at least
into that body, which is more evident upon this further reason, than that
fore-mentioned will reach to. Because God makes not elders immediately by
his providential converting and working on them, for so he makes saints ; and
yet he gives not, say our brethren, the power to them, but as united into an
orderly body by institution, in which they exercise each to other. And the
case of elders' power is more depending upon an order and institution, because
they are called to be elders by a designation of men. Their being elders at
least is in order to a relation, and not by a providential immediate working
on them, or from God's giving them gifts, or by an immediate call, as the
apostles were chosen, afore God erected his church, to that end to erect it.
There must be formed bodies to give a rise to their call, by designing and
accepting them ; and there must be a relation to those formed bodies which
they are set over, which must be set out by divine appointment, which alone
maketh elders, and .^ives them their powers ; and so the rise of their call
and their jurisdiction is commensurable.
2. I argue from the necessity of the thing itself. Necessary it was that
the extensive power of elders should be determined (as well as the intensive)
either by God or man. If by God, we have what is desired ; if by man,
either by the civil magistrates (and they were not Christians for above three
hundred years after Christ) or by the elders themselves, and the churches,
as they should agree it. Now see the inconvenience to leave this part of
extensive power to be determined by men, especially by the elders them-
selves, whilst Christ should take on him to determine only the other. Of
all sort of power, church power is that wherein, when men have any part or
any pretence to it, they are more apt to be ambitious of extending it than
any other. Witness the ambition of the prelates, and the usurpation of the
pope, &c. And they are as apt to usui'p an undue power in the extension
of jurisdiction, as well as unlawful intensive authority, as we have seen in
popes and bishops. The latter have assumed an undue extensive power
over whole dioceses, archbishops over provinces, and primates over nations,
and popes have usurped such a power over the universal church. This too
larce power they have all challenged, as well as too much intensive power,
by'which the bishops appropriate ordination to themselves, which presby-
teries (say they) may not do ; and the popes lay a claim to infallibility, &c.
Now our presbyterian brethren quarrel at that power in bishops, and the
bishops oppose that universal extensive power in the popes. Now the pope
challengeth this intensive power of infaUibility, but upon this right, that
having such universal extensive power as the apostles had, therefore God
hath enabled him (as in that case he did the apostles) with an infallibility
suitable to that large extent of power ; and therefore he began his usurpa-
tion, with the pretence only at first to an universal power for extent, in his
title of universal bishop, and that brought on the other, and crept up with
it, and is supported by it, as the ivy is by the elm. Thus Alexander the
Great, being lord of all the world in his own opinion, flattered himself into
the conceit of divinity, and of being a god, as annexed to that crown uni-
versal. So that men are as apt to err this way as the other, and as danger-
Chap. XII.] the churches of christ. 129
ously in the consequence. It was therefore as necessary that Christ should
set bounds to the usurpation of men who were to be trusted with church
power, as to anything else ; it was necessary to prevent the claim of any one
(as of bishops) to determine the form of government in the church not to
be monarchical ; it was necessary to prevent impertinent intermeddling in
officers, to set the proper bounds of each several officer ; it was necessary to
prevent a lording over the flock, by setting down the acts of government
proper to elders. And so, that a stretching themselves beyond their line,
and an intermeddling authoritatively in churches not in their jurisdiction
might be prevented, it was needful to set down by certain limits the territory
of church government, seeing as true a tyranny and lording might equally
arise over the church by an undue extent of jurisdiction as by the exercise
of unlawful and new invented acts of church power. And all this was the
rather necessary, because that if it had been left to common rules (as other
things of outward order are), and by human prudence to be shared and
divided, the clergy themselves, and elders of churches, were like to arrogate
the determination hereof (as in all ages they have done) ; and if they them-
selves were to be the allotters of it, they would be sure to look to their
share, and that wisdom (they would have it left to) would be sure to cast it
so, and mould the frame of the power of jurisdiction into such an order as
should advance and set up their power over all the churches. And herein
the whole multitude of elders and the clergy are as apt (yea, more apt) to
be tempted, as a few prelates, that usurp it singly, because the dominion
extends to the totum genus, the whole kind of them. Meet therefore it
was that the Lord Jesus himself should fix this, and determine it as much
as anything else that he hath done.
Then, 3, as to the bounding the churches or bodies of saints and elders
that should be the seat of church power, it agrees with all reason that Christ
should keep this to him as a part of his prerogative, and that it should depend
on his supreme authority. It cannot be denied, but that (as was said) for
a company of saints to be a distinct fixed church within themselves, and so
to be the seat of either the ordinances for worship or government, is a super-
added privilege to their being saints. If pastors and teachers be ordinances
and the gift of Christ, Eph. iv., then to be churches, and the privileges
thereof, in and by means of which the saints come to have a propriety in
these, and a special relation unto these, is a gift also, and so dependeth
electively upon God's will, and so is the subject of institution as well as any
other thing. And these churches of saints are not only the object of govern-
ment, and in that respect the seat of it, but the privilege of government; the
endowment thereof is in a special manner conferred on the churches, who
are the seat of it ; and thereunto is the grant primarily made, and unto
them the benefit redounds. Thus in civil bodies that are the seat of govern-
ment, the privilege and charter of having a government respects the whole
community itself principally, and not the officers ; and therefore it is called
the corporation's, the town's, or the city's charter, and not the mayor's and
aldermen. As, therefore, the main institution or charter falls on the seat
itself, and so upon the officers and the power in them for them, and indeed
on both by one and the same appointment, so answerably tlae Scripture
style runs still upon the church, taking in the whole community of elders
and people (' So I ordain in the churches,' &c., says the apostle), because
that is the seat, the subject of the privilege, and so of that institution that
bestows and endows it. Yea, and therefore the promise of Christ's blessing
and presence is made to the church, that is the seat of government : ' I will
VOL. XI. I
130 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK II.
be present,' says Christ, ' in the midst of you,' &c., which, if it should be
interpreted of a company of elders, yet it must be as relating to a church
that is their seat, and to which they have a special relation, and so by
virtue of the promise made to the church itself, Christ walks in the midst
of the candlesticks, which are the churches. And the efficacy of this govern-
ment and censures therein depends upon a special blessing, and the promise
of a special blessing is always the companion of his own institution. As no
acts of government, but such as are instituted, have the ordinary promise of
blessing, nor in the hands of any other than such as Christ hath given the
power unto, so all is confined too within that seat or extent of jurisdiction
he hath appointed ; and upon this ground he is specially present with those
oificers and those acts, in relation, and in a respect to that body or church
whose elders they are, and to whom the promise is principally made, and
upon whom the privilege and institution chiefly falls. In this respect, then,
it must also as much belong to his power and prerogative to set out some
bounds and limits of these churches, as to institute and appoint that there
should be churches that should have such a privilege. And the reason is,
because the greatness and worth of the privilege doth more or less depend
upon the ordering the extent and bounds of that chui'ch, and will accord-
ingly more or less redound to the good and benefit of the saints therein, as
these are set and ordered. And therefore it was fit that the saints should
owe this to none but the wisdom of Christ himself ; yea, nothing concerns
the substance of the privilege more ; and therefore if the privilege itself be
from Christ, then this also. Take any incorporate body, if it be a privilege
to any such body to have ofiicers and certain acts of government appointed
for and over them, then it is as much so too to have also a circumscription
of jurisdiction among themselves, as they are incorporate; yea, their privilege
and the benefit of it depends so much upon it, that according to the order-
ing thereof it is rendered greater or lesser, or perhaps made as good as void,
so that all depends upon the set determination of it, and had need therefore
to be set out by the founder as distinctly as anything else. The benefit of
all privileges depends upon bounds of enclosure, which, if left common, the
privilege is impaired. The privilege of such a body lies, that inclusively they
should have such a government and officers within themselves, and also exclu-
sively be free in such and such cases from the jurisdiction of others ; and if there
be not something of either of these, there is no benefit or privilege in having
such a govenmient or officers ; and yet neither of them can be accomplished
unless the extent of the seat of government itself, and jurisdiction thereof, be
set out and determined. And if so much of the privilege depends hereon
(as apparently it doth), should not he appoint and set out the limits of these
bodies, who is the author, giver, and bestower of the privilege itself, to
whom these societies should wholly owe it, and not to the discretion of
others, and who also takes on him as his peculiar to appoint both the acts
of government, and afiairs for it, and form of government they should be
ruled by, the one being of as much consequence as the other ? Thus the
proportion of the greatness of the privilege and benefit of government, so
much depending on it, it is meet, yea, necessary, that he that is the author
of this government should define and fix it.
4. I shall further add another thing, which depends upon the former, that
the efficacy of all ecclesiastical power and censures, depending on so super-
natural a blessing, to subject the conscience unto those censures (against
which men's consciences are apt to be as obstinate and rebellious as to any
kind of punishment inflicted by men) it was as necessary that Christ himself
should set out the bounds of jurisdiction, within the compass of which men
Chap. XII.] the churches of christ. 131
■were to be subject to those whom he betrusted with the government, as to
appoint any of those other things fore-mentioned ; for men were hke to
quarrel at nothing more than the right of power in those that executed it,
and nothing was more hable to exception than is this. They still might say,
What have you to do to judge me, unless you can shew from Christ I am in
the way of your jurisdiction ? Yea, how else also should it be known to
•whom it belonged, and over whom to execute these censures ; and who were
in fault if they were not executed ? The apostle therefore stirs up the
Corinthians to it, as a duty belonging to them ; and convinceth them of their
sin (on whom it lay, and on none else), that they neglected to censure that
offender, who was within their jurisdiction ! ' Do not ye judge them that are
within ? ' says he, 1 Cor. v. 12. And so far as the sword of the Spirit is not
managed by that hand, where Christ hath placed it, it will be naked. And
if so much of the blessing depends upon other things of as small moment,
as upon the true form of government that Christ hath appointed, that is, to
be administered by the many (as Paul speaks), and not by one man, a bishop,
and by men in office, and not the people only, though many (as our brethren
will say, in so much as for want of these some of them do account the act
null and void, and to have been weakened, and as a wooden dagger) ; surely
of these censures it may as well be imagined, they might receive a propor-
tionable strength from the addition of the like institution of the extent of
jurisdiction over those that should be within the reach of them, these being
acts of the power of jurisdiction, as they have been commonly called, in dis-
tinction from those other of doctrine and the sacraments. Sure we are that
Paul seems to put as much of the promise of the power to accompany it
upon this, that the incestuous Corinthian was within the jurisdiction of the
church of Corinth, and so had the promise of Christ's power to accompany
that ordinance to that man, as upon anything else. For Christ still blessetii
his own oixiinance, when in that right hand he hath placed it, and it may
well be thought one, if not the main reason, why the edge of this sword hath
been found so blunt and dull (as Laurentius Andreas observes) that there
hath been more power in one excommunication in the primitive times, than
in all since, though backed with the civil sword ; because it hath been in
them that have not had the right of jurisdiction to execute it ; that whereas
TertuUian says, it was in their congregations tangumiifiilmen, as a thunder-
bolt, it hath been bnitum fulmen to us, a thunderbolt of no force ; nulla
major nidUtas quam defectus juris, nee major defectus quam jurisdktionis, there
is no greater nullity than a deficiency of right, nor a greater defect than that
of jurisdiction.
In the conclusion of the whole, I infer from this assertion chiefly these
corollaries.
1. That our brethren of the presbyterian way, if they would prove and
establish their several orders, and classical, &c. assemblies, they must shew
us institution for them.
2. And in this agitation let those that can produce out of the New Testa-
ment the truest, genuine, natural evidences of the bounds of an instituted
church, as the seat of officers and government, carry it.
8. 'That an instituted church, according to the true and lawful bounds
thereof, being the seat of the privilege, all power of elders and officers is to
be drawn down thereto, in the exercise thereof; and in case of defect, elders
are to be chosen to such a church, and not that church taken in to other
elders, and also all acts of jurisdiction are to be exercised therein.
132 THE GO"\^ENMENT OF [BoOK III.
BOOK III.
Pa,rtic%dar congregations, having a sufficient miwher of elders and officers, are
completely enabled fur all acts of government, and excommunication ilaelf,
uithin themselves, as well as for uorshijy.
CHAPTER I.
TJiat a particular congregation of saints, having a sufficient number of elders,
is a complete subject of church power and government, 2^'>'oved : 1, from the
power wliich tJieg have to examine and admit members ; 2, from their pjower
of suspending from tlie sacrament ; 3, from their being a perfect jwlitical
church.
This is agreed upon by all hands, that some particular church is such a
politic body, as hath entire power to cast out by excommunication ; and a
casting out of that particular body is consequently a casting out of all the
rest, by the law of communion of churches, whether imphcit (one church
reverencing the judgment of another, till they see apparent cause to the con-
trary), or explicit, by virtue of that their association. Now the question
is, what particular body or church it is, whether a fixed congregation
(whereof a man is a constant member), when it hath a sufficiency of elders
over it, or a presbytery of many congi-egations ?
Proposition, One single congregation of saints, having a sufficient number
of elders and officers, is an entire seat of all acts of government, and of ex-
communication itself, as well as of worship. The truth of this proposition
will appear, if we consider the following arguments,
Arg. I. If such a church with the elders are sufficient to try and examine,
and so admit ordinary members, without the help of other churches, then it
is sufficient to cast them out. For,
1. The one is an affirmative act, the other a negative act, but both are
acts of the keys, only turning several ways ; the one opening, the other
shutting ; the one is but judging initial repentance, the other is a judging of
occasional repentance for a gross sin. And there is as much reason you
should require as evident signs of repentance from the state of nature, as
you do in case of scandal. For as to men grown up, till they shew repent-
ance, there is this prejudice against them, that they are children of wrath
by nature even as well as others.
2. The not admitting of men to church ordinances, and not receiving
them, is an act of as great moment to men's persons, as to be cast out. IF,
then, churches be betrusted with the one, why should not they be betrusted
with the other ?
3. If excommunication were more to the man excommunicated, than a
not receiving by way of admission, yet Christ's honour is as much concerned
Chap. I.] the churches of christ. 133
in what members are taken in and owned for his body, as in what are cast
out.
4. In all commonwealths, to enfranchise and to cut off belong to the same
power ; yea, to enfranchise doth more appertain to it. For parliaments only
do enfranchise strangers, but yet lower courts do cut men oft' by death,
according to the law. And it holds in all bodies else, for in families they
have power to take in servants, and power to cast out, and in colleges to
admit and to expel.
Object. But it will be objected that, to excommunicate a man, is to cast
him out of all churches, and therefore it is the greater act.
Ans. 1. That simply alone doth not make it greater; for a man is cast
out of all churches, not formally but only consequently, because the churches
have and hold communion one with another. Let the proportion be held
between admission and excommunication in this, and they will be parallels ;
for if you will say that all churches about have an interest, because they are
to reject a man that is excommunicated, so they have an interest also in
admission, to receive him also if he be admitted, and they cast a reflection
upon that church he is of, if they receive him not by virtue of his fellow-
ship.
Ans. 2. A man in being so admitted into a particular church, by virtue
of that fellowship, he is received occasionally into communion with any other
church.
Arg. II. If a single congregation may suspend from the sacrament without
consulting others, then they may excommunicate. This is evident,
1. From presbyterial principles, for those that hold excommunication to
be but a casting one ofi' from communion with the church, and not to include
a further thing, viz., a formal delivering him unto Satan, do make but a
very small ditierence between suspension and excommunication. A man
excommunicated they will admit to hear, and therefore his being cast out of
the communion of the church is but a depriving him of the communion of
the Lord's supper, and that is also done by suspension. Only the one is
but a suspension from a few acts, this from many ; but both are till he
repents.
If it be said that the consequent of excommunication is to avoid civil con-
verse, which is more than suspension, we reply, that even so it is in sus-
pension also ; for there is to be a withdrawing from a brother that walks
inordinately, before he is excommunicated, 2 Thes. iii. 6. Yea, because a
private brother ought to withdraw converse with such an one, it is made a
ground of suspension from the Lord's supper by the church, that the church
should withdraw communion with him, and so suspend him.
Arr/. III. Add to this, that they who are a politic church, having a suffi-
cient presbytery and eldership, have a power to do all acts in a church, and
therefore to excommunicate. But such a congregation is a politic chm'ch,
and have a sufficient presbytery and eldership.
1. They are a politic church, and the least church hath thus much power,
that he that hears it not, let him be as an heathen and a publican ; and the
greatest hath no more. All the churches in the world may add advice in
difficult cases, and a reverential authority, but they cannot add power, for
that Christ hath given to a church as it is a church. The presbyterial
divines themselves do argue the power of excommunication in a presbytery,
because it is a church ; only they say a congregation is an imperfect church.
Whereas there is not one Scripture in the New Testament that doth so
much as call a presbytery, over many congregations, church ; or if it did,
there is then a greater thing to be proved (namely, this distinction which
134 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK III.
the Scripture hath not made), that a congregation having an eldership is an
incomplete church politic, and the other complete. All churches may be
imperfect in respect of moral power, in some cases, wherein they need advice ;
and so a presbyterian church may be imperfect, and may run into error,
and so may a provincial, so may a national, so may a general council. And
if the imperfection of a church should lie in this, that it is subject to another
church, and accountable thereunto (according to presbyterial principles),
then also a provincial and a national church were imperfect, and by that
rule they also srhould not excommunicate. But in a word, the imperfection
of a congregational church must lie, either in respect of what they are as a
church, or in respect of their eldership.
(1.) Their imperfection doth not lie in their being a church, for they have
more of church than any classical meeting of elders hath, because they have
both people and elders also, and so partake of both sorts, which the other
doth not. And the assembly have in their vote acknowledged Mat. xviii.
to intend a particular church, and the eldership thereof to be a church,
although they do not acknowledge it only to be a church, and our reformed
writers call congregations, ecclesice prima:, the first churches.
(2.) Neither doth their imperfection He in their eldership, as being insuffi-
cient, for if so, then either elders are not an eldership unto them for acts of
government ; or they are not a sufficient eldership for all acts of govern-
ments. But,
[1.] They are an eldership or presbytery unto them for acts of govern-
ment. For where there are more elders than one united in common for
acts of government, there they are an eldership or a presbytery, but so there
are here. This is evident in the instance of Jerusalem, brought by the
assembly themselves, for they therefore prove presbyterial government over
many congregations, because those elders met for acts of government, and
that those many congregations were one church to those elders. Now in a
particular congregation, where there are more elders than one, there is one
church, and there are likewise the elders thereof, meeting (say we) with
that church for acts of government, and that they may meet apart (say
they) for some acts of government. Of a bishop it is said, 1 Tim. iii. 5,
' If he do not rule his own house well, how shall he take care of the
church of God ? ' that is, to rule it, as the answering of one phrase to the
other imports. And surely, if by bishop there be meant a particular elder,
having relation unto a particular congregation, ruling in that congregation is
there intended ; and to suppose that the house of God, that he is to take
care of and to rule, is many congregations, as met in a classis, is too hard a
supposition, especially seeing the argument is taken from ruling his family,
and he is placed in a congregation ; and if the congregation should not be
meant here by the house of God, the comparison went j^er saltum, by too
wide a leap.
[2.] As the name church is applied to the house of meeting in our lan-
guage to this day, so this is an argument that congregational meetings are
churches, and so the name rector, which imports ruling, continues also to
this day. * Presbyters (saith Bains*) in ancient time were in great differ-
ence, or of a double sort, those who are called j;;-o;)?/i sacerdotes, rectores,
seniores, minorum ecclesiarum j^rapositi. The bishop had not, nor challenged
not, that respective power over them, which he did over those who were
numbered among his clerks, who were helps to him in the liturgy, in chapels
and parishes which did depend on him as their proper teacher, though they
could not so ordinarily go out to him. The first sort had power within
* Bains' Diocesan Trial, p. G6.
Chap. I.J the chukches of christ. 135
their churches to teach, administer, excommunicate, and were counted breth-
ren to the bishops, and called cpiscopl or coepiscopi, even of the ancient ;
but the presbyters, which were part of their clergy, they had this directive
power over them, indeed, the canons ecclesiastical allowing the same. And
this power, in their own congregations, these rectors had, although they
were miiwrum ecdesianim pnqwsiti, rulers over lesser churches. And
surely they that are fit to teach their own congregation, are fit to govern
their own congregation : the word to feed the flock implying feeding them
by ruling as well as by teaching. They that are parents to beget, have
power of the rod betrusted to them ; and if they be fit to govern /o/o iiiterno,
then much more with others /o/o externa. It is a more apostolical work to
beget, and to plant, and to multiply, than to govern men being converted.
That those that should be fit to gather a church, and to bring it to falness
from small beginnings, should not be fit to govern it, and to reap the fruit
of it, but that the power should be in others that are extrinsecal to their
congregations, is absurd to think.'
In the classical government, if they admonish not personally only, i. e.
each minister apart, but as a body in common, then they meet for acts of
government, and that in common as united ; and if there be no admonition
in common wherein they all join, as an act of authority of the whole, then
such admonitions proceed from the minister alone that doth admonish, and
the other elders therein are but as cyphers. Now, therefore, when there is
elders, and these elders united in acts and common, and those acts are acts
of government, there must needs be an eldership. And this the reformed
churches do acknowledge, and the commissioners of Scotland in their papers
do own this to be an eldership. The reformed churches in France call it a
presbytery, and the meeting of the elders over many congregations, that
they call the classis. And what doth make a classical eldership to be a
presbytery, but that materially there are elders that have relation to those
congregations, and that formally they are united for acts in common ?
(2.) It is as evidently true that they are a sufficient presbytery. It is
true, indeed (as was said afore), no one is sufiicient for any of these things ; and
thus for moral imperfections, power might be taken from the apostles them-
selves, who acknowledge this imperfection of themselves ; but they have a
political sufficiency. For
[1.] If it be said that the insufficiency lies in the fewness of the number,
and that in a classical presbytery there are more, in answer to that, the
rale saith, ' elders of the church,' and so speaks of them indefinitely ; and
our Saviour Christ saith in Mat. xviii., 'Where two or three are gathered,'
which the presbyterial divines do interpret of the elders. In Acts xiii. 1,
there are three elders mentioned at Antioch, and that they ordained two
apostles, Barnabas and Paul, who (say our brethren) acted as ordinary
elders, when joined together in the same act, and yet they ordained also.
Acts xiv. 23. Thus the church of Colosse had two ministers, Epaphras
aud Archippus, and yet that church was complete. Col. ii. 10. And they
were but one congregation, for they were pastors to them ; ' who is a faith-
ful minister to you,' saith he, and that in respect of teaching, for, saith he,
they had ' heard it from him,' Col. iv. And when the Scripture hath not
put the sufficiency upon a number, why, if there be but two, should they be
excluded "? And then too it may fall out, that as many elders are in one
congregation as in some chififies. It will not be denied by our brethren,
that two churches may associate and make a classis, and one congregation
may have as many elders, ns these two smaller ones that do associate. And
assuredly their sufiiciency doth not he, that they have relation unto many
136 THE GOVEENMENT OF [BoOK III.
congi-egations, for tliat this should have the influence into their sufficiency
is hard to be supposed ; besides that this is but a secondary relation, for
the primary relation is to their own several churches, insomuch as it was
sometimes aflirmed by our brethren, that they were not elders to all those
several congregations associated, but an eldership only. And that is but an
extrinsecal relation neither, whereas that relation they have to their own is
more intrinsecal, because they are chosen by them, and because they per-
sonally watch over them, and are fixed amongst them, whereas this is but
raised by a mere association. And therefore this relation, that they are
elders over many congregations, can add nothing to their sufficiency.
[2.] Or else, secondly, their insufficiency is supposed to lie in not having
all sort of elders in this congregational eldership, both as pastor, teacher,
and ruling elder. But if so, then a classical eldership may be imperfect
too, for in some of these, one that hath the office of a teacher, or a doctor
may be, is often found wanting ; or what if all ruling elders were wanting,
and only pastors met, were this an imperfect eldership ? And if all sorts
and kinds of elders were necessary to make up the sufficiency of an elder-
ship or presbytery classical, then it were first necessary that every congrega-
tion should have all these sorts of elders ; for a classis cannot oblige the con-
gregations under them, that some should have a teacher, others a ruling elder,
others a pastor, to make up all sorts among them ; and besides, the first rela-
tion of all officers, being unto particular congregations, as being primarily
ordained for them (for none is an officer simply made for a classical church),
therefore the seat of all these sorts of officers is congregations. And so, if
that the classis have it, it is because the congregations have all first ; and if
the classes be bound to have all to make theirs sufficient, the congregations
also are bound to have all to make theirs sufficient.
[3.] Or else, thirdly, they are supposed deficient, because they want
ability.
But [1. J if they are elders of the church universal (as some of our breth-
ren affirm) and of all the world, and accordingly fit for any work of elders,
as their office is, it were strange that a company of them in a congregation,
two or three or more, should not be fit for all the business in that con-
gregation.
But [2,] their inability must lie either in want of skill or want of power.
If in want of skill, it must be either skill to discern the proof of the fact, for
which men are to be excommunicated ; and if so, then they are unable to
admonish also, for they should not admonish but upon proof of the fact ;
and to disable a congregation, people and elders, to do that which any jury
of a few men use to do ordinarily in point of life and death, is very hard.
Or else their want of skill must lie in discerning, whether the sin be a sin
of that nature, that it deserves excommunication for the matter of fact, if it
be not repented of; but they cannot be supposed to want skill in that, for
then they cannot likewise suspend from the sacrament, for they are to sus-
pend but for such sins as, if not repented of, would deserve excommunica-
tion. Or else they must want skill to judge of repentance, or the want of
it ; but surely if a brother may be able to judge of the repentance of a
brother, in case of a flagitious sin (which in public he should be excom-
municated for, if he repented not), then a church and these elders may be
able to judge of his repentance of public sins. Yea, if a particular eldership
(according to presbyterial principles) do find that the man repenteth upon
their admonition, though the sin be gross and heinous, they may forbear to
bring him to the chissis, and receive him again, or else their admonitions are
in vain, and all must be brought however to the classis. And if they may
Chap. I.] the churches of christ. 137
judge of his repentance, so as to prevent excommunication, then they may
as well judge of his repentance, or of his obstinacy, when he is to be excom-
municated.
If it be said that the fault may be so atrocious that they cannot so well
judge of his repentance, the answer is,
1. Then all such sins should be brought immediately to the classical pres-
bytery, and not to the particular eldership at all, for them to admonish or to
deal with him in order to repentance.
2. The more heinous the lault is, the more apparent it is ; and therefore
the better they may judge of it, and the easier an excommunication should
be for it.
Or, 2, their insufficiency must be supposed to lie in want of power.
But, 1, if they be a presbytery in a church, they must needs have power
and authority to do all that a presbytery is ordered for, or is ascribed to it.
A presbytery and presbyterial acts are relative and mutual.
2. All Christ's ordinances and means are sufficient unto his end. As a
minister, if he be a true and lawful minister, hath sufficiency both of gifts
and power to do what belongeth unto him as a minister, as to acts of all
sorts, and the least as well as the greatest, so if Christ do ordain a presby-
tery to govern as a presbytery, it is a perfect means for all presbyterial acts ;
for God's appointments are perfect, and God's means for government are as
complete as his other means, of preaching and the sacraments. A presbytery,
if it be a presbytery, is as perfect as a presbytery, as a particular minister is
as a minister. A minister is a complete minister, not to preach only, but to
baptize; not to baptize only, but to administer the Lord's supper; not to
preach one part of the counsel of God, but all ; not to administer the bread
only, but the cup ; and if he is the minister of one sacrament, then also of
another, for there are no such ministers as the bishops, deacons.'"'' Now, look
what a minister is in his kind, that elders are in their kind; and if they have
power to admonish, then power to excommunicate.
3. If they be fit for one act of government, then for all acts, of all sorts
and kinds (for of them we speak now) ; we do not say in all cases, for a case
may be too difficult for them, and then they seek advice ; but we speak of the
kinds. If they be able, they have the power, in one as well as the other,
which is proved.
1. Because our presbyterian brethren's own arguments do run from
instances of one part of government to all. They cannot give instances of
all acts of government done by those that they suppose to be classical
churches ; but they argue from some few, and those less than excommuni-
cation, as in the instance of the church of Jerusalem, they argue from the
less, from having received alms, that they meant to prevent a scandal.
Yea, they argue that because the synod in Acts xv. might with an authority
doctrinal declare, that therefore they might excommunicate ; so we argue,
if a congregational presbjiery may do all these, then they may excommuni-
cate, and it is their right to do it. Our presbyterian brethren can give no in-
stance of any one that did all ; and until they have an instance that classical
churches did all these, it may still be said that classical churches be imper-
fect. And how then shall they or we know what is a perfect presbytery, and
what is not ? To give them power to admonish, to suspend from the sacra-
ment, and not to excommunicate, is to make them imperfect. If, then, they
are furnished with power, they must likewise have ability ; for what Christ
gives power to do, to that he gives ability sufficient.
If it should be said that congregational elders do but govern iiiforo interna,
* Qu. ' bishops' deacons ' ? — En.
138 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK III.
I answei-, 1, that is the game that the bishops allowed, only unto pastors of
congregations, affirming themselves had only the external judicature. Then,
2, they rule more than in foro interno, for they set up an outward judicature
in a church, of elders, united in common, even while they admonish in com-
mon, and suspend from the sacrament in common.
So that, to conclude this argument, to say that they are insufficient for
ability and power, it is, 1, a wrong to Christ in reproaching his means as
insufficient to his ends. It is, 2, a wrong to the pi-esbytery itself. It is
enough to take away the power from them ; but to take away a man's power
and his estate, and make him a ward, under pretence that he is not able to
manage it, or hath no power to do it, is the greatest wrong that can be.
3. If some elders and congregations be found insufficient, then they are in-
sufficient to be elders ; put them out, or let them only be wards ; shall the
law be general for their sakes ? 4. If you ask what is a sufficient eldership,
we ask you what is an insufficient, and wherein insufficiency lieth ? And
let not churches be kept imperfect (when it is their due to have a sufficient
eldership), that under the pretence of that, the necessity of presbyterial
government may appear. But as in case of separation, the assembly hath
affirmed that if there be want of officers or the like, it is required that there
be a supply, and that there be not a separation ; so in congregations, let there
be a sufficient eldership, let there be a supply, let not the power be taken
away. For thus the bishops took away ruling elders, and did leave but
one pastor in a congregation, that so they might have the better pretence to
govern, and to do all themselves.
CHAPTEE 11.
The fourth, fiJOi, and sixth arguments, to j^i'ove a single congregation to he a
complete subject of ecclesiastical iwwer, drawn, l,from being a body of i'krist
completely ordained ; 2, because u-orship and government are commensurate;
3, from the nature of excommunication.
Arg. IV. They that are a body organised with all the members, have all
the privileges of a body ; but a church having a company of elders, especially
if of all sorts, is a body to Christ, and completely organized. The complete-
ness of the natural body lies not in the multitude of members, but in having
all. And that such a body thus complete should not have all power that a
body can be supposed to have over its members, is very strange. And again,
that power and liberty Avhich is to be given to every brother in his propor-
tion, is to be given to every complete body of Christ in the like proportion as
it is a body. Now, every brother hath power as a brother (and as it is his
duty) to withdraw from him he doth judge to walk inordinately, 2 Thes.
iii. 5. And then every body that is rightly organised must therefore have
power as a body, in a suitable proportion, to cut off any rotten member ;
and if it can heal itself, to do it of itself, the law of nature will teach it, as
it is a body, so to do. That is not a sound body that hath not strength to
purge out its own excrements. All bodies and societies of men have power
still within themselves to cast out any who are destructive to the society, so
families have (every lump purgeth out its own leaven), and every particular
company in a greater city have that power so far as their own company
reacheth.
The power which the synagogues had and exercised, congregations surely
may have now. The Sanhedrim might give the law in the abstract, direct-
Chap. II,] the churches of christ. 139
ing who and what kind of persons were to be east out, and for what ; but
they meddled not with the particnh^r sentence and applying of it to any
man, nor did the towns and cities that judged in their gates. Neither were
the synagogues bound to advise, but only when the case was difficult, which
is clear by this, that the Jews had synagogues in all the cities of the Gentiles,
dispersed up and down the world, and had their several rulers in them, and
they were not bound to come up to Jerusalem to the Sanhedrim. These
synagogues, though they could not cast out of the temple, yet cast out of
themselves they might ; and therefore a man was cast out of the synagogue.
As we argue in the case of baptism of children, that God hath not strait-
ened but rather enlarged his grace, and the liberty and promises thereof
under the gospel, so we do argue here, that the liberty of such assemblies
(as the synagogues were), which Christ hath now instituted, must have all
the privileges they had, and so much the more, by how much, that the
assemblies of the saints are now more noble than synagogues were then,
they being called a temple, the house of God, a holy nation, and a royal
priesthood ; and upon every assembly, under the gospel, God creating a
cloud and a pillar of fire, these have all the promises and privileges that the
temple and the nation of the Jews had, therefore surely as much as the syna-
gogues. The prophet Jeremiah, iii. 16, makes the privilege of every church
under the gospel to be as great as that of the temple at Jerusalem, where
the ark was, the place where God did choose for the Sanhedrim to sit in, and
to govern that nation. ' In those days' (saith he, speaking of the times of the
gospel), 'they shall say no more. The ark of the covenant of the Lord' (which,
therefore, must needs be meant of the times of the gospel ; for the ark of the
covenant of the Lord was the chiefest privilege, under the law, till Christ),
* neither shall it come unto mind, neither shall they remember it, neither
shall they visit it, neither shall that be done any more.' But, instead thereof,
be takes one of a city, and one of a family, and brings them to Zion, takes
not the nation, but selects some out of the nation ; and gives them pastors
according to his own heart, as a greater privilege than that of the ark, and
therefore it is meant of congregational assemblies ; for to them pastors are
fixedly and properly given to feed them with knowledge and understanding.
And if that every congregation enjoyeth a greater privilege than the ark of
the Lord, in having such pastors, then surely it should also.be governed by
them, as the synagogues also were by their rulers, who were called rulers
of the synagogue, not of the synagogues ; for each synagogue had more
rulers than one for the government of them, as they were a synagogue,
Mark v. 22.
Arg. V. If the seat of worship and government be commensurable, and of
equal extent, then a single congregation, as it is the seat of worship, so of
government. Now for worship, none else do meet but congregations ; and
if the temple, altar, and worshippers, be measured by the same line, Kev. xi.,
the power that is in the temple is likewise so measured. If altar and judi-
cature be of like extent also (as they are, since the end of discipline is to
keep worship pure), then where the constant worship is, there should be
constant discipline, especially if excommunication be a part of worship, as
was said afore, as well as admonitions are. It cannot be otherwise, but that
the proceedings of the whole discipline, admonitions and all, should be before
the whole church, which is as well to be edified by it as by preaching ; and,
therefore, particular congregations are to be the seat of it. Thus we shewed
before, that the main end of a church was worship, and that discipline was
the appendix thereunto, to keep the worship pure ; and that so Christ, under
the gospel, had made the bounds of a church to be measured by that of wor-
140 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK III.
ship : Rev. xi. 1, ' Measure the temple and the altar, and the worshippers ;'
and so all that belongs unto it. And this worship and government, for the state
of it, are of equal extent, commensurable one to the other, which is made
out by this ; that all sorts of churches that ever were, had worship and go-
vernment of equal extent. Before the law, when there was a church in the
house, and it went in a family -way, as the worship was in the family, so the
disciple* was in that family ; and excommunication was a casting out of that
family ; so in Adam's famil}^ it is said of Cain, that he fled from the pre-
sence of the Lord, that is, from his father's house. Wheuas God did make
a nation a church, the church of the Jews (as it is called. Acts vii.) in the
wilderness, they did set all their tents about the tabernacle, and so, as one
church, they saw the sacrifices. And when they were at Jerusalem, they
had answerably a national worship, they had ordinances, as they were a
national church ; therefore the Sanhedrim was to sit in the place that God
should choose, to be there for government, as well as he appointed the sacri-
fices to be there. And for that moral worship in the synagogues, so far
forth as they were the seat of worship, prayer, and reading the word, &c.,
so they had also casting out of the synagogues. And although the Sanhe-
drim might make laws for what sins to do it, yet the exercise of it was by
the proper rulers, who are called therefore rulers of the synagogue. It
is therefore Bains his argument against diocesan churches, f that there
could be no such churches, because there was no public ordinances of wor-
ship, as was in the national churches of the Jews, unto which the males
came. And yet the episcopal government kept up this principle, for as they
had a diocesan government, so they had a cathedral worship in the same
place, as in a mother church, like that representative worship of sacrifices in
Jerusalem ; and they had set meetings at them, to which all came up ; and
therefore their principle in this w^as better than this of the presbyteries,
for they had a worship and a government that was commensurable.
Ohj. 1. The performing of acts of worship bj^ a minister belongs to the
power of order, but the power of jurisdiction is a further thing. A minister
may administer the sacrament, and perform a work of order alone, but he
cannot govern alone, but he must be joined with others ; and therefore wor-
ship and government are not commensurable.
jlns. The question is not of the power, but of the extent of the state both
of the worship and government. He that is a minister, and can alone per-
form an act of public worship, yet he must do it in public congregation ; and
so, although it be done alone by his person, yet not beyond the extent of a "
congregation, but still according to the limits and bounds of it. Now
the seat of government, and the extent thereof, is commensurable to the
seat of worship ; so as, although he cannot perform an act of government
alone in the congregation, but with others, yet still those others are but to
be those who belong to that congregation whereto he is a minister or an
elder for performing acts of worship.
Obj. 2. The apostles had a latitude of power over all sort of churches,
and therefore the extent of worship, and the power of government, are not
commensurable.
A71S. Although the apostles had, in their persons, power of government
over all churches, yet still they exercised that power (for acts of censure),
but when they were in any of these congregations, not in a consistory out
of those churches, but as personally present in the churches. And there-
fore the apostle saith, ' When I come,' I will do so and so ; and ' shall I
come with a rod ?' 1 Cor. iv. 19-21. And when they came to any particu-
* Qu. ' discipline' ? — Ed. t Bains' Diocesan Trial, p. 69.
Chap. II.] the churches of christ. 141
lar church, it was an apostolic privilege proper to them, which is not com-
municable to other elders ; the}^ were, eviU^-z^salS-orBPoi, ' fellow elders' (as
Peter's phrase is, 1 Peter v.), in every one of those churches ; and did for
that time concur in the government of that church, though with the interest
of an apostle. So as still, de facto, the exercise of all their government was
in a congregation ; and as they administered not the sacrament of the Lord's
supper alone, or out of churches, so nor did they excommunicate, but as
joined with a particular church ; nor did they choose officers or elders,
but as present with churches, whom these were to be officers to. They
might give doctrinal directions to churches concerning government, in which
they were infallibly guided by the Holy Ghost, but acts of government they
performed not but in the churches themselves, and as concreted and becom-
ing one with that particular church ; and therefore the churches remained
as distinct churches, notwithstanding they were under apostolical govern-
ment, and many churches are nowhere called one church, because under an
apostle.
An/. VI. That a single congregation, with its elders, is an entire seat of
government, is proved from the nature of excommunication itself.
1. Excommunication relateth to communion, and communion with churches
is either fixed, and in a constant way, or occasional. To throw a man out
of occasional communion, is not excommunication, it is but a secondary act,
that supposeth first to throw him out of a fixed communion. It is but non-
communion, or denial of communion, and keeping of him out of it, as all
other remote churches may do. And the execution of the act is from the
power of Christ ; and that promise which he hath made, ' I will be in the
midst among you, when thus gathered together,' Mat. xviii. 20, whereas the
way of presbytery classical excommunication is as if the congregation w'as
gathered in the name of the presbyters, and with their power, and that they
could promise to be in the midst among them. Excommunication there-
fore, formally and properly, is a casting him out of a fixed communion ;
therefore that church, which actually doth hold a fixed communion with him,
hath that power, and to them properly must belong the casting of him out :
' Do not ye judge them that are within ? saith the apostle, 1 Cor. v. 12.
And so far as any were uithin to them, so far they had power over them.
Now to that particular congregation, whereof a man is a member, a man is
so within, in respect of a fixed communion, as to no church else in the world ;
there is therefore a power of throwing of him out, belonging to them, w^hich
belongs to no church, nor unto all the churches in the world. Other
churches can but throw him out of an occasional communion as he shall
come to them, and therefore, answerably, their throwing of him out must be
but occasionally, as he shall at any time offer to come to them ; hence,
therefore, the formal act of excommunication must needs be proper unto
them whom he holdeth a fixed communion with. Add to this that other
churches can throw him out but of that communion which he holds with
them, and the communion ordinarily he holds with them, is but as being a
member of a church associated with them, supposing such an association,
and as far as their interest goes, so far their power may go, they may throw
him out of their association, but no further. But excommunication is a
throwing of a man out of a fixed communion of all ordinances for worship ;
now such a communion he holds not with other churches. They may indeed
throw him out of their own icithin, which is, for the fixed part of it, but a
matter of association for government ; but the congregations within, are in
respect of ordinary communion in worship. Now, answerable unto their
interest is their power, and therefore excommunication is to take him from
142 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK III.
the midst of them (' from among you,' 1 Cor. v. 13) with whom he did use to
worship. The very import of the word excommunication is ex communi cietu ; the
formal and direct act therefore of excommunication is to throw him out of
that fixed communion which he had. It is a casting out of all other churches
consequently, yea, out of the visible catholic church consequent^, but formally
it is only out of that particular church whereof he is a member. Other
churches, by virtue of their communion together, may ratify it by approving
it, but that church, which the act properly concerns in the formality of it,
is a particular church whereof he is a member, and therefore, answerably,
the formal power must lie there. And although this government of Christ
hath been never so much corrupted by a power set over congregations, yet
still the act of excommunication, or at least the execution, hath been per-
formed in the particular churches whereof a man is a member.
2. Where, and by whom that act is done that excommunicateth a man,
there the power and the main of the power must lie, for the substance of the
act, and there alone. But in particular congregations, and by the elders of
the people thereof, that act alone is done by which a man actually is cut off
from communion with all other churches, and whereby he is excommuni-
cated ; therefore that particular congregation is the only, or at least the
main substantial subject of that power whereby a man is excommunicated.
We have an instance in the church of Corinth, when the apostle directs them
to deliver that man unto Satan when they were met together. Whether the
man was excommunicated or no, it matters not ; however, the direction was
given, and the direction falls upon the very act itself, when and where it was
actually to be executed and done, and in them it puts the power : ' When
ye are "met together in the name, and with the power of the Lord Jesus, de-
liver such a man to Satan,' 1 Cor. v. 4, 5. There is the act, and there is
the power, all met together, and he speaks of the ultimate act of excommu-
nication : and where, and in what meeting that is to be done amongst them,
there the power resideth.
1. In all spiritual ordinances, the power is inseparable from the act ; and
therefore to make the power whereby a man is excommunicated to lie in one
assembly, and the act of excommunication to be performed in another, is to
divide what Christ hath put together. He that baptizeth hath the power
of baptizing, and that preaeheth of preaching, and so those that actually ex-
communicate of excommunication ; and the act is more than the sentence.
If, therefore, they have the greater committed to them, they must needs have
the less. And,
2. Whom Jesus Christ betrusteth with the act, he must betrust them the
power, because his power, whereof theirs is but the execution, doth accom-
pany their act ; and therefore Paul saith, ' when you are met with the power
of the Lord Jesns, give such an one to Satan.' It is not as in civil cases ;
there the power lies in the sentence, but here in the execution. And indeed,
the ultimate sentence lies in the execution, and is all one with it, when in
the presence of all the church it is said. Wo deliver this man to Satan. And,
therefore,
3. In Scripture the power is expressed by the act. Paul saith, * Wliom
I did deliver unto Satan ;' and so ordhiation is called the laying on of the
hands of the presbytery. The power of the presbytery is expressly their act;
and, therefore, where the act lies, the power must lie.
Now, we ask this question. Whether a man be actually excommunicated
and delivered up unto Satan until he is so delivered up at a meeting of that
particular church w^hereof he is a member, elders and people being present ?
We are not now inquiring what proceedings are to go before preparatory here-
Chap. II.J the churches of christ. 143
unto ; but this is that we contend for, that where the act is done which
ultimately excommunicates him, there the substance of the power lies.
Whereas it may be answered, that the execution is in the congregation,
but the sentence is in the presbytery ; as in civil courts it is, where the man
is sentenced by the judges, but actually executed by the sherifls. We reply,
1. That instances of civil proceedings will not hold here. For the sen-
tence by the judge is that authoritative act, as by him that hath the power
in law to cut the man off; but to execute the man, to put him to death, that
is an act of nature which any man can do, though he that doth it is to do
it lawfully, by virtue of the sentence ; but the act, whereby the man is in law
killed, is the sentence, and therefore he is from that time civiUtcr mortiim,
dead in law. But so it is not in this spiritual act of binding of sin, and of
delivering unto Satan; there must be a power and an authority that is in the
persons, that doth accompany them, and that as met together. And the
execution of the act is from the power of Christ, and that promise which he
hath made : ' I will be in the midst among v'ou, when thus gathered together,'
Mat. xviii. 20. Whereas the way of presbyterial classical excommunication,
is as if the congregation was gathered in the name of the presbyters, and
with their power, and that they could promise to be in the midst amouw
them ; and however there may be many preparatory acts unto it, yet the thing
is not done till it be done by them that have the power; and, therefore, if the
classical presbytery will challenge it, they must all be present, but if the
congregation must do it, it is an evident argument that the power lies there.
2. If the classical presbytery had the power hereof, then when they do
sentence him to be excommunicated, they ought actually to excommunicate
him, and complete it ; for to say that the power should be in them and not
the act, whenas those that do the act are to meet and gather together in the
power of the Lord Jesus, is very inconsistent. If they do not actually ex-
communicate, what they do must be only a doctrinal direction, that the man
deserveth to be excommunicated, such as the apostle put forth in case of ne-
glect, when he gave his judgment: ' I have judged already,' saith he, 1 Cor. v.
' Let such a one be dehvered unto Satan,' &c. But he acknowledgeth the power
to be in them, for saith he, ' Do not ye judge them that are within ?' ' And
therefore he saith not, /hath delivered him, but that he he delivered. And it is
in this as in case, suppose of baptism, that a minister had neglected his duty to
baptize one, and the apostle had sent to him to baptize him, and given his sen-
tence such a one should be baptized, and should further press it, Do not you bap-
tize such and such a one? do not you use to do it? so he speaks here, 'Do not
ye judge them that are within ?' Do you not use to do it ? Now, as in this
case, the question will be, whether the power of baptizing lay in the apostle
or in the minister that upon this doth baptize ? Certainly in the minister, and
he doth that by an immediate commission from Christ ;' for he that doth the
substance of the act, in him the power lies, though he may be directed in a
case of neglect by an apostle when alive. And so now, though a particular
congregation in case of a neglect may be called upon and urged by other
churches, yet still, in the one case as in the other, in them the power lies by
whom the substance of the act is done. Neither yet do we hereby intend to
give that power to a classical presbytery that the apostle had over Corinth,
but only we allege it thus far, that though the apostle had power to command
now when absent, and if he had been present, liad power to have concurred
with them in the very act, that yet still the power lay in them without the
apostle to have proceeded, by whom the act was to be done, according to the
apostle's direction.
3. According to the presbyterial practice, it is evident that the power is
144 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK III.
not in them, but in the congregation ; for after that they have sentenced a man
to be excommunicated, and it is to be supposed that his sin is ripe for ex-
communication, and that he is obstinate enough to be now excommunicated,
then it should be presently acted and done, if the power were in them. But
they stay the execution of it in the particular congregation for three days.
They give him three admonitions more, and the people are to pray for him ;
and so they do manifestly de facto hereby put the ultimate judgment of his
impenitence into the congregation, and the ultimate act of execution also.
For if the man did repent, they were not to excommunicate him ; and be-
cause they judge him to continue impenitent, they do excommunicate him,
according to the presbyterial practices.
If it be answered, as it is by some, that the sentence by virtue of which he
standeth excommunicated is that of the classical presbytery, and that the
elders of the congregations are but the pnvcones, they do not exercise the
substance of the act, only declare and publish it, then we reply :
1. That here is more than a promulgation, not only because it is not pre-
sently done, but because other means of admonitions, as ordinances of Christ,
are applied to him to bring him to repentance ; and if so, it is apparent that
when the classical presbytery intended him to excommunication, that he was
then not fit for excommunication ; for why should these authoritative admoni-
tions of his own elders come afterwards ? They may as well continue their
admonitions publicly after his excommunication. Now, if his sin were not
fit for excommunication, so as they might take it upon their consciences, he
ought not now to be excommunicated ; then by virtue of their sentence he is
not excommunicated when he is excommunicated, for they sentenced him when
his sin was not ripe for it. So that according to their own practices, they
make the presbytery's act to be but a doctrinal discernment, that in such a
case, if he continues thus and thus obstinate, he is to be excommunicated.
But
2. That which the elders in the congregation do is more than to be pra-
cones of the sentence of the presbytery, and their delivering of him to Satan
actually is more than a publishing, not only because they do authoritatively
as elders admonish him after the presbytery's sentence (and if they do autho-
ritatively admonish him, certainly they do authoritatively also excommunicate
him after their admonitions if he continues impenitent), but also because
when it is done they call upon the name of the Lord Jesus, and they do it
in the name, and with the pow-er, of the Lord Jesus. If it were a mere pro-
mulgation, there needed no invocation as an act of theirs.
3. Again, if the form of the sentence whereby the elders of the congre-
gation do excommunicate him be considered, do not they say. We, in the
name of the Lord Jesus, and with his power, deliver thee to Satan to excom-
municate thee ; yea, v»'ere not that congregation in Corinth to do so, which
the man belonged unto ? Whereas if the classical presbytery had the power,
and these were only the publishers, then the classical presbytery were only
to use those words because the power was in them, and the ministers were
only to declare that such an one was excommunicated by them in the name
of the Lord Jesus. And if so, then all the eldership of a congregation are to
the classis, but even as curates are to the bishops ; and indeed the bishops'
principles are more consonant to themselves than this, for they say that the
act of excommunication is done and absolved, and perfected in their courts ;
and that the curate doth only promulge it (as their manner is), but that the
man is indeed excommunicated by the bishop. But here there is a pretence
of leaving the substance of the act to be formally done and executed by the
elders of the congregation, and yet a denial that a power to do it lies in
Chap. III.] the churches of christ. ' 145
them, and the power to do it assumed to be in them, who yet profess they
do not actually excommunicate.
4. If they were only 2^ rcccones, then any man may do it, as well as the elders
of his own church.
If it be objected that in a congregation itself, when it is done, it is done by
one man that pronounceth it, the pastor of the place, or the like.
The answer is, 1. That as in praj-er, when the pastor is the mouth of all
the people unto God, he is but the mouth of those people that are present,
and do join with him ; and it is their act, and not the act of men absent; so it
is here : in this act he is the mouth of the elders, and the whole congregation
as present, as of God to throw this man out. But to make the elders of the
congregation, and the whole congregation, to be but the publishers of what the
presbytery hath done when they were absent, this is indeed to make them
mere publishers, which any man may do ; yea, they themselves may do it by
fixing it upon the church door.
CHAPTER III.
The seventh argumeHt, to prove that a single congregation is the entire seat of
church power, because thus there appears a harmony in all the ecclesiastical
administrations.
Arg. As we proved that the constitution falls upon particular churches, by
shewing how naturally all things fall out in that way, and what distortions
are in the other, so for the confirmation of the complete power of particular
churches for matter of government, we shall now proceed in the like way of
argument. For the upholding of the subordinations of congregational and
classical assemblies, and of many congregations being under one common pres-
bytery, made up of elders fixed to several congregations, the presbyterial divines
are forced to invent multitude of distinctions and divisions, thereby to uphold
their principles. They are forced to make one church for worship and another
church merely for discipline ; a church real, which is of the saints, the body
of the faithful, that are a church to Christ, and a church representative, in
their elders meeting in a classical assembly ; a church incomplete and imper-
fect (such they make congregations) ; a church perfect and complete for
government (such they make a classical presbytery) ; yea, indeed, as was
observed before, they must make three sorts of churches to make up one :
1, a church of the faithful (for so the brethren are called in distinction from
the elders) ; 2, the eldership of each congregation, a representative church
thereof; and 3, a church classical, the elders of all those congregations as-
sembled in one. They must also be put upon finding out a double presby-
tery for ordering of government, one congregational, the other classical, when
yet they are not able to give one note or character of such distinction in the
Scriptures. Yea, fm-ther, to answer our arguments, they have been fain to
say that the elders of particular congregations have the relation of elders in
sensu diviso to each congregation, but the relation only of an eldership in sensu
conjuncto, as met in a classical presbytery, to all and each of these congre-
gations. And then also they must find out distinctions of the difterence of
duties, what the elders owe to a particular church, and what to all the con-
gregations in common. They must also make the same persons to be preach-
ing elders in the exercise of their office to their particular congregations, and
ruling elders also in the exercise of their oflice to all the rest, and yet are not
VOL. XI. K
146 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK III.
able to make any footsteps of any such distinction, or of any such boundary
of duties. And as the reformed churches would not have made that distinc-
tion of those several sorts of elders under the New Testament, had tlicy not
had distinct and peculiar characters of some that ruled, of others that espe-
cially laboured in the word and doctrine, — Rom. xii. 8, ' He that ruleth, let
him wait on ruling ; he that exhorteth, on exhortation ; he that teacheth, on
teaching,' — and unless they had found these footsteps of distinction bounding
their several offices, they would never have invented these several sorts
without them ; so if thei'e cannot be found like warrant for all the presby-
terian distinctions, can they be able to say that Jesus Christ hath made these
several sorts of churches, and these various reflections of elders and their
duties, &c. ? And thus, whilst to them there are many bodies and many
churches, and lords many and presbyteries many, our way is single, natural,
uniform, and to us there is but one church, one presbytery, having mutual
relation one unto another ; one church for the seat of worship, the same
church for the seat of discipline, and hereby all these groundless distinctions
are in a few words taken away.
Now, as in the point of institution of congregational churches, this uni-
formity is a confirmation to us, and the contrary is an evidence of the false-
ness of the constitution of the other ; so when the point of power cometh
to be disputed, what shall belong to each congregation, the observation of
the like uniformity in ours, and distortion in theirs, confirmeth us that the
power is completely and entirely in each congregation, having a particular
eldership of itself. As before they are put to distinguish, so now in this to
part and divide the power between the congregations and these classical
presbyteries, and that for ordinary government. Their being out of the
right way produceth manifold distortions ; their administrations of the dis-
ciphne, differing from the rules and practices held forth by Christ, and his
apostles in their epistles, unto which the placing the power wholly and
entirely, and completely, in a particular congregation, falleth uniform and
suitable.
Presbyterial divines, finding that particular congregations were churches,
and that as such they are intended in Mat. xviii., ' Tell the church,' for
shame they could not take all power from them, but they must allot them
some, because they were a church. And yet because they could not uphold
the constant and ordinary intermeddling (and that not by way of appeal) of
a classical presbytery, which did challenge its primary cognisance, and right
in excommunication, as well as the congregations, however, therefore, they
divided the power, and they put part of the power in one, and part in the
other. They put the sentence of excommunication in a classical church,
and the execution of it in the congregational ; and so, indeed, they do make
two sort of governments ordinary, for one and the same suit or cause or mat-
ter, and person to be proceeded against. The particular eldership of the
congregation proceedeth so far as to admonish, and to suspend from the
sacrament ; and then when the man is obstinate, the classical congregation
saith, Bring him to us ere you presume to excommunicate him, that we may
admonish him again, and so he may bo found further obstinate ; and then,
for the execution, carry him down again to the congregation, and let him be
admonished before all by the elders thereof, and then again, if obstinate,
excommunicate him. Surely, if to complete excommunication, there had
been such divided proceedings in Mat. xviii., Jesus Christ would have said,
Go tell the chiirchc!^, and not the church ; for it cannot be denied but that these
are distinct churches, the congregational and presbyterial. Whereas, to us,
as there is but one congregation and presbytery, so but one complete and
Chap. III.j the churches of christ. 'liT
entire government, whereof the congregation is the seat. And however the
knowledge of the matter may be first given to the elders, and by way of pre-
paratory cognisance they may consider of it (to cut oiF accusations imperti-
nent, and apparently defective), yet therein they proceed not- by authority;
bat all that they do in an authoritative way, is done before the whole con-
gregation, to the edification of all ; and so there is but one sort of public
proceeding, whereas our presbyterian brethren have many.
Now, to demonstrate the distortions of administrations in their way, and
the nullity of founding any such divisions and parting of government and
proceedings, we present these considerations.
1. According to their own principles and practices, this division of power,
and proceeding, to complete an act of government and excommunication, is
not paralleled with, or uniform to, the power and the proceedings, in those
other subordinances of churches or assemblies which they would have erected
for government. It is known that they make five several subordinations :
1, ecumenical ; 2, national ; 3, provincial ; 4, classical ; 5, congregational.
And all these are built upon this one ground (the same that a congregation
puts in for), that they are all churches, only the greater still having power
over the lesser, as is affirmed ; they are cast into these subordinations. Now,
then, let but the same be granted to congregations in this its lowered condi-
tion ; let it but have the same proportion of subordination to itself, in
comparison of classical, that the rest have one to another ; let all these
contignations, that consist of lower and upper rooms, be but uniform in this
model ; and then, until a congregation doth miscarry in its excommunication,
it must needs have all the power within itself. For classical and provincial,
which are the two next subordinations, each to other, provincial and national,
do not divide a power of proceeding, to complete one act of government be-
tween them (so as the classical should have one part, and the provincial
another ; or the provincial one part, and the national another ; and so as
after the lower hath performed his part, it should be brought to a higher, to
complete the sentence) ; but each of them have an entire and complete power
to perfect what they take in hand to excommunication ; and matters are car-
ried from one to another, but only by way of appeal, and that too after they
have completed the sentence and execution, having full power to excom-
municate within themselves. Why, then, should the congregational, in its
conjunction and subordination to and with a classical presbytery, be more
injured than all the rest ? Why should the classical alone put in to divide
the lands with them, and go half, and the greater half; and not suffer the
congregational to perfect and complete the sentence of excommunication, as
well as any of the other, and so all to be brought (if at all) only by way of
fippeal to them ? Whereas now all is brought to the classical presbytery,
from the congregational, in a way of imperfection and deficiency of power to
complete the sentence. And this is the greater injury, inasmuch that one of
the great arguments, that (until of late, and of late also) hath been pleaded
for the power of classical presbyteries, and so of synods, is but from the ana-
logy of the congregation's right, that what power they have over a brother, a
classis should have over a congregation (as in our kingdom, the plea of inhe-
ritance of the eldest son of a yeoman is the same with that of nobles and
gentry ; yea, and in the throne itself). But why alone should the poor con-
gregations be made copyholders, when all the rest are free and entire in their
own acts of judicature.
2. Our presbyterian brethren, by this, makes two courts of judicature for
one and the same cause, which is not ordinarily found amongst men. It is
true, indeed, in human courts, the lower have only lesser matters or faults
148 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK III.
committed to them, debts of such a value ; and highei' courts have those of
an higher nature, or a greater value. But look what matters are committed
to them, they are able to pass a final and complete sentence upon them,
and have power to execute it, if an appeal be not made ; and if once a suit
be put in, they have power to end it, else it is no court. But here now the
congregational elders are allowed to intermeddle, and have authority in all
causes, even those that are the greatest, and the most heinous sins, that de-
serve excommunication, without any controversy and difficulty ; but then they
are allowed to proceed but so far in it, and then to bring it to the classical
assembly for sentence, where all must be heard over again, ere they can
proceed to a sentence ; and then it is brought to the people, and there it is
acted over again. And thus, as they make two sorts of churches, one for dis-
cipline and another for government, and part the seat of government and
discipline, so, for to complete an act of one and the same discipline, they
make two several courts ; and that not by parting them, by distribution of
causes of less and of greater moment only, but of acts of judicature. And
whereas the classis pretends that it is the perfect and complete church, and
the congregational imperfect, according to these practices it makes nothing
more perfect than the congregational doth, as the law did not ; but when
the case is brought to this same perfect church, yet it is forced to send the
party down again to the congregational (which is the imperfect church), there
to have the sentence completed.
3. Whereas the apostles, in their rules for public admonitions, do make them
to be two or three ; Titus iii. 10, * An heretic, after one or two admonitions, re-
ject ' as obstinate. This way of proceeding makes three sort of public admoni-
tions, to the number of six or seven. It makes three obstinacies, and three
public sentences against a man that is excommunicated. First, he is admo-
nished by a particular eldership (and we would know whether those be not
public admonitions, yea or no, such as the apostle intendeth ; which is done
by a public court, to which we presume they will say, that all the people may
come, and in that respect it is to be accounted public ; or if not, yet that
which is done by public persons, in a public judicature, is public admo-
nition). Then, before they bring him to the classis, they must judge and
censure him as obstinate, and that by a major vote, or he is not further to
be brought (and we believe they will not censure him to be obstinate, unless
he hath had one or two admonitions, and that by them) ; there is the first
obstinacy. Then he is brought before the classical presbytery, who are to
sentence him to be excommunicated (which we believe they will not do, un-
less they also have, by admonitions, tried whether he hath been obstinate
and impenitent, or no, upon those means which they are to use also, which
is admonition) ; then he is brought before the congregation, there he is admo-
nished again over and over. And is it for the good of the man, or is it for the
satisfaction of the people, that they may see him obstinate, that he hath so
good admonitions given him ? It cannot be merely for the satisfaction of
his obstinacy, unless these admonitions can be supposed fit to work upon
him. And then again, in the third place, he is to be judged obstinate after
all those, or else he is not be excommunicated ; for if he repented after all
these, they are to forbear. And we may add, that they must needs make a
judging of as many repentances for his absolution; and the judging of his
repentance must be a personal experience. Thus they multiply public pro-
ceedings beyond the rule, whereas the proportion of Christ's patience seems
to be set.
4. How doth the dividing of things thus retard their proceedings in case
of open and manifest scandals ! Kow must needs so many removes rather
Chap. III.] the chueches of christ. 1-19
harden the man than soften him, and instead of being^ a means of doing him
good, be a vexation to him ! The pretence is, that hereby scandal is avoided
if the party repents ; but the truth is, this enlargeth it, for either the scandal
is a thing commonly kno-^^n in the congregation of the people, and then it is
best to have it examined and cleared, and that before them presently, if it
may be, either by his repentance afore them, that they may be witnesses
thereof, or by his appearing innocent. If it be not known commonly and
ordinarily abroad, it is more scandal to have it brought to strangers than to
have it to be kept in his own church ; especially if that those of all the
churches (who are interested in what the elders of the classical presbytery
do) or any of them, may be present at pleasure.
5. This presbyterian way of excommunication causeth ordinances to be
misplaced, a less effectual after a more effectual, for those admonitions by
his own elders before the congregation, being the last (according to order of
nature in all remedies, according to Christ's order and degrees of proceed-
ing in Mat. xviii., and according to God's order in his dealing with us), must
be supposed more powerfully effectual than the first. And yet, if the power
of sentencing the man be in the classsical presbytery, by virtue of which he
is excommunicated, that must be supposed to be more effectual to bring him
to repentance. And then, also, they let their classical admonitions be the
last before excommunication, whereas if those before the congregation be
acknowledged to be the more effectual) then where the more effectual admoni-
tions, according to the ordinance of Christ, are supposed to lie in order to
excommunication, there the power of excommunication must be supposed to
lie also.
6. A sixth distortion is, the deformity that is occasioned by putting an
interest into those two sorts of churches, congregational and classical, in the
point of excommunication, and dividing the power between them, one for the
sentence, the other for the execution ; which will appear from that interest
the people have, commensurable with the power that the elders are to have.
We speak not now of joining in the sentence of excommunication, and of
suffrage in the judgment, which will make a distinct argument, and is as
strong as any of the rest, for power of excommunication to be proper and
peculiar to a congregational church, and to prove that whatever other power
classical presbyteries or synods pretend to, yet of all other they can claim
no interest in this, because in them there is wanting one sort or kind of
judges into whose hands God hath put the power. But suppose for the
present that the whole people have but an interest of presence only at the
admonitions that are to be given to the party afore excommunication, and at
the act of excommunication itself, and give them but the lowest kind of con-
sent that may be, a tacit consent, when the act is to be done ; yet allow
them to be present, that thereby such a tacit consent may be held forth, and
that they may be edified thereby, and that by mourning over the party his
heart may be broken, and the more wrought upon, and their consciences may
be satisfied in the justness of his excommunication, because that they are to
join in the execution of it, and not so much as to eat with him afterwards.
Now this interest, both presbyterian principles and preachers do give and
allow unto the people of that particular church, whereto he doth belong.
Yea, the papists themselves, who do hold that what is done in the con-
gregation is but the promulgation of the excommunication already com-
pleted in the bishop's consistory, yet give so much to the people, to that
particular congregation whereof he is a member, that there should be a pro-
mulgation. See the Rhemist's notes on 1 Cor. v. But presbyterian
principles do give more, for they will not excommunicate if the people be
150 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK III.
against it ; yea, a whole national assembly, if they should determine it, would
yet stop the execution if the people be against it. And therefore we argued
afore from dividing discipline itself, and from the sentence of excommunica-
tion being given ^to the presbyterian classes, and the execution unto the
elders in the congregations, so we shall now argue from the deformity or
distortion that is between the power given to the elders of those churches as
one church, compared with the interest of the people of these chm-ches con-
sidered as one church also.
The interest that these classical elders come to have together with the
elders of the congregation in the sentence, must be because that they are
elders of all those congregations as of one church. For the strength of the
argument that is alleged by the presbyterial divines for such a classical
eldership, is, that many congregations make one church, whereof these elders
in common are the representation ; and when they pronounce the sentence
of excommunication, as elders of all those congregations, as one church,
which they are an eldership unto, and by that one individual act of theirs,
the man is authoritatively, and (so far as concerns the interest of elders) in
a special manner, excommunicated out of all those congregations whereto
they are an eldership, as well as out of his own (so far as the sentence goes)
in such a special manner, as belongeth not to the next churches of the pres-
byteries about, but by virtue of that fore-mentioned special relation. And
this common eldership, in this sentence of theirs, must either have the
relation of an eldership only to that particular church whereof this man is a
member, so as that particular church and that common eldership make up
the adequate relation of church and eldership, in and for this their act, or
this eldership hath a relation to all the congregations. If the first be
asserted, then there would be so many several relations of elderships and
churches as there are churches upon occasion. For this common eldership,
and this particular church, would be one church in this act for this time, and
for this man's excommunication, and they would be another church at
another time, in relation to another man's excommunication, in another
particular church, which were absurd. And if they act in this act as a com-
mon eldership to all the congregations as one church, then the sentence
doth formally cast the man (so far as the sentence goes) out of all those
churches as well as out of his own, and by one single entire individual act
they do, as elders to this church, excommunicate him formally out of these
churches, and but virtually only, and consequently, out of all other churches
belonging to other presbyteries, as out of the universal itself. And so far
as the power of the sentence reacheth in this common classical presbytery,
he is afterward cast out executively in that particular church whereof he is
more especially a member, by the same way of authority by which he is
cast out of that one church whereto he doth belong. For these classical
elders, being in their vote a church representative, they represent that
church whereof the man is a member, as making one with all the rest of
the churches.
Now, then, make these three things proportionable : 1, make this interest
of the people of all these churches, in their kind and relation, proportion-
able to the interest of the elders to all these churches, in their kind and
relation, these making one church, and they being but a common eldership,
because these are one church ; and 2, make the interest of execution but
answerable to the interest of sentence ; yea, 3, make the interest of the
elders of that particular church whereof the person is a member, but answer-
able to the interest of the people of that particular church whereof he is a
member; and there will appear so great a distortion in the presbyterian
Chap. III.] the churches of christ. 151
government, thus sharing with the congregational, as will confute and over-
throw it, and such an uniform in the congregational as will establish it.
1. As for the first, there is all the reason in the world, that if these
classical elders do lay the pretence to their common power and authority,
because these churches are one church (and they are all one church in re-
spect of the people as well as of all the elders), if this be the foundation of
their plea, if it ariseth from this relation and respect, then look what
interest the elders as elders can pretend to as one church, being one
church representative, that individual and like interest must the people
that are one church also lay claim to ; for there is a disproportion, a great
and a manifest; disproportion, in giving that to the elders as elders of a
church, that is not given to the people according to their proportion as a
church. As then by these elders in common, the sentence of excommunica-
tion goes forth, and the man is admonished by them as elders to bring him
to repentance, and this is a common act of that whole eldership, making a
church to all these churches, so the people must be present at these or
some other admonitions of the person (and that both for their edification
and for to work repentance in the party), that their tacit consent by presence
might be given, and that they (seeing they are to execute it) might be satis-
fied in his being cast out. If, indeed, the people had, as a church, no
interest at all, then we acknowledge this argument would wholly fail, and
these elders must have the whole full and entire power to give sentence, to
execute, to admonish, and all were to be done there in the classical
assembly, and nowhere else, but the whole business would be there com-
pleted.
(1.) If it be said, first, that the power of sentencing, and so of the act of
excommunication, is performed in this common presbytery, and that what is
done in the particular congregation whereunto he belongeth, is but the i ro-
mulgation of it ;
Besides what was said against that before, this further here may be added,
that the interest which the people have is not merely to have it promulged
before them, but that they may be edified, and that they knowing the party,
he having lived amongst them, may mourn over him, yea, and bewail that
such a scandal is fallen amongst them, whereby their ordinances and com-
munion was in danger of being defiled, &c., and that the man hereby may
be wrought upon ; yea, and it is necessary that the man be brought afore
that church, where he is personally to be excommunicated. Now, all this
is more still than bare promulgation of the sentence, for that might be done
whether he were present or absent. Yet still, if there be an interest of pro-
mulgation, let it be in all the churches, and all these churches as met in one
common church, as the elders themselves are. Or if there be an interest
of beuig edified by the admonitions, let it be in all the churches. But how
can this be ? If in each congregation apart, how will your admonitions be
more multiplied, that were multiplied enow afore ? And if in common, how
can they meet, as presbyteries are cast ? Or when did they ever ?
(2.) If, secondly, it be said, that it is promulged in that fixed church
whereto he doth belong, in regard they have a special primary interest, be-
cause usually he receiveth the sacrament there, we shall speak to that under
the third particular, by and by. Only for the present consider, that if the
interest of people and elders be made up proportionally, so as that church
hath a primary interest in the person, because he hath a fixed communion
in the sacrament with them, which, if he there partake, would be ordinarily
defiled ; and other churches have but a secondary and remote interest, as
genus hath to the Indivldiium, whereas this particular congregation is as the
152 ■ THE GOVEENMENT OF [BoOK III.
species to this individuum ; then let the elders of the classical presbyterj', to
make things commensurable, acknowledge to have a remote and secondary
interest also in their power to sentence him, and so let him come to them
but at second hand. Or to make the commensurableness yet nearer, as in
the matter of promulgation, the people of all the other churches have but a
promulgation at second hand, by hearsay, and have no interest of presence
at all; so answerably, let these elders of other churches have but the like
share in that power, and the controversy is at an end ; for then, as it is not
at all promulged in other churches, so the man would not be at all sentenced
in the classical presbyteries. But if they challenge the primary interest, and
that the power by which he is sentenced belongeth unto them, then let the
people of all those churches be acknowledged to have the like primary in-
terest of promulgation also, because that they are the greater number in com-
parison of the church whereof he is a member, that being but a part, the other
the whole, and therefore the congregation must have the lesser principal in-
terest therein.
2. And secondly, if that the act of excommunication, that is done in his
particular church, is the formal act of excommvinication, by which actually
he standeth excommunicated and delivered up to Satan, and not until then ;
let but this act of execution be but commensurable to the sentence, and then,
as the sentence was denounced by those classical elders, as making elders to
all those congi-egations as one church, so also should the execution be ;
and so the man must be actually excommunicated, over and over, as often
as there are many particular churches to that presbytery.
3. And thirdly, if the interest of the elders of that church make an elder-
ship to that congregation, and be made commensurable with the interest of
the congregation, the one as elders, the other as people, then, first, as this
church hath the primary and the fixed interest, and such a peculiar interest,
as all the churches about him have not, viz., an interest of communion suit-
able to his casting out ; as he had a fixed communion with them, it is there-
fore a fixed casting out, which is properly the act of excommunication ; and
for these reasons their consent is so required as none of all the churches
about, and their satisfaction to be sought, so as of none of all the churches
about. Now, then, answerably, let the eldership of this particular church
have but a like power of an eldership in their relation to them as a church,
and then the people's interest being consent, where consent only is required,
and the elders' interest being authority and the sentence, it will follow that,
as the liberty of consenting is only in this congregation, so that the authority
of sentencing should only be in these elders. And as other churches do but
declare their ofience, if things have not been rightly administered, so the
elders of other churches should do no more. At leastwise, as the consent
of this people is actually required, which is not of all the other churches,
and as without which, because of their interest, the classical congregation
will forbear the execution of excommunication, yea, a whole assembly will;
so, then, let the elders of this congregation, when they meet in this classical
presbytery, have but the like privilege ; that if they do dissent, and think
the man is not to be sentenced, or be excommunicated, the whole classical
presbytery should not have power to proceed to sentence. For will not you
give as much to the elders in government, as elders of that church, as to the
people ? Will you prefer the interest of the people, which is otherwise laid
so low, before the interest of the elders, that are over them in the Lord ?
And if that the elders of that church should have this prerogative in the
classical presbytery, the power thereof would soon come to nothing, without
disputing against it. And in this case, these classical elders are not a pres-
Chap. IV.] the churches of christ. 153
bytery in common, but the pastor or eldership of the particular congregation
would have some kind of episcopal power in this presbytery, having a nega-
tive among them. Or suppose that the elders of his own congregation deny
to promulge the sentence, and actually to excommunicate the man, will you
not give them the ministerial interest of elders in the execution of the sen-
tence of excommunication, as the elders in common had in the sentence ?
Or will you send other elders to do it ? If so, then they, in that act, are an
eldership to them only,
CHAPTER IV.
The eighth, ninth, and tenth argument, to prove a congregational church to be
the due subject of ecclesiastical power ; because admonitions are to be given,
and excommunication to be administered, in the presence of such a church.
Arg. 8. If, further, the presence of the people in the church is to be the
seat of all authoritative admonitions that go before the sentence of excom-
munication, made by the elders to them that are accused of public sin and
scandal, for their edification, and if the act of excommunication is to be (as
was granted) afore them, then the seat of the power of excommunication is
not in classical elders by Christ's ordination, but in elders that are elders of
a particular congregation. The reason of the consequence is clear, because
the party is to be sentenced to be excommunicated upon his being judged
obstinate, and he is to be judged obstinate after admonitions. That, there-
fore, which is the seat or place in which these admonitions are to be given,
is also to be the seat of the judgment of his obstinacy, and of the sentence
thereupon. It were strange that the admonitions and other proceedings
that make way should be public, and the judgment and sentence should be
private. It is so in no public courts. And if the particular congregation
be the seat of the antecedent acts, the admonitions, and of the consequent
act, the act of excommunication itself, it were as strange that only that im-
mediate* act of the sentence should be privately done by the classical elders,
and not afore the people. Besides, that the classical elders are not to sen-
tence, is evident by this, because those that have the power to admonish,,
surely they must have the power to sentence. And therefore, if the classi-
cal elders cannot nor do not come to perform the acts of admonition before
the people, then they cannot be those that, according to the Scriptures, have
interest in the sentence as elders. Neither can they be that church which
our Saviour Christ speaks of, Mat. xviii., because that the admonitions of
that church are expressed as liable to be neglected, and therefore they must
be supposed present at the admonitions. And as the apostle too commends
it as an ordinance, that the admonition should be before the people, 1 Tim.
V. 20, so classical elders cannot be present.
Now, to prove that particular congregations are the seat of public admoni-
tions, there is that place in 1 Tim. v. 20, which gives evidence, ' Them that
sin' (saith he) 'rebuke before all, that others also may fear.' It is evident
here that he doth give a direction to Timothy concerning church proceedings
and keeping of a spiritual court, and therefore in the verse before gives direc-
tions about receiving an accusation, and how that accusation must be proved,
by two or three witnesses ; and he speaks of all such public admonitions or
rebukes as are to follow upon the receipt of the accusation, when it is made
evident by witnesses, and of such admonitions hkewise as are in order to ex-
communication, and for such sins as will deserve excommunication, if men be
* Qu. 'intermediate'? — Ed.
154 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK III.
obstinate (for if for any other sins, then certainly for those), and it is of sins
in case of pubUc scandal which are the subject of excommunication ; therefore
he saith, ' Them that sin rebuke afore all,' then when a man's sin is public
and comes to be taken notice of afore all. Now he speaks to Timothy, that
was an evangelist, and under him to all church officers, to the end of the
world, when evangelists (who were extraordinary ministers) should be removed ;
and as other directions that are given to him do concern the eldership of
congregations in after ages, so also this, to teach them how to behave them-
selves in the house of God. Now with the same breath that he doth give
them power and warrant to rebuke when accusations are brought orderly to
them, he withal directs (and his directions fall chiefly thereon) where these
rebukes should be, not privately, but afore all ; and what all ? Not afore all
that are their elders only, for they are to rebuke them afore all, that all may
fear. Surely therefore it is intended for the benefit, not only of the elders, but
of all the people.
If it be said that this place is to be understood but as that of the old law,
when a malefactor was to be put to death, it was that all might hear and fear ;
and so these admonitions may be given privately in the consistory, and yet
all may hear of it and fear. The answer is, that there is this difference
between executing of corporal punishment and giving of spiritual admonitions,
that the terror of spiritual admonition doth not lie in the hearsay, but it
works by the people's personal hearing of it, and it is ordained so to do. The
power of that ordinance (as of preaching) lies in personal hearing, and as
faith cometh by hearing, so this fear must come by hearing also ; otherwise
it were all one as to say such a man preached a comfortable sermon that all
might be comforted, or he preached the law that all might be terrified, and
yet should mean that all those that were at the sermon should have comfort
in it or be terrified by it. Therefore, as those that are wrought upon to fear
must be wrought upon b}- the admonitions, so it must be by being personally
present and hearing of them.
If it be said that it is in a classical assembly done in a place so public, and
in a court so open, where all may come if they please, we reply that the
apostle doth not only say that it should be done in a place where all may
come, but he lays it as a duty upon Timothy to do it in a place where all
do come, for otherwise one of the great ends of admonition is lost ; he bids
him rebuke them that sin afore all, ' that all may fear.' If, therefore, our
presbyterian brethren will attain the end of their admonitions (that all may
fear), it must be done where all do use to meet ; and if so, then either their
classical elders must come and meet in the particular congregations, or the
particular congregations must come to them, and so all the company of people
of the classical church must meet, women as well as men ; for they are
capable of that particular part of edification, of fearing, and why should they
be excluded the benefit of it ? And whether the proceedings to excommuni-
cation according to our own way, which is for the party to have his own
elders, before his own people, judicially to examine the tact and to give public
admonitions, edged with all sorts of Scripture, to bring him to repentance ;
and if he remain obstinate in the view of all, then for him to be excom-
municated, or if he repents, to have that repentance appear upon the place
afore all (which all suit best, and fall in with the congregational way) whether
that this doth not agree more with right reason, and all the ends that can be
supposed of examination, admonitions, and excommunication, either to work
upon the party, or to work upon others, or for the fairness and equity of the
proceedings, rather than the way of the classical presbytery, let any rational
man judge.
Chap. IV. J the churches of cheist. 155
For what hath been said of excommunication or admonition, and the ends
of them, or any other end that the Scripture holds forth therein (that go
before or accompany excommunication) they are better attained in this con-
gregational government than in the other.
As, 1, for the examination of the person, that the evidence of the fact, in a
judiciary way, should be before his own people, and by his own elders, is
every way most equal, because that they are to join in the casting of him out,
and in the execution of the sentence afterwards, and are therefore to be satisfied
of the justness of his being cast out ; and there is that proper communion
they have held with, viz. a fixed communion, which no church else on earlh
can pretend to. And if the people must be satisfied at any time, if after the
sentence by hearsay, and by relation (as the presbyterians themselves acknow-
ledge), it will much more satisfy them before, when they hear the person
himself examined, and all that he can say. And if that be true of Cyprian,
quad omnes tamjit, ah omnibus tractari debet, that which concerns all, the whole
community, it should be handled and transacted by all ; and if that were not
true, yet surely this, that what concerns all should be handled afore all.
The like, 2, holds for those public admonitions that are to be given, wherein
also the people have an interest, that they may be edified thereby, as well as
by preaching ; for what is discipline or public admonitions but a public appli-
cation of the truths of the word of God to the conscience of a scandalous
sinner, to warn others and to bring him unto repentance ? So as indeed
acts of discipline-admonitions are the most pastoral sermon, and so are a
part of the worship of God, which therefore the people of his own church
must have a peculiar interest in, as they have in other sermons.
3. If it be looked at that the man is to be shamed as a means to bring him
to repentance, as in 2 Thes. iii. 14 ; to have all these examinations and
admonitions, and to have all transacted that concerns a scandalous sin before
the whole church, tendeth more to this. Neither can he be thought obstinate
until' such time as he hath this means (which we see God hath sanctified) in
a spiritual way applied to him. In a word, for the whole we say, as Baines
long since said (and it hath a reason in it, therefore we quote it), that when
censure is the most sharp spiritual medicine, it were ill with our church if
he (speaking of their pastor) who is resident always amongst them as the
spiritual physician, should never have the power of administering it. That
which he saith of the pastor, to whom he gives the chief stroke in it, we say
of all the elders of a congregation that are continually resident with it.
If it be said that, afore he is put to this public shame before the congre-
gation, he shotild be authoritatively admonished by the eldership to see first
how that woxild work, we reply,
1. That either his sin is notoriously known to the whole congregation
already, res farnosa, as was the case of the incestuous Corinthian ; and
then it is fit it should be brought instantly to the congregation, that he may be
shamed ; neither is it to any end that the elders should deal in the case
privately with him ; but as the scandal is public, the admonition should be
public also, even from the first. Or suppose his sin be more private, then if
the private means which Christ hath appointed hath not been used by those
that bring the accusation, as telling it first to himself and exhorting him to
repentance ; and if that could not gain him, then taking two or three or more,
who also have dealt with him, and yet could not gain him to repentance ; in
this case also the elders are not to meddle in it before the church till such
time as those means have been used, for no man's sin is to be brought to
them till he hath passed through those ways and means which Christ hath
appointed ; which being done, then indeed the elders may admonish him,
156 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK III.
having tlius the cognisance of it ; but yet therein they are not to deal as an
eldership in a judiciary way, but as those two or three brethren who are
to be called to admonish him should proceed ; though even such admoni-
tions from elders would perhaps have more authority, in respect of their
relation, than those of private brethren. But in case that a man hath passed
through all these means, and still is obstinate and impenitent, and hath stood
out Christ's proceedings, now it is the man's own fault that his sin should
thus be brought to light, and now nothing will cure him but the shame of it
by public admonitions before all.
Ans. 2. If (for the tenderness of his shame) he is first to be dealt withal
by the elders before he be brought to the congregation, yet not by the
classical elders, who are strangers to him, who, if they keep an open court,
as they ought to do (as all other courts are), whither any one may come,
then if not the shame of his sin, yet the dishonour of it will be greater
this way than the other, whilst it is kept within the compass of his own
church, and of these who are his brethren, and have known his converse,
and have known also his graces. And that shame he shall have thus before
strangers will be a means to harden him, whereas the shame that he shall
have before his own people will work more kindly, and be a means to melt him.
A71S. 3. The presence of his own people in all these proceedings, when
he is thus convicted of the sin, when he is thus admonished, and upon
obstinacy cometh to be excommunicated, serveth to a further double end,
both as it respects themselves (so as no church, nor no elders else whatso-
ever) and as it respects the pei'son also, and his good. For it respects the
congregation themselves, both by virtue of that special relation to, and com-
munion they have with him as one body to Christ ; and therefore they are
to sympathise with him, to be humbled together with him for his sin, to
bemoan and bewail him and themselves, that such a punishment, even as to
them, should befall them, by such a sin falling out amongst them. ' You
are puffed up,' saith the apostle, 'you have not mourned,' 1 Cor. v. 2.
That law is to take hold on them, in respect of this proper near relation
which Paul giveth : 1 Cor. xii. 26, ' If one member suffer, all the members
suffer with it; or if one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with
it. Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular ; ' that is,
the church of Corinth being a particular body, have a more special relation
one unto another more than to any other churches. And this mourning,
and the hke, is to shew themselves clear of that matter, which otherwise
would be a sin of that body ; and as in all other relations, members of a
nation mourn for the sins of a nation, members of a family for the sins of a
family, so especially in this nearest special relation of all other, each member
is to mourn and sorrow for the sins of a member as if it w^re the whole's ;
because a dishonour is thereby reflected also upon the whole, and an auger
of God expressed against the whole ; for even church sins make God to be
angry with particular persons. As for that sin about the sacrament in the
church of Corinth, 1 Cor. xi., particular persons were visited: 'for this
cause some are weak and sick,' &c. ; ' therefore,' saith he, 'judge yourselves,
that ye be not judged.' It is therefore necessary, when a man's sin is ripe
for public admonitions, that his own people should know it ; and there-
fore that all these admonitions should be afore his own, that the height and
aggravation of the sin thus set open before his conscience, to make him
repent, should be set open also before theirs, for all those ends a-fore men-
tioned. And to think that the elders of a classical church should represen-
tatively mourn for all the rest, or that, whereas the cause of mourning is
nearness of relation, that they should mourn as his own would do, cannot
Chap. V.] the chueches of cheist. 157
be supposed. And then, 2, if it respect working upon the man, if that be
the end of this bewailing and of this mourning, to break his heart, to have
his own congregation thus mourning, who have thus known him, and with
whom he hath communicated, and to see their hearts broken for his sin,
when thcj have not sinned, only are of the same body with him, this must
needs be an ordinance much more effectual to work upon him than if he
were brought afore all the national councils in the world, who are taught*
with his sin but remotely, as the body of a national church must needs be
very remote to a provincial church, and this also remote in its proportion
to a classical.
Now we find that the proceedings thus to excommunication are expressed
to us by the very phrase bewailing: 'I am afraid,' saith the apostle, ' that
when I come, I shall bewail some of you ; ' that is, I shall be enforced, as to
admonish you, so to proceed further. And so in 1 Cor. v. 2, ' You have
not mourned, that he that hath done this deed may be taken from among
you.' To bring him before national and classical assembles, and the like,
may work in a civil way more upon him, but in a spiritual way this is a
means much more suited.
Lastly, for the act of excommunication itself, that then the people should
be present, we need not contend for, because it is granted. And assuredly,
if that they are to be present that they may mom-n and wail when any if,
thus cast out, their presence is much more required afore, because their
wailing and bemoaning of him then might have been a means to prevent
what befalls him.
Arg. 9. But if besides all these interests it be found that the people
of his own congregation have a joint interest to judge, and that by way of
suffrage, and concur in the sentence with the elders in the throwincr of him
out, or have such an interest with judgment and cutting ofi' a member that a
jury have, joined with the bench of justices and judges, and that they are to
judge of the fact, and of his obstinacy, and the hke, why then it will clearly
follow that the power of excommunication must be in every congregation of
people and elders; and thus to have the man judged, both by the one and
the other, is the fairest law in the world. And we account it even the glory
of our nation, that no man's life is subjected to the judgment of all the
judges of the kingdom, but that he must be tried by his peers, ^jer j)ares.
That we shall speak unto when we come to that head, that the people are
to have a concurring interest with the elders.
Arg. 10. If no elders are to set up a consistory for ordinary government
but in the presence and before the church, then the power of all acts of
government must lie within the body of a congi'egational church, because
there are no other ordinary constant church meetings of the body of the
people, but only by congregations ; for all such meetings are to be of as
many as can meet in one place ; and all are interested in it for the present,
one as well as another.
CHAPTER V.
The eleventh and tivelfth arguments, proving single congregations enabled to
exert all acts of church j)ower. — That such churches there ivere in the first
ages of Christianity. — That the apostles planted such churches that had the
entire power within themselves.
Arg. 11. There were in the first ages of Christianity bishops in churches
and villages. And in the sense of the ages in which this was, it was all one
* Qu. ' touched ' '? — Ed.
158 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK III.
as to have an entire government in a church, in a village ; for the entire
government was in the hands of their bishops in those times, such a govern-
ment as is now claimed by the presbytery. Therefore, from the practice of
the primitive times it is evident that one single congregation, with its elders,
is a complete seat of government as well as worship.
Arrf. 12. The churches, in the first planting of them by the apostles, were
in all places congregational churches. Those in smaller cities may well be
supposed to have been always such. Those in the great cities were at first
such. Of Philippi, it is said that in the beginning of the gospel it was a
church, and it was so called, Philip, i. 4, 15 ; and it was a church that had
bishops and deacons, chap. i. 1, who communicated to Paul by way of giving
and receiving. In a manner, all sides have acknowledged this, even the
bishops themselves. Jerusalem itself at first was but one congregation, and
other greater cities also were n o more ; for can we imagine that the apostles
should stay forming up churches till such time as they should multiply to so
many as to make many congregations under classical churches ? So this is
not supposable, because that the apostles were to go over the world, and
could not everywhere stay so long ; they therefore stayed till there were a
suflicient number to make up a church, and elders over them. And to be
sure, the first church of all had a sufficient eldership, for they had the
eleven apostles. And for them all to be officers to so small a number at
the first is infinitely less disproportionable to them than for our great Lord
and Master to serve and minister (as himself was pleased at his last supper
to term it) the sacrament of bread and wine unto eleven apostles, and then
to preach a long sermon unto these eleven whom he had taken care of.
And at the first, when they were so few, as they continued in prayer to-
gether, Acts i., it is to be supposed they had the sacrament of the Lord's
supper, and so were a church, seeing they had received it with our Lord and
Saviour, with commission from him to do the like. And this congregational
church at first having these apostles over them, who (as our brethren say)
acted the part of ordinary elders, must needs be supposed to be as sufficient
for a presbytery as afterwards their acts can be supposed to be when they
multiphed to more congregations (as our brethren affirm). And if we could
give no instance of any act of government they did, yet it is certain that the
same power with which they did acts of government afterward as such a
presbytery, they had then at first ; for they acted but out of that power
afterward which they had afore. And so in all those other churches, when
they were single congregations, having elders set over them, the like must
be supposed. And when there was thus congTegational churches, having
elders over them, they had the right, and they had the power, to exercise
all acts of government within themselves, or else when the apostles left them,
and commended them to the grace of God, having set elders over them, they
had not been left to a sufficient means to take away offences, and to purge
out scandals, and to keep the worship pure, and to preserve themselves for
succession.
And if they had this right and power, they must have it by virtue of that
institution. Mat. xviii. Here then, cle facto, congregational churches were
invested with a complete power. And so according to that maxim, Primum
in quolihet rjenere est viensura reliquonim, the first in every kind is the mea-
sure of the rest, we have to plead, that the first churches in existence, with
that power we contend for, were such congregational churches which we
assert.
We further add, that suppose that these churches came to be multiplied,
or to have neighbour churches near them, what became of that power and
Chap. V.] the churches of christ, 159
right, which as congregations haying elders in them, and as a church to
Christ, they were invested with ? How should this power come to be taken
away, or they come to lose it, and be transferred unto an associate presby-
tery of many congregations ? If upon this association there had been a new
power, yet the old former power must be supposed to stand still entire, or
else they lose it (as the cities in Germany, before they were united into that
imperial body, had entire privileges within themselves, and that they retain
still notwithstanding their union, only their association was for appeals and
cases of common concernment) ; and as the multiplication was accidental, so
a new accidental power might come over them, which they had not afore, if
they should miscarry in that they had afore ; therefore that power, which
was first in them, is never to be taken from them. It is true indeed, before
their multiplication, this must be said, they were independent churches, in
that gross sense which is imposed upon us ; that is, they were accountable
unto none. Why ? Because there were none near them to be accountable
unto. But that was not a privilege essential, but accidental ; not positive,
but because there was no other near existent. And yet not so neither ; for
if there were any in the world, they should have appealed unto them. And
suppose a congregational church, alone by itself, can be supposed to have an
accidental independency private (which in this respect is a negative privilege
rather than a positive), yet still that positive power, which they were entirely
invested withal within themselves, for positive acts of government, that was
not invested in them, because there were no other churches, but because they
were a church of themselves. And this power, if once they had it, is not,
by multiplication of churches, to be taken away from them. The multipli-
cation is but accidental, but the form they were cast into at first is the
essential form that constituted them a church and a politic body.
2. When these churches were multiplied, and (as our brethren would have
it) continued, many congregations, under one presbytery of the elders of each
of these churches thus multiplied, either that first church and their elders
(which still remained fixed elders unto them) have all the power and privi-
lege they had afore, or not, in this new government to come upon their
multiplication and association. If they have the same power and privilege,
then this proposition standeth good ; only the question then will be, what
power over them (their own remaining thus entire) in a way of dependency
any other church can have, which we must afterwards speak to. If upon
this association, this particular congregation have not the power it had afore
entire within itself, then the form of the government first constituted is clean
altered, and clearly a new form of government is set up ; and that both in
respect of the right of the people, and the right of the elders in that congre-
gation. If the people had any interest of presence or of suffrage (which we
contend for) at the sentence of excommunication, and the examination of
things, by virtue of this new association that interest is taken from them,
and removed up into the classical meetings of the elders, and into a govern-
ment that is merely aristocratical. And look as in a government consisting
both of people and rulers, and the interest of both, or including in it privi-
leges that the one hath as well as the other (though the one in a lower
degree), if the one becomes merely aristocratical, we count that government
changed, and it will be a new form of government, so it would be here.
Nor, 2dly, is it true that because the government (as our brethren affirm) is
in the rulers only, therefore it may be enlarged and dispersed to other rulers
of other congi'egations taken in with them, and the people not wronged of
their right. For, first, if the charter of a people, of a corporation or body,
should be that they should be ruled by their own elders (whom themselves
IGO THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK III.
chose as a corporation) by their own mayor, recorder, and aldermen, yet it
were a new form of government for them to come under two or three mayors,
recorders, and aldermen of other incorporate towns, and they would account
it so. And, 2, the rulers would think so too. As if there were a family,
the master whereof had entire government within itself, and there were families
increased, and they all joined in a combination to rule all those families in
common, and that in such things wherein before he ruled alone ; surely
this would be counted a new form of government. How else doth economics
differ from politics ? Would not colleges think so, though associated into
an university ? If the colleges should have those privileges of choosing
master-fellows, scholars, of admitting, of expelling, invested into other hands,
if all the jurisdiction which the}^ had when alone, or if any great part of it,
should be exercised in common for them, when other colleges are built ;
because they become an university, they would account this a disprivileging
of them. So it would be here in this case of churches.
€HAPTER VI.
Some exceptions made against the last arrjument, as not conclusive, removed, Jioxv
vce are to consider the churches, at Jirst planted by the apostles, asj^atterns and
examples to us.
To this argument there are many exceptions, which I shall consider.
1. It is excepted, that the first churches, though but single congregations,
having elders in them, which did or might exercise all church acts, cannot
yet be drawn into an ordinary pattern ; because the first must, out of a
necessity, do that which afterwards, when multiplied, single congregations
that can associate may not do. Even as though Cain at fii'st married his
sister, yet that is no warrant for us now to do the like, when men and w'omen
are multiplied ; so neither can the instance of the church of Jerusalem, or
any other first churches, be the pattern to warrant single churches now mul-
tiplied to do that which they then did.
Ans. 1. The apostles did stay in places but till there were a sufficiency to
set up a church ; but if that presbyterian government, over many congrega-
tions, had been the rule of Christ, and that they must of necessity have
been set up, they would have rather stayed, or sent an evangelist to convert
so many as to make up a sufficient presbytery for a classical church. If
Adam could, with his breath, have made men and women, though he had
stayed a while, Cain should not have married his sister. And therefore, if
that, by the ordination of Christ, a presbyterial church were the first church,
God would have stayed, and the apostles would have stayed, as God stayed
giving the ark, and the tabernacle, and the law of the government of a national
church, till such time as the Jews became so many, as to rise to a nation.
Ans. 2. It lies upon those that affirm it, to prove that the endowing single
congregations at first with an entire power was an act of necessity, and not
voluntary, and as it should stand in all ages. Had a presbyterian church
government been according to Christ's institution, the apostles would have
taught Christians to remove out of the places where they could not make
up presbyterian churches, and to go into cities, where they might make
them, that so churches might be set up in their fulness at first.
Ans. 3. The power of a single congregation, to have acted as a presbytery
at the first, was not grounded on a case of necessity (because there were no
other churches existing to associate with, and so was accidental to them),
Chap, "VI.] the churches of christ. 161
but this one alone congregation, was essentially, and innately, and entirely
complete in itself, and within itself, as much as when afterward there were
many. To say the power of eleven apostles, as combined, was defective,
because but over one congregation, and but out of an extraordinary necessity,
would be the greatest derogation in the world. And if there could be a
supposition, that there had been other churches existing, or coming to Jeru-
salem, this presbytery of the first church had not been bound to associate,
as not having sufficient power within itself. To affirm these things of this
first presbytery of the eleven apostles (as our brethren suppose it, and it is
the main foundation of their case) to have been defective, and their power
(now because over one congregation) to have been founded on an extraordi-
nary necessity only, as for Cain to marry his sister, in a way below the war-
rant, as of the ordinary rule ; thus first to cast them (in this example) into
the condition of ordinary presbyters, to make it an argument for the presby-
tery, and then to cast tlieir power at first below the power of an ordinary
classis, and to make it then to be dependent on a providential necessity ;
how derogatory is it to that transcendent power of such officers ! So then,
if they are to be looked upon at all as the pattern of an ordinary presbytery,
then as such now, when over but one congregation, as much as if they had
been over many. For to say they were but as extraordinary persons when
over but one congregation, and afterwards an ordinary college of presbyters,
when many, is too incoherent and inconsistent with itself to be affirmed.
And then what is the reason that this first existence of an eldership over
one congregation should not be as ordinary a pattern to warrant, as full and
sufficient a presbytery in one congregation, as it is for the supposed presby-
terial government over many ? So that if it were ordinary, it serves as
much for us as them ; and indeed for us first, because this, as one congre-
gation, existed first ; and they were as much an ordinary presbytery at first,
as at last, and endowed with the same sufficiency of inherent power. And
if it were extraordinary, the instance will not serve them at all, first nor
last, for a ground of presbyterial government. And surely if this church at
Jerusalem had so many teachers besides apostles, as is pretended, when
these congregations came to be multiplied (as is supposed) and divided, here
was (if ever) enough to have made several sufficient presbyteries to these
several congregations ; and the association of many congregations into one
can have place but in case of defect, not of sufficiency.
2. It is excepted, that we are not to consider churches as they were when
the apostles first began, but as they were when the apostles left them ; and
that ordo intendentis is one thing, and ordo generantls is another. Thus
nature first makes but a child, which afterward grows up to a man.
Ans. 1. As to the first, we argue the example of those churches which
the apostles left, and, when they left them, commended them to the grace
of God, as in Acts xiv., when they had chosen them elders, as having suffi
cient means to support themselves. And (as Bains* argues against bishops
and their government over churches) those whom the apostles placed as
chief, in the first constituting of churches, and left as their successors in
their last farewell which they gave to the churches, they had not, nor were
to have, any superior unto them in the churches, as is evident in the instance
of Ephesus, Acts xx. 28, and 1 Peter v. 2. So say we, that those whom
the apostles left, having placed elders over them, and left as their successors
at their last farewell, commending them to the grace of God, and so con-
stituted, without mentioning of association for government with other
* Baius' Diocesan Trial, p. 65.
VOL. XI. L
162 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK III.
churches, they, by apostolical warrant, were not to enter into such asso-
ciations for matter of government and jurisdiction.
A71S. 2, As to that other part of the exception, we reply, that certainly
those churches that the apostles did thus leave, and the power in them, and
the presbyteries thereof, to do all church acts as a presbytery now at first,
were as perfect churches the first day (as Adam was a perfect man when
first created) as afterwards they could be supposed to be. If nature at first
do beget a perfect child, with all the parts, it may indeed grow in stature;
but all the natural parts it hath when a man, it hath when a child ; and
though it may grow in stature, it doth not grow in perfection, nor is defec-
tive of any of its natural powers when a child, but all exercise their natural
functions when a child, as truly as when a man. And beside, join a thou-
sand children together, they will not make one man.
3. It is excepted, that although no churches may give away their right,
yet they may join with them that will corroborate their right ; so if the
congregation that had a presbytery afore, be multiplied into another congre-
gation, it retains the same presbytery, and is one church still.
Ans. 1. Either it is at their liberty to retain their proper presbytery,
proper to themselves, and the other congregation goes from them to have
a new, or not. If it be at liberty, then Jesus Christ hath instituted two
forms of government, made two several seats or subjects of entire church
power, for men arbitrarily to cast themselves into, which they please. This
is to make two ordinary patterns of two sorts of church government, one of
a single congregation, the other of the presbyterial over many, and to war-
rant the sufficiency and completeness of either, when either of them have a
sufficient presbytery. But that Christ should leave the government of his
church so indefinite cannot be imagined ; not only because it is impossible
that one of them should not be better than the other, but also (as hath been
said before) in respect to the congregations themselves, because the one
makes a vast difference from the other in the point of fixedness and unfixed-
ness of officers ; and further, because one would destro}'^ the other. For
allow but this principle, that all congregations that may have a sufficient
presbytery may retain the right and whole government within themselves,
as the first subjects of it, as agreeing with the pattern, and what church will
subject itself to the presbyterial government ? And that this is not indiffer-
ent to all our judgments, the contentions on all hands do testify. If it be
arbitrary, then it would have been unlawful for any congregation in the
primitive times to have retained the right that was first settled upon them ;
and to have in exercise all power within themselves as whole, as when
churches did multiply. If it be given as a liberty by Christ, voluntary sub-
jection is not to take it away, and that form of government, which it doth
give up its right to, being a new change of government (as was said afore)
there must be as much an institution for it as there was for that right it
had afore. It is impossible there should be two rights to the same thing,
whereof the one is incompatible with the other ; for if the congregation can
claim it as its right, then the presbytery cannot ; for that both should exer-
cise it, is impossible. There may be diflering interests of power in the
same politic body, but that one and the same whole power should be in
one, and also in a greater, and in another, cannot be imagined.
Ans. 2. To the second part of the exception, viz., that it is a strengthen-
ing of the power of congregations, and not a taking of it away, it being an
intrinsecal government, we reply, 1, that of all other answers, we wonder
at that ; for if a master of a family, that ruled as a master afore, should have
his power, in governing of his family, committed into the hands of other
Chap. VI.] the churches of christ. 1G3
masters of families, together with himself, would he account this a strengthen-
ing of his power, as he is a master of a family, or a losing of it ? Masters
of colleges would judge it a taking away of their power, not a strengthening
of it, for by this they lost it as masters. And, 2, if that all these do rule
in common, and so the major vote of them in common carries it,, multitude
of cases will fall out, whereto, though he gives a negative, that shall be car-
ried by the major vote, so as he utterly loseth his power, it being thus
swallowed up by the greater number, how is this a strengthening of it then ?
And in this case, is it not an extrinsecal power to that congregation which
overrules it, as well as in the case of bishops, whenas the votes of their own
officers that are proper to them, and fixed to them, whom they have chosen
to watch over them, shall not carry matters that belong unto them as afore
they did. 3. The strengthening of churches' power lies in countenancing of
what churches have done, after they have done it, out of an honour to them,
and not Hghtly to hear appeals from them ; but it is not confirmed by tak-
ing the power out of their hands, and doing their acts for them. Thus,
kingdoms in a league strengthen each other's acts, whenas they do not foster
traitors against each other ; but if they should mingle powers in common,
this were to destroy their power and right as they be politic bodies.
If it be said, it makes churches equal still, it is granted that it is true it
makes churches in a like condition indeed, but how ? Not in the privileges
of churches; it makes them in like condition of subjection, but not of free-
dom, as they are churches or incorporate bodies,, to judge within themselves.
As if incorporate towns should have their privilege of life and death within
themselves, given up to. a combination of many incorporate towns together,
they were 2^ares indeed, compeers ; and here is an equality they are brought
unto in this condition, but what equity there were in it we see not.
That I may conclude, if, when congregations are thus multiplied, a con-
gregation that before had the government entire in itself, being invested
with it, began anew to associate with others for government, either the clas-
sical elders associated have taken up the whole government and jurisdiction,
and left to that congregation and elders, which once were invested with it,
no part of it (which once they had proper to them afore) but as it is exer-
cised in common ; or else there is a parting and a dividing of that power and
acts of government they had afore. If all be taken away, let that be affirmed
and practised, and a warrant for it shewed; let the classical presbytery
choose and ordain their deacons, let them suspend from the sacrament, let
them only admonish, let them admit their members, let them choose their
elders, let them do all. If they part it, either it must be arbitrarily, as
themselves please (we will retain this, and you shall have that); and if so,
then they arbitrarily part with that which was once given them by Jesus
Christ; or else they part with all by a rule and a command from God, putting
the bounds between what the one shall have, and what the other shall have ;
let these bounds then be shewn, or any instances in the primitive churches
be assigned, of such alterations when churches were multiplied, which in this
case is necessary. This will breed also a great alteration and change in the
constitution of these congregations themselves, and their relations to their
officers, as is obvious to any one who considers it.
164 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK III.
CHAPTEE VIL
Two queries resolved : 1. When a cluirch hath hut one elder, or none at all,
whether it retains its power ? 2. Whether a j^arlicxdar congrer/ation, having
complete power in itself, may oblige itself, in a constant way, to ask advice
and direction from a consistory of presbyteries f — Resolved in the negative,
and proved by several reasons.
I shall now resolve some queries that maybe put, and in answering them,
shall farther clear up my assertion, which I have demonstrated by so many
arguments.
Quest. 1. Suppose a church have but one elder ? Yea, suppose it have no
elders at all ? What is become of its power then ?
Ans. 1. Yet that church, whereof there is but one elder, being the seat of
this government, it is in this politic body as in the natural body. A man,
according to the law of nature, hath two hands, but if one be cut off, or that
he wants one, then he useth that one hand for which both were used afore.
In this case, vis rccurret in proximum. membrum, the entire vigour will return
into the next member. And this is properly a case of necessity, and not
that other case which our brethren would have, that one congregation being
alone should therefore have the government within itself of necessity, which
it must part withal, according to the ordinary rule, when more congregations
are multiplied.
Ans. 2. The power of government being the right, of that church, and not
of other churches over it, they are to choose more officers ; and they have a
right so to do, and so thereby to preserve the right within themselves, rather
than to borrow an eye or a hand from other churches. We may say in this
case, as our brethren have said in the case of not separating from a church
rightly constituted, though it want an officer or officers. They say, that none
ought in that case to separate, but it is to be required that officers be chosen
and supplied ; so say we in this case. It is in this case as it is in that of
small corporations, which, although they are decayed, yet they are corpora-
tions still ; and they do not lose their privileges, and they do not therefore
come under other corporations to govern them, but they are enabled them-
selves to choose who they are that shall govern them.
Ans. 3. Their having or not having officers doth not take away their
right, but only it takes away the exercise until such time as they have
officers. And their not having officers, it doth not put the right into other
congregations, and the elders thereof. The right in elders doth not lie in
their being elders, but in having a relation unto this congregation, and in
being their elders.
Ans. 4. Suppose when a congregation doth want a sufficiency of officers,
and so it be disenabled to act according to its right, yet its case is but as
the case of award, who, though he is not able to manage his own estate, yet
this doth not put him by his right ; and those that have the wardship for the
present have not the right, they have but quasi jus. And if a congregation
useth foreign elders, [these] elders can have a charge in it, but until such time
as the congregation be able to have officers of itself. And therefore if, in cases
of defect, congregations should be associated, and by virtue of their associa-
tion make use of other elders, yet they are not to be kept in that defect ;
they ought, and they may purchase to themselves such an eldership, and so
exercise their own right. The churches of Christ are not to be kept under
age and wardship ; yea, ye ought to reform, so as the churches should be
Chap. VII.] the churches of christ. 165
reduced to this, and have their rights. The bishops, because they would
rule the churches, in ancient time made canons, that there should be but
one minister in a church ; and they took away the power of ruling elders,
and so did destroy the presbytery in every church, that so in this defect
there might be a colour for their government. Whatever inconveniences,
therefore, may be pretended, or whatever is the present state of things,
nothing ought to prejudice the rights of churches, but all congregations
should have liberty to procure themselves a sufficient eldership, so to have
the government within themselves.
Again, suppose that such congregations, as having a defect of elders,
should subject themselves to a classical presbytery for government, until they
had a sufficient eldership of their own : suppose (I say) that this should be
the more ordinary condition of the most congregations in this kingdom ; yet
those congregations that have a sufficient eldership are not, for uniformity's
sake with them, to subject themselves therein. For uniformity with what the
Holy Ghost in the word holds forth as perfect, is rather to be held by those
congregations who are made thus complete, than for uniformity's sake to
subject themselves to the condition of those that are imperfect, that all may
be alike, although that hath been the way of uniformity that hath been urged
amongst us ; that because all ministers cannot pray out of their own gifts,
that, therefore, for uniformity's sake, there should be forms of prayer for all
ministers to use, even those that God hath enabled with sufficiency of abili-
ties and gifts to pray. It is in this case as in the bringing up of fashions,
many fashions being brought up by those that had infirmities, on purpose to
cover them ; they who had not infirmities must be obliged to them, because
they are in fashion, and brought up by some great ones.
Congregational presbyteries, they are the natural presbyteries ; those others,
they are but as step-dames, secondaries ; they are but compounds and decom-
pounds of the several presbyteries of presbyterial churches.
And what though a congregation want elders ; they are yet a church to our
judgments, and are so to be acknowledged, as the church in the Canticles
was a sister, though she wanted breasts. If congregations be small, and want
sufficiency of elders, they should be united many of them together to one
church, that they may have a full eldership, and put themselves (though to
some inconveniences) to come together to worship ; for so, in the primitive
times, we find that Christians did often come out of villages to their cities,
to worship on the Lord's day ; and sometimes removed out of the villages
into the cities, that they might have ordinances.
Quest. 2. But suppose that congregations, having a sufikient eldership,
have also both power and ability, and right to act within themselves, yet, in
a constant way, may they not ask advice and counsel, and oblige themselves
so to do ; and before tliey proceed to excommunication against their mem-
bers, if they be obstinate, bring them to the classical presbytery, as to a
further means, there to be admonished, and to have the sentence of excom-
munication there delivered by them ?
Alls. 1. All communion with classical presbyteries (which we rather look
upon as synods than presbyteries) that we may lawfully hold, we will hold ;
and all such communion we do account lawful, as it is for such ends and
purposes, for which they are ordained unto by Christ. But what is beyond
the ground of erecting such associations, or of calKng such synods, and the
use and end of them, that will be to put an unlawful power into them ; for
every ordinance or institution of God is commensurable to the ground
upon which it is founded. So as suppose for the present, that God had ap-
pointed synods to be held on some occasions, in case of mal- administrations
166 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK III.
in congregations ; and, in that case, had endowed synods with the same
power over churches that congregations have over their own members ; yet
because they had this power in this case, and upon this ground, it would not
draw on an obligation on the churches congregational constantly to advise
■with them so, and to bring their members to be admonished by them afore they
proceed to censure. So as such advice as this is not a case of appeals, which
always supposeth a sentence passed in inferior courts already ; but it is a
laying the congregation yet lower ; for it is a suspending the exertion of that
primary and first right, which they had, until such time as they have advised
with another supposed more sufficient and able eldership.
It is with us in this particular respect, unto the presbyteries, as it is
with those that were moderate separatists, in respect of their communion
with the ministry of England, although we, in other cases, give more to these
presbyteries than they would do to such a ministry. Many of them, as Mr
Kobinson and others, could communicate with the ministry of England, in
hearing, and in praying, because in these actions they were not necessarily
or only to be considered as ministers, by all them that should communicate
with them, there being other grounds, say they, upon which they might
preach and pray^ and therefore, although there was an unlawful relation or
respect, which they pretend to preach upon, namely, that they were minis-
ters, yet, because there was another ground, upon which (suppose they had
been no ministers) they might have preached, hence, therefore, they did, and
could, communicate with them in these ordinances, so far as that other
ground would bear them out. But if it came unto any act, wherein they
should properly shew themselves to be ministers, in these they did abstain,
and could not partake with them ; for thereby (according to their principles)
they might have acknowledged them to be such, which they thought they
were not, and to have that authority which they thought they had not.
Therefore, if it came to the receiving of the sacrament, because this is a mi-
nisterial act, they therefore would not communicate with them, no, not for
one moment. So also, as touching classical presbyteries, we can and shall
willingly communicate with them, in all such things wherein we think there
is a ground for their erection ; and so far as there is such a ground, we can
preach among them, and hear them preach, where a company of elders might
resolve cases of conscience, we can pray with them ; yea, and have recourse
to them for advice in cases of difficulty, being the elders of other churches,
and able to resolve such cases. And this we can do, although we conceive
that they are erected to a further end, and invested with a further power,
which is to us unlawful. But wherein there is a proper acknowledgment of
such a power, or that the former right of congregations mentioned shall
be prejudiced, and the power and ability that Jesus Christ hath put in them
impaired, we cannot do any act that shall join with them herein. We can-
not do it, no, not for one moment, much less for a constancy. And the
reasons why we judge congregations should not do all this, namely, advise con-
stantly, bring their obstinate members to be admonished by the presbytery,
nor require their sentence, ere they proceed to excommunicate, are these :
Beason 1. If it were no more but to advise that liberty is not to be taken
from a body of Christ, enabled by him to act within itself, and purchased by
him, which is not to be taken from a man by a state or commonwealth, because
the law of nature hath bestowed it upon him. That liberty is not to be taken
from a church in its right, which the law of Christ gives it ; that is not to be
taken from a man in his right which the law of nature giveth him. In
all actions that a man is the guide of himself in, he is not bound to seek
advice, much less that there should be a standing court erected for men to
Chap. VII. J the churches of cheist. 167
come into. And in all the other rights that a man hath, as he is 'a ruler
or governor of any society, as suppose he be a master of a family, in which
he hath a right by the law of nature, it would be an infringement of his
liberty, if in those acts that belong unto him as a master, he should be
bound to advise with others, as for the putting away of a servant, &c. To
direct him, indeed, in what cases he should ask advice, the exigents and ne-
cessity of the thing is the ground and foundation of it ; but out of those
cases it is an impairing of his liberty. Wherein he thinks there is a danger
of miscarrying, and wherein he himself wants light, therein he is to ask
advice, because there is a ground for it ; and yet therein a man is at liberty,
of whom, or with whom, he will advise ; and to take that away, were to take
away from the privilege of a man, if men are to preserve their native pri-
vileges. Chui-ches are much more to stand fast in the liberty Chiist hath pm*-
chased for them, G-al. v. 1.
Reason 2. That which the cities of Judah, having power and jurisdiction
within themselves, were not obliged to do, nor were to oblige themselves to
do (although they had a Sanhedrim, a set court set over them by God, for
advice in cases difficult, and when it was too hard for them to judge), that
the churches now under the gospel, having the like privileges of power within
themselves, with a promise of God to be amongst them, are not to do, nor
are others to usurp it ; for in cases not difficult it had been an usurpation of
an unlawful power in the Sanhedrim to require they should ask their advice ;
and it had been a diminishing of that right, and questioning of that promise
of God's being with them in judgment, to have gone still and advised, m
cases clear, especially to have always depended upon an authoritative sentence
of judgment, required of them to be pronounced by the Sanhedrim before
that they proceeded, and without which theirs should not have been valid.
Reason 3. A constancy of seeking advice, and to be bound to it, doth in
itself arise unto a subjection to authority. Thus it is subjection in a child
to be bound to advise with his parents in all actions of moment (whether
they be clear to himself or not), as disposing of himself in marriage, and the
like, and it is an acknowledgement of an authority ; yea, to be bound thus
always to advise with, and not to proceed without the sentence of a classical
presbytery, in judgment, is of greater authority in some respect, and is more
than for them to have a coercive authority over other congregations, in case
they proceed amiss. It is a further limiting of them thus to tie them up
thai they should not exercise government without them. For magistrates
may coerce the churches if they do amiss, when yet they will not oblige
ministers always to advise with them, and have their sentence afore they
proceed. For one minister to depend thus on another, for the exercise of
his calling, is more than to be subject to the censure of another, if he doth
exercise his calling amiss. It is a greater sign of servitude to do what one
doth by the direction of another, than to be under authority that shall punish
him if he do amiss. This latter is the case of a subject, the other of a ser-
vant. This especially is true, whenas those we should be bound to advise
with do claim and challenge an authority, upon which it should be done (as
those that are for the presbyterial government in a rigid way do). It was
one great ground that the ancient nonconformists went upon, against yield-
ing to ceremonies, that supposing they were things indifferent, yet to have
things indifferent in the worship of God determined one way, and men
obliged to practise one way, whenas God himself had left them indifferent,
this was to give away that liberty which Jesus Christ had given us. Espe-
cially whenas those that urged them pretended to have a right and power
from Christ to determine things indifferent in the worship of God ; in that
168 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK III.
case, to have submitted to them, bad been to have acknowledged an unlawful
power.
We will put this parallel case, to be judged by their own principles, that
are for the presbj'terial government. Suppose there were found one man
in a presbytery, that is but an ordinary minister for his station, in a parti-
cular congregation (and so he hath a right and lawful calling in the ministry),
and (as it is possible there may, and oftentimes it doth fall out to be) sup-
pose that this man hath more abilities for wisdom, holiness, and all other
ministerial gifts, than all the rest of that presbytery ; suppose such an one
as Calvin, who was an ordinary minister of Geneva, and an elder in the
presbytery there ; if now that presbytery he liveth in, having a right and
an ability in themselves, as a presbytery, to judge and determine in all cases
that fall within the jurisdiction thereof, should oblige themselves not to pro-
ceed to sentence without his advice, in a peculiar manner first asked, they
Mould think it both a lessening of their authority, and a giving of too much
authority to that man ; much more if this obligation should lie upon other
presbyteries, whereof he is not a member. This step (which was the first
episcopal authority) the presbyterians would think unlawful to allow unto
such a man ; and in tbis point they are so tender, as they will not yield so
much as a constant moderatorship, without any other power ; and yet that
there should be always one moderator in such an assembly is necessary, if
there be an order kept up amongst them, as in other bodies. But now
for a congregation to advise with a superior presbytery, in a constant way,
is not so much as necessary ; for where there is no need of advice, it is not
necessary. Let this case and the other be paralleled, and see whether there
may not be the like said for congregations, they having this right amongst
themselves.
The constancy of asking advice upon all cases, though it were pretended
to be but advice, yet the act itself, by reason of its constancy, would argue
a majority of power and rule, it would turn to such in them (at least in the
issue) that already claim it ; and so claim it as that some of the presby-
terians pretend all the power to be in the classical presbytery, and not in
the congregational ; and that the congregational elders, in their act of excom-
munication, are but the deputies of the classical presbyteries, and that they
are i^raxones, the proclaimers only of the sentence, but the presbyterians are
the judges. That power that is already in one kingdom hath a jus divinum,
and if set up in another would pretend to it ; and when the plurality of men
shall be once for it (for the rigidity of that power), it will draw up all the
power to itself. And a church's yielding from such liberties and privileges,
is by God's usual dispensation the loss of them in the issue ; ' To whom we
yielded not,' saith the apostle, * no, not for an hour, that the truth of the
gospel might continue with you,' Gal. ii. 5.
When the court challenged (about the choice of masters of colleges) this
as the privilege of the king, that the party should at least be made known
to him, the university stood upon their privileges, that they might choose
and admit, without giving notice to the court ; knowing that they should
soon lose their power if but so much were given up to a greater power over
them. Had there been yielding but for a time, it would have endangered,
in the issue and consequence, the very continuance of that truth of the
gospel, which in that respect was professed by them. Periculosum est in
rebus divinis ut quis suo jure cedat ac potestate (Cyprian. Epist. ad Jubaian. de
heret. Baptiz.). And all those arguments which were brought against
bishops, as having a directive power over ministers, will fall in here ; for
directive power is that, when the exercise of it is at the direction of another.
Chap. VII. j the churches of christ. 169
And farther, consider that what will make the church to be under age,
and to be a child for knowledge, and not guided of itself, is unlawful ; but
always to ask advice, and to be bound so to do, is to bring the church under
age, and so to be in bondage (for to bo under age and in bondage is all one,
as in Gal. iv. 1, 2), to be as well under these tutors as under governors,
under tutors whom they must advise withal, and under governors whose
authoritative sentence must first be asked.
Reason 4. That which the churches of the primitive times did, having a
right and an ability to do it, and was a duty lay upon them to do of them-
selves, that should congregational churches, having a right to do now, do
without having first recourse for advice to presbyteries. And what the
apostles, though set over churches, and who were more able to advise than
all the presbyteries now are, did not yet require of the churches, but blamed
them if they neglected to proceed of themselves, that presbyteries are not
now to require of the churches to do, which the apostles did not. But for
churches then to advise with the apostles or evangelists, or extraordinary
ofiicers, before they proceed to excommunicate, was not then required, but
it was their duty to proceed of themselves, according to the power Christ
had given them, without waiting for such advice. This is clear in the case
of the church of Corinth (whether it were congregational or presbyterial we
dispute not now), because that this church had a right to judge that incest-
uous Corinthian ; and the fact was so evident that advice they needed not ;
• Do not ye judge,' saith the apostle, ' them that are within ? ' Doth it not
belong to you ? He blameth them that they did it not. And as Chrysostom
saith, he accuseth them, not that they did not certify him of it. but because
they had not mourned or throwna him out. The apostle thus shewing that
it ought to have been done without a monitor, because of the evidence of the
sin. And when they had neglected to do it, Paul doth not do it himself,
but only as an apostle doctrinally declareth such an one to be excommuni-
cated by the church he hveth in. He doth not require that they should
come unto him for his sentence before they did it, but he calleth upon them
to do it themselves, because they neglected it.
Reason 5. That which is to be supposed needless, that is not to be done
in a constant way. To go ask advice when there is no need of advice is
needless. The Sanhedrim was God's ordinance in its place, but if the cities
should still have come up for advice needlessly, they would not have found
a blessing in it. And besides, that which is an acknowledgment of the
deficiency of God's ordinance, and God's presence with his own ordinance,
that ought not to be done ; but such a constant having recourse for advice
is acknowledgment of such an insufticiency ; for if they do not want it, why
should they be bound to ask it ?
Reason 6. Let this obligation to advise with another presbytery, and for
them to approve, &c., ere that a church (that hath power and ability from
Christ) proceed to excommunicate, be but paralleled with the obligation of a
particular minister or pastor, for the works of his office, which, by virtue of
his ofiice he is enabled by Christ to do singly and alone ; the presbytery of
a congregation being (as was said) as perfect and as completely enabled for
all acts within itself as a particular minister can be supposed alone to be
enabled to the works of his ofiice (suppose preaching and the like), God's
means being as perfect for government as they are for preaching or baptizing.
Now then, as it would be a derogation from the gifts of Christ, and from
the office that Christ hath put a man into, and a dishonour to the man that
is a minister, constantly to advise afore he performs any act of his calling,
and be bound so to do before he prcacheth a sermon or the like ; the like
170 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK III.
derogation would it be to a church, and the presbytery thereof, to be obliged
to advise for all their acts of government which they perform. And yet look
what ground or occasion there will be for a man that is a preacher to advise
with others of his brethren about what he is to preach ; the like will be
acknowledged, and as far the one as the other in their several proportions,
for a congregational church, and the presbytery thereof, to advise with other
churches. If a minister should be to preach anything that is of great diffi-
culty, and like to be much gainsaid and contradicted, anything that is of
great moment, or new, or uncouth ; in that case he may do well to advise
afore he preacheth, and have the judgment of his brethren. So if such a
case of government cometh, in any kind, that hath a great difficulty in it,
wherein they are not clear what they shall do, or they, upon grounds, thick
that the way they are to proceed is like to be offensive and scandalous to the
churches about them when done, in this case they may advise. Occasional
advisings, so far as there is a ground for them, we deny not.
^ Reason 7. That which a classical presbytery is not bound to do to a pro-
vincial, nor a provincial to a national assembly, that upon the same grounds
a congregation (if it have a sufficient presbytery) is not bound to do to a classical
presbytery. What ground can be alleged why a classical presbytery is not
bound to advise with a provincial assembly ere it proceeds to excommunication
but this, that it is an ordinance sufficient for those acts within itself ? If
then a congregation be by Christ enabled (he having given sufficiency of
power and gifts among them) to do all acts within itself, why should this
church (which the promise of Christ's presence to be among them is first
made to), which is the seat both of worship and government, be deprived of
its privilege when the others are not. Where Jesus Christ hath given power,
he hath given gifts.
Reason 8. What is it they should advise thus constantly for, and about
what should they depend upon the sentence of a classical presbytery ? First,
it is not out of want of skill, for that must be either of the jus, that is, that
they are unskilful to know the rule for what sins men should be excom-
municated. Now in the constant cases that fall out in congregations for
which men should be excommunicated, the rule is known well enough, that
excommunication is for such and such gross sins as the Scripture holds forth,
and as are scandalous to all Christians ; and if any new cases fall out, let
them advise. And we acknowledge that synods may be of use to find out
those rules, and to hold them forth; but when once they are held forth and
known, and commonly received, there needs no advice to know the matter of
right for which men are to be excommunicated. Or else it must be want of
skill of judging the matter of fact done ; and for that they need not advise,
for it is to be proved by witnesses. A company of elders and a congregation
may as well be able to judge of that as all the assemblies in the world, and
may be thought as sufficient and as faithful to judge, whether the fact be
fully proved and cleared by witnesses or no. Or is it want of skill in that
judging what obstinacy and impenitency is ? As for that (as I said before)
they are entrusted to judge of it, for if they will receive him upon his repen-
tance without bringing him to the classis, they may ; neither are they to
briug him thither till he is obstinate. Secondly, It is not to have authority
from the sentence of that synod that advice is necessary, for that authority
must either be an autnority of reverence only, or a farther power political.
There needs not a further political power to be judged by their sentence, for if
a congregation and the presbytery thereof should proceed to excommunication
the party was as truly excommunicated, and with as full a power from Christ
as if all the synods in the world had ratified it ; and therefore to add autho-
Chap. VII.] the churches of cheist. 171
rity as defective in the congregation, to that end their sentence is needless.
And then when a man is to be excommunicated, he is to be excommunicated
by them ; when it is done, it is done by them ; and if a classis addeth not
authority, it should not take away this authority by obliging men to advise,
and to have their sentence first. If of reverence only, then it should be
giving a respectful deference to their judgments, which in some cases is
allowable.
Reason 9. Those admonitions which the classical presbytery are to give to
the person that is brought before them by the elders of his congregation (they
having themselves admonished him, and he remained obstinate under their
admonitions), are either an instituted ordinance of Christ preparatory to
excommunication, to be further applied to him over and above those given
him by his own congregation, or they are to work in a way of moral persua-
sion, and by the way of reverence that the person hath of the classical pres-
bjiery more than of his own congregation ; that is, they either work politically
as an institution of Christ upon him, or only morally ; for what is it by which
this man's conscience must be wrought upon in these superadded admonitions
of the classical presbytery, having been obstinate under those of his own ?
It must either be vi materia, by reason of the matter, and that they have a
great reverence in the man's conscience, or it must be by their being invested
with an authority from Christ, And if these admonitions of the classical
presbytery be as an institution preparatory, they are to be reckoned ordinances
of the same rank and kind with those which the -elders of his own church
hath 'given him ; which admonitions are not as if a company of saints or
ministers should meet him occasionally, and admonish him (for he may have
a thousand such admonitions, and yet his sin not be accounted ripe for excom-
munication), but his sin is then ripe for excommunication when admonitions
ministerially administered by such as Christ hath appointed have been admi-
nistered to him, and he continues obstinate. So that admonitions either may
be said to have a persuasive power only, or else a ministerial power by way
of institution, and so work on a man by the blessing of God upon them, and
by virtue of the promise ; and in the want of either of them a man cannot be
judged fit to be excommunicated, because that Christ's means appointed by
him have not been applied to him. So then every admonition in this way
of ordinance is in order unto excommunication, if the person continues
obstinate.
Now then, first, if it be such a necessary ordinance to be administered by
the classical presbytery afore such a time a« the party can be excommunicated,
then, 1, the congregational eldership, and the admonitions thereof, is not a
perfect ordinance ^ and, 2, it were not only a sin for any congregational
church to excommunicate a man without bringing of him first to the classical
presbytery, but the man also is not capable till then of being excommuni-
cated by his own church, for it may be said there wants an ordinance to be
applied to him before he is to be excommunicated, for all such admonitions
that are a special ordinance of Christ as being preparatory to excommunication,
and in order thereunto, are not to be omitted. And let it be shewn that
Christ hath divided by his institution that some admonitions should be in a
man's own congregation by his own eldership, and others afterward to be by
a classical presbytery, before he is to be excommunicated by his own church.
And also, 3, if it were thus, then a congregational presbytery hath not sufficient
power to excommunicate a man, for if he is by virtue of an institution to be
admonished also by a classical presbytery, this presbytery must by institution
have power also to give sentence, without which the sentence of the congre-
gation were not sufficient; for that church which hath power to admonish
172 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK III.
publicly in order to excommunication must necessarily have the power
also to join in the excommunication, or else the excommunication is not
valid.
But secondly, if they be admonitions only in a persuasive way to a man
that is obstinate, to work upon him as and with a reverence of the persons
admonishing, and to that end he is brought to the classical presbytery to be
admonished, consider what will follow from it. 1. That those ministers
should rather be called out, which he in a peculiar manner most reverenceth,
they being the fittest persons to give admonitions, as John Baptist was to
admonish Herod, because Herod reverenced him (as the text saith) ; and
therefore to make an admonition court of a certain sort of persons whom
perhaps the man knows not, this is to extend it beyond what the ground of a
reverence will always reach unto. And by this reason likewise there might be
some one man of eminent gifts set up to admonish, which should move a
greater reverence in the hearts of men more than half a dozen presbyteries.
2. If he be brought only upon this ground to be thus admonished by them,
then a mere moral ordinance of less force is preferred to a standmg insti-
tuted ordinance, that, according to Christ's institution, is of a greater. A
moral power is preferred to a political that is given by Christ, whereas on
the other side, the means that a man's own congregation hath used being
instituted means, the blessing of Christ depends upon it.
It is true we grant that if a company of saints or a company of ministers
occasionally meet him, they might admonish him, and God may bless it ; but
when those means that Christ hath appointed hath passed upon him, and he
is not wrought upon by them, then for us to set up any other court of a
company of men to bring him unto, which, by Christ's appointment, hath a
power of a lesser kind (as if it is but a moral reverential power, it is no
more), this is but a secondary and remote power in comparison of the
former. It is but persuasive, it is not ministerial, and persuasive admoni-
tions were applied to him afore, and he was past them ; he was admonished
by the brother in private, he was admonished by two or three more, which
that brother took to join with him, and therefore in a congregation Christ
brings him to an authoritative means which himself hath in a public manner
instituted, and to bring him then from these means unto persuasive means
again ; this must needs fall short, and be blasted to this man's conscience,
when the means that Christ hath in a special manner instituted had taken no
place upon him, and this would also make Jesus Christ to proceed from the
greater to the lesser. Unless it be affirmed by those who hold that the con-
gregations have a sufficient presbyteiy for excommunication, yet Christ's
appointment is, that classical presbyteries must always join with them,
without which they are imperfect, which is indeed but a supposition. Thus
there is the show of an ordinance set up to the prejudice of the ordinance
of Christ, whereas there should not be set up an image to resemble any
appointment of Christ ; and if anything put into the road of an ordinance be in
the stead of an ordinance, or preferred to an ordinance, it will grow flat,
though of itself 'it be good, and upon occasion may be useful, as we acknow-
ledge the admonitions of a classical presbytery may be, but not in this case.
We acknowledge that such an admonition God may bless, as he may bless
good confei'ence ; but if any would set up good conference as a more efficacious
ordinance than preaching, when preaching is the special ordinance, there
would not be found that blessing in it.
If it be said. But may not all good means be used to reclaim a man that
is obstinate, before he be proceeded against by excommunication ? and is
it not good means to be admonished by a company of men grave and holy ?
Chap. VII.] the churches of cheist. 173
and is not this better than to be admonished only by those of a man's own
congregation ?
I answer, 1. That the goodness of all means lies in the blessing and
appointment of Christ ; and if he have appointed means sufficient, as the
admonitions of the eldership of a particular congregation is, then in a con-
stant and set way, to have an admonition court to bring men unto, further
to be admonished, hath not a warrant for it. If the congregational pi'esby-
tery be a sufficient presbytery, then they are a sufficient means ; and cursed
is he that addeth as well as he that takes from Christ's institution, he that
will use more than Christ hath appointed as well as he that will use less.
In this case we may say, ' If they will not believe Moses and the prophets,
neither will they believe if one come from the dead,' because God had
appointed Moses and the prophets to be a sufficient means. And thus in
physic also, to use more than is prescribed, is as dangerous as to use less.
And further, if he is to be accounted obstinate, after the admonition of his
own congregation, so as to be excommunicated (as if they be a sufficient
means, he is to be so accounted), then as God cutteth men off when their
sins are ripe, so the church also doth.
Alls. 2. If all good means were to be set up as instituted ordinances, then
this man should be brought to be admonished by the provincial assembly
before he is excommunicated, yea, and before the national too. If you will
set the bounds in a classical presbytery, why had you not as good set them
in a congi'egational (if a congregational be sufficient), where Christ hath set
it ? For you may suppose still that if he had the provincial assembly's
admonition (men of great authority and reverence), it might prevent his ex-
communication. And besides, if he may after his excommunication appeal
to them, why should he not be brought unto them before ?
Eeasoii 10. Add to this, that until the dehnqaent hath been admonished
before all the people of the congregation, he hath not had all the means
applied unto him in his own congregation which Christ hath appointed to
work repentance in him ; for the whole church is not told of it as Christ
would have it, neither is he rebuked before all, so that all may mourn and
lament over him to break his heart. And surely it is the right of every con-
gregation, and of every member in it, to have all means used that are suffi-
cient within that congregation, afore its members are brought before strangers.
Now if they are to be admonished by the classical presbytery, after that they
have been thus admonished twice or thrice publicly in the congregation, then
in that respect also there is a proceeding from a greater and more sufficient
means unto a less sufficient. For the admonition of the classical presby-
tery, though given by public persons, yet it is given privately ; whereas the
means, according to Christ's order, is to go from more private to more
public, as a way of doing the person good. And the shame is more public
afore the congregation than afore the consistory ; and therefore, according
to the presbyterial practices, they are admonished first by the classical
presbytery, and when they are found obstinate, there they have two or three
admonitions publicly before the people afore he is excommunicated ; which
admonitions, if they are in order to repentance, then they are more effica-
cious than what hath been done in the consistory of elders, and therefore
used last; and if more efficacious, why (according to the right of a congre-
gation, and according to the sufficiency of means in a congregation) were
they not used first, so as the person need not be brought in order to his re-
pentance before the classical presbytery, because a more sufficient means
hath already been used ? So that, in a word, they are carried unto the
presbytery, either afore or after they are admonished publicly in the con-
174 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK III.
gregation ; if afore, all good means have not been used in the congregation ;
if after, you go from a more efficacious means unto a less efficacious, even
in that respect fore-mentioned also.
Reason 11. When the apostle saith, Titus iii. 10, ' after one or two ad-
monitions, him that is an heretic reject,' as condemned of himself, as much
by those means as by a thousand, the admonitions he intendeth there are
those that are public, and given by them that have the power of excom-
municating. If he be admonished afore his own congregation, and the elders
thereof, these are either such admonitions the apostle there intendeth or
not ; if they be, he is to be rejected without being admonished by any
other ; for the apostle's rule plainly evidenceth that there is but one kind of
public power by which the admonitions should be applied ; and therefore, if
the classical presbytery were that power which should reject and excom-
municate this man upon their two or three admonitions, then he is not to
be brought down, to have admonitions again, afore the people in his own
congregation, but he is to be rejected without any further proceeding ; so
that if he be brought to the classical presbytery, after he hath been ad-
monished before the whole congregation, the apostle's rule is not observed ;
or if he be brought to the congregation after he hath been with those that
have the public power to admonish and cast him out, the apostle's rule is
not observed neither. And thus, whereas God hath built one or two altars,
this would be to build seven.
Reason 12. That practice which will breed distractions, and more incon-
veniences, ought not to be. But for a congregation that is supposed to have
sufficient power in itself to depend upon the classical presbytery for a sen-
tence first passed, will breed greater inconveniences than for them to proceed
without them. For the first, if the congregational eldership be of one mind
that a man ought to be excommunicated, and the classical presbytery is of
another, the congregational eldership having sufficient power, and the con-
science of duty lying upon them, they are to proceed notwithstanding ; and
so by rejecting the advice aforehand of the classical presbytery, they are
brought to cast a greater contempt upon it than if they had proceeded with-
out their sentence, and so as to give them an account. And as for the
party, if he will refuse to go afore the classical presbytery (his conscience
judging, and that upon right grounds, that the congregation hath sufficient
power to proceed against him), what rules in Scripture will compel him to
go to be admonished afore them ? If he goes by an appeal, that is after
sentence, and then the congregation and he are parties ; if he goes as com-
plained of by the congregation, by what rule can they constrain him to it?
CHAPTER VIII.
Some objections answered.
Obj. 1. That excommunication is a matter of so great weight, to give a
man up unto Satan, to throw him out of the communion of saints, as that
for the weight and greatness of the sentence it should be advised upon by a
further eldership, by a greater company than those of a man's own congre-
gation.
Ans. 1. You greaten the ordinance of excommunication as the papists did
that of the Lord's supper, preferring it before preaching, and so magnified
the clergy and the priests that consecrated the sacrament, and also drew the
people to the worshipping of the bread. Thus you also advance an undue
Chap. VIII.] the chubches of chbist. 175
power of the clergy, 'combined in an association of particular congregations,
and to take their power away under pretence of the greatness of the ordi-
nance committed to them.
Ans. 2. And yet it is not so great and dreadful a sentence, according to
your own opinion, making it only to be a cutting off of a church, and not to
import a formal delivering up unto Satan. And,
Ans. 3. If the congregation and the eldership thereof be sufficient for
power, and skill, and faithfulness, why, for the greatness of the sentence,
should there be a going out to other churches, when Christ hath propor-
tioned his means to his end ? And what is there in the excommunication
of a brother that these may not be supposed to be sufficient for, and to be
betrusted with ? They are betrusted to preach the word ; every particular
person is (whether it prove error or truth) till he do miscarry. They are
betrusted to admit members, to suspend from the sacrament ; why not to
excommunicate ? Yea, the sentence and the proof itself depends upon two
or three witnesses by God's appointment, and they cast it ; and this though
the matter were brought before all the judges in the world ; then why not
when the matter is brought afore two or three officers, faithful men, and a
congregation of saints ? Why should not they be esteemed as faithful judges
as others ? If you commit to a jury and one judge, a recorder or a lawyer,
in an incorporate town, though decayed, the power of life and death, and
cutting a man off' from this life, which, when it is done, cannot be remedied
again ; then why should you not betrust the power of cutting a man oft'
from the church, if it be, unto the congregation, as being in this case the
judges and jury ; especially, whenas there may be a remedy ? For he is not
so cut off" but he may be restored.
Ans. 4. Wherein should the greatness of excommunication He but in the
matter for which a man is excommunicated ? We profess it is not for
niceties, but for sins against light, against the common principles of nature
and Christianity ; as the apostle saith, 1 Cor. v. 3, ' He that hath so done
this deed.' There must be a scelus in it, that if he goes on in it will damn
his soul ; and therefore the apostle calls that Corinthian ' that wicked per-
son,' ver. 13. And for these things, the congregation is as well able to
judge as all the elders in the world. In the matter of fact (as was said
afore), a jury of twelve men do judge of the fact when a man's life is con-
cerned, and by a parity of reason, a congregation may judge of the matter of
fact for which a man is to be thrown out of the church.
Ohj. 2. But excommunication is res communis, a common concern, which
other neighbour churches have an interest in, and in that respect they are
to have a joint concurrence in it aforehand.
Ans. 1. So it is likewise to all the churches in the world, more especially
in the nation, and the party may remove to any other part of the kingdom ;
and so then all the kingdom should have a concurrence in the act aforehand
as well, and then the whole nation should be called.
Ans. 2. If the common interest of churches should carry it, then it would
follow that because he is excommunicated out of all the churches of that
presbytery, all the churches should be present at his excommunication, as
well as that particular church he is a member of.
Ans. 3. If neighbourhood and common interest be insisted on, then the
churches of the next presbytery (whereof many may be nearer to that con-
gi-egation to which he is joined than this classical presbytery) should be pre-
sent also ; for the man may go thither to be received, and "therefore it is fit
that they should have an interest aforehand too. There is no reason to be
given why it should be res communis, a common affair, to that classical
176 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK III.
presbytery more than to other neighbour churches ; as to the thing itself, it
can only be said they have associated voluntarily ; but then the ground of
that association must be considered.
Ans. 4. When a man is cast out of one church, he is cast out of all
churches ; but not formally, but only consequently, and by virtue of com-
munion of churches, this common law being among them, that no other
church should receive him till he have given satisfaction to his own ; and
therefore, answerably, it is not an antecedent cognisance afore by other
churches that is necessary, but only a consequent, as was the manner of the
primitive times, to send to churches after, and to tell them, fi-om such an one
let us abstain, this being the law among churches, that if a man be cast out
of one church, he is cast out of all. Either all churches must be called, one
as well as another, or else some particular church must be betrusted, and
betrusted by Christ ; and if so, why not his own congregation, having a
sufficient eldership for excommunication ?
Ans. 5. In admission (as was urged afore), every particular church is
betrusted to admit members, and, by virtue of the admission of members
into it, they are admitted to have communion in all churches, and therefore
why should it not be entrusted for excommunication also ? It is no obstacle
that it is res communis, a common business, for the other is equally such to
all other churches. We ask also if that suspension be not res communis, a
common concern also, insomuch that until such time as he is excommuni-
cated, all churches are to suspend him from the sacrament after his own
church hath suspended him ? And if so, upon that ground, why should not
all churches be acquainted with his suspension aforehand ?
Ans. 6. The fifth canon of the council of Nice*^ tells us that synods were
therefore appointed amongst other ends, that all the churches might know
who had been excommunicated by a particular bishop (as the manner was
then), that all the rest might account him so until he had given satisfaction.
They were not therefore to be called aforehand, afore he was excommuni-
cated, on the pretence of a common interest.
Obj. 3. But in the multitude of counsellors there is strength.
Ans. 1. Let them have the use of counsellors only, and we deny it not.
A man will not go for counsel unless there be need, and in cases of need, we
do acknowledge it.
Ans. 2. That rule is the rule of nature ; but we have a rule for the suffi-
ciency' of the eldership of a congregation, with an institution, and with a
promise of Christ's presence, ' where two or three are gathered together.'
If this were founded upon mere nature, then we would yield, that this axiom
might have place, and they might still take in more counsellors to them.
But a rule of nature will not set up an ordinance, though it may help to
manage it, and it should not be set to weaken it, and disparage it, as this
doth. Let us rest in God's ordinance, and rest in God's number, what he
hath thought sufficient ; and the conscience will rather be quieted, and
wrought upon by subjection to an ordinance, than to a multitude. The
promise is not to a company of more persons, as such, but the promise is
made to the relation, to the constitution, and the blessing depends upon the
promise ; and to this purpose, God will be with two or three as well as
with three thousand in an ordinary way. The laws of England sets not up
a multitude of counsellors, that is, of lawyers, for the judging of life and
death, but it sets up a few judges, who sometimes alone, sometimes two or
three together, do judge all causes, when yet there are multitudes of lawyers,
and as good lawyers as they, and as able to counsel. If we all do rest satis-
* In torn, ii., Collect. Concil. Labbei, page 46.
Chap. VIII.] the churches op christ. 177
fied in this law as the ordinance of the kingdom, why should we not rest in
the other as the ordinance of Christ ?
Ans. 3. If this alleged rule held, then classical preshyteries should go to
greater synods, for there is a multitude of more counsellors. And then all
the churches should continually have had recourse to the apostles, while they
were alive, in all such acts of discipline ; for any apostle might have said,
Am not I wiser ? send them unto me ; yea, cannot I more eflectually per-
suade ? Therefore both take my advice, and come to me for my sentence ;
bring them afore me to be admonished. The apostles, indeed, when they
were present in churches, did join with the elders and officers of the churches
in their acts of government ; but they did not require, if absent, that the
churches should come to advise with them.
Ohj. 4. But may not this be done for peace' sake, whenas this will com-
pound all, and accommodate the difierences amongst us ?
Ans. 1. It is in the case of peace as in the case of scandal. If a brother
be ofiended, and the thing be indiflferent, and in my liberty, then indeed I
may forbear, and I ought to forbear, because of an offence ; but I am not to
forbear if it be a duty which he is offended at, neither am I to give away a
liberty. So for peace men may forbear things that are indifferent to them,
and so they ought to do ; j'ea, they may conceal their own judgments, and
forbear to practise some things which otherwise they might do. As the
apostle says, Rom. xiv. 22, ' Hast thou faith ? have it to thyself.' But a
man is to do nothing positive that shall acknowledge a seeming power, and
bring congregations into bondage, when Christ hath set them free ; for peace
must be so kept in churches, as that withal their privileges must be kept.
There is no yielding from that right which Christ hath given. The case of
peace holdeth not in the acknowledgment of a false power, for that will
breed destruction.
Ans. 2. It is the keeping of the true bounds of power, as Christ hath
seated them, that will preserve the peace of churches; but to yield unto a
false power will always be occasion of quarrels.
Ohj. 5. But because that these churches may be perhaps offended with
what you do, and with that sentence you shall give, and so be engaged to
question you for that act after you have done it, is it not therefore better to
advise aforehand, and so to prevent that offence ?
Ans. 1. It was the preventing offences, and the avoiding of schisms, that
did set up episcopal power, as Jerome saith ; for because a multitude of
presbyters could not agree in their presbyteries, they devolved it into one
man ; but the remedy was worse than the disease, for it degenerated into
tyranny.
Ans. 2. Simply to prevent an offence, the liberty of churches, nor the
rights that is in churches, is not to be taken away. An actual offence arising
is a ground indeed for the neighbouring churches to call upon that church to
give them satisfaction ; and there doth hereupon a duty lie upon this church,
if it have miscarried, to give them satisfaction. But then they must be actu-
ally offended.
Ans. 3. The ground why they would have us advise with the classical
presbytery is not merely to prevent offences, but it is because they claim an
authority.
Ans. 4. The case must be supposed so to fall out, that either the classical
presbytery will be of the same mind with the congregational, or not. If it
be supposed that they shall be of the same mind, then there needs not to be
advice to prevent offence ; and this will ordinarily be the case when the rules
VOL. XI. M
178 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK III.
for excommunication are fixed, and by some common agreement concluded
upon, between churches. Or if it be supposed they may not agree, in that
case the congregational presbytery is put into a greater strait, and will run
into an higher contempt and offence of the presbj'tery classical, when they
shall think themselves bound to excommunicate the man, against the advice
and sentence of the classical presbytery given them.
Ans. 5. There is no inferior court which hath a power and ability to judge,
that upon a supposition of miscarriage, and of oflendiug of an higher court,
bath an obhgation laid upon it, upon all occasions, therefore to advise with
that higher court, to prevent these appeals and these ofiences.
Ans. 6. If, for avoiding of offences, there should be such advising always
afore sentence with other or more or greater churches, then the classical
churches should never give sentence ; for they may incur the ofience of the
provincial, and this latter likewise of the national. And therefore supposing
that these courts were one above another, and that the inferior had a full
right and power to finish the sentence of excommunication, it were much
better to leave it to the cognisance of the higher courts, by way of appeals,
than under the presupposition and pretence that offences may arise to weaken
the right of the particular congregation, by an obligation to advise and to
have the sentence of the higher court antecedent.
Book IV. Chap. I.] the chueches of Christ. 179
BOOK IV.
The claims of the Presbyterian government considered and refuted. — That the
church universal is not a church political, a)ui the seat of (jovernnient. —
That the institution for tvorship and government falleth not iipon the saints
in a nation, as a nation or kingdom, to he the seat of it, — That an argu-
ment cannot he urged for a national church government, from the instance
of the Jewish pattern. — That a standing presbytery is not to he setup to
exercise power and jurisdiction over parlicular congregations.
CHAPTER I.
That the church universal is not a church political, and the seat of instituted
government.
I SHALL now examine the validity of the presbyterian claims for their govern-
ment; and, first, I shall prove that the church universal is not, in the whole,
and in all the subordinate parts of it, a church political, and the seat of in-
stituted government. The church catholic is not a formed politic body,
which Christ hath made the seat of this power. That it indeed affordeth fit
materials, both of saints and men gifted, we grant ; even as men are by nature,
having variety of several parts, and variety of gifts, fitted to the bodies politic;
and if you take all mankind, thei'e is among them variety of gifts and dispo-
sitions fitted to make up commonwealths ; yet all mankind taken together are
not a politic body, but as they are formed up into commonwealths or king-
doms ; and men, having thus several gifts, are put into several offices and
places in those several kingdoms and commonwealth, which are avd^o^irhri
TLTiGig, a human creature, as the apostle calls it. Even so it is here.
We yield also that take the chui'ch universal in its parts, and so the keys
are given to the whole partitive, as divided into several bodies, in whom God
hath set teachers and pastors, &c. As we say he hath set in a kingdom con-
stables and justices of the peace, &c., but yet every constable is not a con-
stable of the whole kingdom; so he hath set in his church apostles, &c., who
were as the nobles, and were ministers, and had power in all churches, yet
exercised their power pier partes, as they came to this church and that
church; but he hath set other ordinary officers, as other justices of peace, in
their several less jurisdictions, or as mayor and recorders in incorporate towns.
We yield also that all these churches, by virtue of their catholic relation,
are knit together again in a common communion, which they owe one unto
another by several bands and ties, so as they have communion one with an-
other, and that as churches too, and with their elders as elders ; but the pre-
sent question is of the keys of jurisdiction.
1. These keys cannot be given to the whole universal church; for, first,
they do not, nor indeed can, assemble.
2. The whole universal church hath not all the keys ; for it is not capable
180 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK IV.
of preaching, nor is it capable of receiving the sacraments altogether. And
suppose there were a general council of all the ministers of the world, and
they should receive the sacrament, they should not receive it as ministers,
but they should receive it only as believers.
That the church catholic on earth neither is nor can be the seat of this
public worship, nor of this government, as appears by those arguments.
1. It can no more be so than all mankind can make a commonwealth.
2. This is reserved to heaven, which is the only general assembly where
the worship of God is perfected, to which all other particular assemblies, the
family on earth, come, Heb. xii. 23.
3. If this power of governing be given to the church universal, then either
to a meeting of elders, or of all the faithful. Not of all the faithful, for they
cannot meet as in congregations they do, nor is there any institution for all
the males to meet, as in Jerusalem, nor for all the people, male and female,
as once every seventh year there, so these in some one place in the world.
Neither is this power of government given to any meeting of elders, as elders
to the church universal, for then, either it must be that God hath appointed
a set company, as in the Sanhedrim, whose office peculiarly it is to be these
catholic elders, set apart for that work, as those who were elders of the
people ; such in a manner were the apostles ; and if so, let the ordinary insti-
tution for this be shewn, such as theirs was for that, Dent. vii. 17. This,
indeed, is the popish principle, that all bishops are by office catholic bishops,
and may all, by their office, attend a general council. And thus, as in Jewry,
God might have made two great ordinances for the;government of his church
only : an universal Sanhedrim for the church catholic, such as the parlia-
mentary power is in this kingdom, and the other in that of villages and
cities, there being none intermediate or subordinate between them. But
if it were so, then all intermediate synods should be taken away, and only
a general council be that to which all congregations should appeal. And
that the institution was not so, is evident by this, that all our divines do ac-
knowledge that general councils are but ad bene esse, and not absolutely
necessary, which they would be if the primary institution fell upon them,
and therefore for the first three hundred years there was none. But if the
meaning be, that each elder is an elder of the church universal, and that the
church universal is a politic body throughout from top to bottom, the greater
part still ruling the lesser, and the universal ruKng the whole, so as by
virtue of their relation to the whole, they act in any part, or may act in the
whole (which is according to the principles that the assembly goes upon in
their answer to our reasons), then the institution of the politic power is made
to fall first and primarily on the church universal, for in their first pracog-
nitum they say the whole church is one, made up of the collection of all, and
that hence there is a dependency of all the lesser as parts upon the whole. But,
4. If the institution falls upon the church universal, then the church uni-
versal is a politic body ; and if so, then as this whole church should be but one
politic body, so each elder should be an elder to this whole church for all ends
and purposes of an elder, both for worship and government, for elder and church
are relative : as when the apostle saith, ' Ordain the elders to every church,'
assuredly they had the relation of elders to that church both for worship
and government. Now, this will set up an unparalleled monster in govern-
ment, the like to which mankind never knew, and therefore cannot be the
institution of Christ, for Christ's government is orderly. Now the monstrous-
ness of this will appear. 1. This will make an external pohtic government
to be managed by men (by Christ the head, we grant it is now managed),
that is greater than any of the monarchies, which, through their vastness,
Chap. L] the churches of christ, 181
were hurtful to mankind whom they ruled. For the church universal on
earth is now, and hath been ever since the apostles' time, in most nations, as
Mr Brerewood proves. There are the Ethiopic and Arabian Christians in
Africa; the Grecians under the Turk; the Armenians under the Persian ; the
Indian Christians of St Thomas, so called because he was the converter of
Christians there ; then there are all which are in Europe. And that many of
these churches are, in a great measure, pure in their doctrine, or at least have
enough to save men, and so cannot be excluded out of the list of the church
catholic, appeareth by that confession of faith made by patriarch Cyril in
the name of the Grecian churches. Now, to have so vast a body to be in
the whole the seat of government, especially if you add to it, when the ful-
ness of the Jews and Gentiles shall come in, and the north and the south
shall give themselves to Christ, how can this be practicable ? And if not
so, how can it be the institution ? It is true, that Christ's internal kingdom
is thus large, and managed by himself, both in whole and in part, and by his
Spirit ; but that his external kingdom should be such, is inconceivable.
2. That which increaseth the wonder is, that all these should be governed
by a general aristocracy, whereas that it should be governed by one man
would be more feasible. But then,
3. It makes it more strange that this should further be the law of it, that
every elder of every congregation should be the elder of these churches, yea,
of the whole church for all acts of government, and that he should be bound
up in his constant function and exercise to the compass of one congregation,
and yet have, by a fundamental institution, a right of eldership in power in all
the churches of the world besides. See but how absurd such a government will
bo in the like civil society that were so vast a body ; suppose that in all
these countries mentioned, or all over the world, the forms of government
that now are should be pulled down and should begin anew, and that the
government should be that the burgomasters or aldermen, yea, constables of
every little town or village, chosen by the people, should be an alderman to
all ends and purposes, in all towns imperial, incorporate, yea, in villages, to
hang and draw as occasion is throughout the world, and to have as much
right as any therein ; and by virtue of the law this duty should lie on him
to stir up others, and join with others, if there be anything amiss, to assume
the authority to execute this. We read, indeed, that in the Roman monarchy,
it was the privilege of private persons, that he who was free of one city,
Rome, was free of all the world for trading, &c., bat that he should have
power of office in all cities was never heard of. This is a thing that never
fell out, no, not in Israel. There were, indeed, general elders on purpose
appointed over all the nation, but they were not elders over every city. It
is nowhere found but in Turkey; it is not to be paralleled but in that
government which the Janissaries have ; and among the Jesuits, it is the law
of their society, but it is formidable to princes, as was that of the Templars.
4. It is strange that Christ should appoint such a government, and leave
it loosely for the persons if they be called, as that is the limitation with
which our brethren would mollify it, to act in this or that part of the universal
church, and never so much as set down any of these things. In so great a
body and latitude of power, there had needed to have been the most sure and
certain order distinctly appointed by Christ. For let it be considered how
many things were to be ordered : as whether there should be but one general
council to which all controversies should be brought, as in Israel the San-
hedrim was, and whether it should be of a constant standing, or be chosen
anew every year ; whether in it there should be more of ruling or teaching
elders, or an equal number of both ; whether there should be many subordina-
182 THE GOVEENMENT OP [BoOK IV.
tions of sorts of elders, and how many of them, and by what rules and limits
set out, and what number of each elders should be therein; and who should
choose them which are to be sent, whether every individual elder meeting,
as in provincial assemblies they did, or whether a few chosen should choose
the others. It is a wonder that Christ hath set down none of these things,
that he neither appointed one general court, to which all appeals should be
brought, nor, if there were to be subordinate synods, hath assigned how
many they should be, nor so much as declared that there should be any
such subordination. And if the general law of this supposed government
is, that every greater number should rule the less, this would be an exceed-
ing loose and confused foundation of a settled government, and a settled
government Christ must be supposed to have left. In this case, therefore,
surely there should of necessity be the most positive law to determine what
that call is whereby such should execute it, as well as to lay down a law for
the right, or else eveiy one of them would challenge it, for every man will
say he hath as good a right as another, nay, greater.
5. This right would both give all a pretence to it, as also lay it upon them.
For as it is their duty, as it was Paul's, to take care of all the churches, so
they have a call already by their fundamental relation. And then, if elders
chosen by the churches should determine one way, yet the rest having a
fundamental right, being catholic elders by institution, might determine the
other way, for the obligation is by virtue of their being elders of this catholic
church.
C. Christ never gave an institution which was never brought forth into act ;
but such is this pretended institution of a catholic church to be the ^eat of
government.
(1.) Because that church can never meet ; and asfrustra est potentia, sic
etiam potesias, qum non reducitur in actum, i.e. not only natural power, but
authority too, is in vain, which cannot be brought into the condition of act-
ing. Christ did not set up a doctrinal principle for government and policy
in the speculation, but such an one as is practical. And our presbyterian
brethren make use of the notion, yet reject the thing ; for they would be
unwilling that a general council of all Christians interested should be the
major part, determining all the parts of government and doctrine, and bind
up all churches thereunto. Surely Jesus Christ suited his government of
his church to all times, and there have been few times in the world in which
this could be done, no, not by general councils. Divisions have and will
hinder it, persecutions, or distance of place, or want of consent, who shall
call them, will hinder it.
(2.) It cannot be that the primary institution should fall upon it, for then
the institution should fall upon the representative church first, rather than
on the church both of the faithful and of the elders too. But the institution
must rather be where both are, for they have more of the reality of a church.
(3.) God giveth gifts and abilities suitable to all his institutions. When
God did call apostles to an universal eldership, he gave them gifts suitable.
Now there are few, we may say none, of elders that are fit to be elders
catholic, that are fit to act in the church universal ; and yet, every one in
their place, every ruling elder, by this principle, must be supposed to be fit
if called ; for the institution and their office (according to this principle)
doth give them the jus, the right, and the ability ; whereas the choice by
others gives only the exercise ; but the right, if founded upon an institution,
supposeth a fitness or an ability in all. That every bishop (who pretended
to have an higher degree of office than ordinary elders, by divine institution)
should be a catholic bishop (for by the ancient canon law all bishops m the
Chap. I.] the chukches of christ. 183
world might be of a general council, by virtue of their place), is far more
supposable. For as by their principles they were of an higher function, so
a supposition might be made of a proportionably higher eminency of parts
and gifts to be in them above other men, as in some few in the church there
eminently is, as well as there is a vast difference of natural gifts among the
sons of men. Thus, as bishops were supposed to be men of an higher
degree, so, like Saul, they might be supposed taller than their fellows. But
to make all elders, yea, ruling elders (for they must come in too if they be
likewise by institution), and all ministers, catholic elders, and fit for general
councils, is to assert that Christ hath also given to them all gifts and abilities
suitable to so great a function and charge.
(4.) God never called men to do work in any part which they are not
capable of, as these catholic elders are not ; for they ought to have variety
of languages, as God gave the apostles. For if appeals may be made, they
are to hear every man in his own language speak for himself. When God
did make catholic elders, cathohc rulers, he gave them languages. You
argue more congregations than one, from variety of languages in Jerusalem,
or else they could not perform their duties to each. We may do the like
against this cathohc eldership here. If it had been only asserted that every
man is an elder of a church in the same nation, then indeed such elders
might, in respect of language, have been fit for their office ; but if you ex-
tend their office to all the world, then it is impossible for them to discharge
it when they are called to exercise it in any part of it ; since they have not
all languages, and so are not capable of a call to exercise their whole func-
tion (as our brethren say their right and office is) in every part, or in the
whole. But now, when God made officers of all churches, he gave gifts
accordingly, tongues, and languages, as to the apostles. Now we believe
that most ruling elders have but one language ; yea, and if Latin were the
general language, they were not fit to be catholic elders.
(5.) By the law of this rule, if the apostles should have met in a general
council, other elders being also in that general council, catholic elders ; and
being there, by virtue of being catholic elders, they must needs have been,
in that respect, equal with the apostles. For in that place, and in that
sphere, what could the apostles challenge more of authority amongst them,
since to be a catholic elder was the highest authority of an apostle '?
(6.) This principle is contradictory to other principles of our presbyterian
brethren ; for whereas to rear up their subordination of assemblies they
invented a representative relation, personating many churches, and also other
superior assemblies, such as national and general councils, this new taken
up principle, of every elder's being an elder of the universal church, destroys
it, or makes it needless. It takes away all such representations ; for every
person chosen to be of them was already a member really, and not repre-
sentatively of the whole, and hath a full right of eldership of the whole
church, according to this their notion ; and the special call any one hath is
but desiguatlo j)ersonrB, a designation of the person, who shall serve at such
a time ; but in that council, when met, he representeth the whole church,
as much as any particular church, when he meeteth there. And to make
him an elder representing any particular church, is to give him a lower title
than he had, for he is an elder of the universal. And his call only gives
the exercitiiim ; the other gives the jus, which is more than the exercltium,
for it is the root of it.
(7.) It would make Bellarmine's argument good, that the greater company
of elders simply would have the greater authority ; for, it lying not in repre-
sentation, but in being elders of the catholic church, they must (though out
184 THE GOVERNMENT OP [BoOK IV.
of a council) needs carry it, if more of them will agree to meet in a body at
any time,
(8.) If every elder were thus an elder of a church universal, then the
church universal should call him to his office ; but the church universal doth
not call him, but only particular churches ; for church and elder are relatives,
and the call is that which makes the relation. And Jesus Christ calleth
either mediately or immediately. Immediately, he indeed did call apostles
to be officers of the church universal, but then himself did it, and gave gifts
accordingly fit for it. When he calleth mediately, there is a proportion
between the means by which he calleth and the thing whereto a man is
called ; and therefore the proportion must lie in this, if he be a member of
the church universal, the church universal must be the means of his call ;
and if he be called by a particular church, then his office reacheth no further.
We have an express institution that elders were set over their particular flocks
by the Holy Ghost, Acts xx. ; and when the apostles themselves, who were
general officers of all churches, did ordain any elder, it was but xara 'n-oXiv,
and xar' suKXriaiav ; so that, although the callers had an universal power,
which no synod in the world hath the like, yet the office of the called was
limited, according to the seat and church to which he was called. And if
the apostle did not make general elders who yet had an universal power, then
surely a particular church cannot make a general elder ; that exceeds its pro-
portion ; he is thereby hmited both by the extent of the power of the callers,
and the Hmits of the seat to which he is called. And indeed the nature of
an office in the church is a separation of him for a constant work ; it is not
to do here and there an act of office as a journeyman, but to have a constant
employment ; which office, therefore, is limited to a certain church, which
church also calleth him to a certain employment there. And if it be said
that a corporation hath power to call a man to be a member of the parlia-
ment for the whole kingdom, j'et there is a double difference in this. The
law saith not, that every burgess is a parliament man, and a burgess of the
kingdom ; which is that you would make to be the law here. And then, in
the second place, the whole tenn'mus and object of his call is to be a burgess
in that case of the whole kingdom only while the parliament sits ; and the
relation ceaseth when the use and exercise ceaseth.
And if it be said that every member is a member of the church universal, and
therefore every elder is anelder of the church universal, the case is not the same,
for the one is a mere communion by way of privilege, the other is by way of
jurisdiction ; and there is a great deal of difference between a man's being
free to trade in all places and in all countries, and to have the power of a
senator, or a constable, or a nobleman, in all countries wherever he comes.
And sure our brethren will not hold themselves to the parallel thereof ; for,
1, though a member of any other church hath the privilege to receive the
sacrament, or have his child baptized, yet they would not allow him a capacity
of being called (when he comes occasionally among them) to choose an officer
with them, or exercise such a privilege over them or with them. 2, If the pro-
portion' of elder and members be observed, then by this rule, as any member
of another church may, without any further special call than barely a testi-
mony that he is a member of another church, challenge communion with any
church (without any precedaneous active call of the church intervening), so
by the same rale of proportion, if every elder were an elder of the church
uuiversal, you need not say, if he be called by another church, he may do
thus or thus ; but if it be made out by testimony that he is an elder of another
church, he may challenge the privilege of an elder, as the other may of a
member. 3. As for the communion of members in other churches, there
Chap. I.] the churches of christ. 185
needs not any special association of churches into a presbytery, neither hath
a member a further right or call to receive in a church within his associa-
tion than in any other church in the world. By like reason associations
should be as needless for these universal elders to exercise government in ;
and if the proportion holds, then, as the elder or elders of one association is
excluded from coming to intermeddle in a neighbour association, so members
of another association should be from communion in those churches which
are not associated with it.
(9.) That which is the principle and foundation of popery, and which, if it
prevailed, and all the churches challenge the right of it, would hinder further
reformation and growth in the truth, and would make all the reformed churches
schismatics, and would justify non-residency, and introduce a foreign ecclesi-
astical government in all states and kingdoms, that cannot be Christ's govern-
ment. But such is this catholic political church.
1. As for popery, Bellarmine and Suarez lay this foundation for the pope's
authority: 1. That the church universal is a politic body ; and he quoteth
the same scripture that our brethren use to do ; and 2, he saith therefore
it must have a supreme power existing somewhere ; for as there cannot be
una respublica sine civUi suprema potentate, nor unus exercitns sine imperatore,
so nor can there be ecclesicB politia una without an external supreme power
suited thereunto. And if there be such a politic body, see how easy a step it
is for the pope's monarchy in the third place ; for if the institution do fall
first upon it, then there is reason supposed that Christ hath ordered a constant
existent government, for the greatest institution deserveth the greatest bless-
ing ; and he that gave ordinances to every particular church, pastors and
teachers, would be sure to give them to the whole, considered as a politic body.
So Bellarmine argueth also, that if the particular churches had not been
united into one body, one pastor might sutHce each ; but if they be all united
into one great body, there must be (saith he) one external pastor over the
whole.
2. To think that Jesus Christ should make an institution of a doctrinal
principle only (which should not have existence), namely of this, that the
church universal is a politic body, only to set up peddling presbyteries by virtue
of it, or provincial assemblies, when yet his institution is by that principle
supposed to fall primarily upon the church universal, is not likely.
3. The competition would be, whether a general council should be the
constant existent government, or one man. A general council there never
was yet, one that was truly general (as all acknowledge) ; but that some
churches have been left out, either those in the Indies or Gothland, or some-
where else, they have been still, as Chamier argues against the pope ; and
if it could be, it could be but rarely ; but Christ would have appointed his
government (if his prime institution had fallen here) for one time as well as
for another. But now, as when Moses was wanting, they set up a calf,
the Christian world, if this principle were true, would say, Here is an universal
church, but where is a government extant ?
4. And then, if a general council were extant, yet herein one man may
moderate ; and it is not against the essence or the constitution of govern-
ment (as presby terial divines acknowledge) that one man should be a constant
moderator.
And then, 5, if that this general council were dissolved at some time, they
might have the same power that a national assembly useth to have in Scot-
land, to make a committee of a company of a head city to be commissioners
till the council meet again, and this would be a good standing conclave (such
as is at Rome) for the whole church.
186 THE GOVERNMEKT OF [BoOK IV.
And then, 6, if you would help it out with the law of nature, as you use
to do with this principle of the universal church, if the institution be not
very express, the law of nature will as well set up one man to whom appeals
may be made, and the analogy of the forms of civil governments and monar-
chies of the world, which all the world runs after, will help to strengthen it.
And then, 7, you shall have the examples in the Old Testament (which
also in this case you use to have recourse to) to back it. There was a per-
petual sanhedrim where there was a national universal church, and there was
an high priest ; and if the high priest were ceremonial, yet that one man
should be over the several order of priests was according to the law of nations,
whereby the eldest in a tribe was over the rest. And to have this one man
and this conclave to be peculiarly designed for the church universal, is more
practicable ; for if there were such an institution, who would not rather think
that there should be one man, or some men, whose business should be set
apart to watch over all in common, with apostolic promise made to them,
than that those that have charges of their own little congregations (which
congregations are to be the main of their care) should be all catholic elders ?
That other way the church would be easily governed, for particular pastors
would only have the care of particular churches, and one man perhaps, toge-
gether with others singled out, should be appointed for nothing else but the
public ; whereas this principle would make it every man's care, and so no
man's, or divide them between the general and their particular charges.
8. Then you would have all the inconveniences of an aristocracy in the
government of so great a body, which will prove equal to those of a monarchy ;
for, first, all heresies have ever been from the clergy and their divisions ; and
secondly, the church would ordinarily this way want a supreme government,
which the other way of one man would be constant in ; and thirdly, divisions
would not so easily be allayed. So as indeed it is more rational (if this
principle had been true, that the great body of the church universal should
be a politic body), that Christ should have instituted a constant conclave for
the government of it under some one man.
Lastly, it would make the clergy the catholic church in the creed, for to
' tell the church,' if it be a politic body, is to tell these elders which represent
the whole ; yea, by this you would make two churches, one of the elders,
another of the faithful ; and if you distinguish it yet further into the visible
and invisible, you make three. And then, as for that catholic church of the
elders, they would be a fit body for the pope presently to be head of them,
and to step into the throne, for the pope and the popish clergy make that
one beast mentioned in the Kevelation.
2. This principle would hinder all reformation, if practised according to
the law of it, and prove all reformed churches schismatics. For if there
were, de jure, a general assembly of all Grecian, Egyptian, Ethiopic, Persian
Christians, and they would set down the doctrine which we shall all be con-
fined to, and we should be, by the law of the universal catholic politic
church, obliged to an uniformity with them, or with the greater part of them,
as well as now we think ourselves to be with the reformed churches, how
would this set the clock of reformation back ! And yet, according to this
principle, we are more bound to the law of uniformity to this general body
than we are to any particulars. For institution doth fall first, according to
this notion, upon the church universal, and therefore the law of it would
oblige more ; and so, if we refuse to do this, we should make ourselves
schismatics from the great ordinance and institution of Christ. Yea, this
must have been the law of reforming churches in all ages with respect to the
church universal. For the law is perpetual, and is at no time dispensable ;
Chap. I.] the churches of christ. 187
for Christ is with his own ordinances to the end of the world. If Luther
had been bound up by this law, how had the church been reformed ? We
should not have gained that in seven hundred years that he did in twenty.
Yea, if this synod* had been so chosen by the law of the universal church,
as to take in the ministers of all England, so that the law were to call all,
one as well as another (for one and all are ministers as well as churches)
this would have spoiled your reformation. And besides, this would make us
all schismatics by our national covenant, for if we were under the law of the
church universal as a poUtic body, we do make a separation from this law
by combining oui'selves only with reformed churches, that are so small and
inconsiderable a part of the church universal.
3. It justifies non-residency, or makes non-residence jure divino; for
ministers, being elders of a church universal by a prior institution, can never
be absent from their flock. And every man may pretend, for a more general
service of the whole, whereof he is a member, that the lesser should give
way. And this was the chief grounds for non-residency in the bishops' times,
that every man was a minister of the church of England in general, and so
he might serve the whole ; and therefore, though he were a professor in the
university, he was serving the whole church, and so he might hold other
livings too, and yet be absent from them.
4. It layeth a foundation of bringing in a foreign power to bind all or any
of the kingdoms in Europe. It will bind any ; for the greater part of the re-
formed churches, if we should go no further, may challenge, by virtue of this
ordinance and institution, that what they agree upon we all should receive.
Obj. But you will say still, that tlie magistrate may still call those uni-
versal elders to meet in a council, or not call them.
Ans. 1. But still, if this be an ordinance, they are to call themselves ; it
is their duty, they are to assume it if the magistrate neglect. And,
, Ans. 2. However, when they are called, they may impose their canons.
And,
Ans. 3. The magistrate is bound to be subject, for they are Christians, and
so pars ecdesice, and so to be subject to this ordinance, for they have not a
power to break the ordinance of Christ ; and they are not to resist it, for
there is a law of Christ's institution upon it. If it be but consultive to the
magistrate, then they say no more than we ; if obligatory, then it bindeth,
and then they must either take the magistrates into the council as members
also, which is the usual salvo for it, and so they are parts of the parliament
and commonwealth, which hinders the freeness of the vote of the ecclesiastic
persons ; and then, if the major part which carry it be not the magistrates,
but ministers, as usually they are, then the magistrates, in their civil
assemblies, when they come to confirm it, are bound either to ratify it or not.
If not, then the authority of the synod is but consultive to them ; if they be
bound, then this synod is a superior power to the king and state, and this
within their own dominions, by virtue of this catholic principle. And then,
without their dominions, the greater number of churches will oblige both the
one and the other, and is a power over princes ; yea, and a foreign power
may be brought in hereby, and as well as by popery, only with this difter-
ence (if you cut off infallibility), that there is but one man, the pope, buf
here an aristocracy of divines.
Lastly, any among us would not be more bound to the elders of our own
churches than to the bishops and elders of eastern churches, if there was to
be found more of the catholic church, or a greater part among them ; for
hereby I have as good a warrant and authority to cleave to them. Co-
* The assembly of divines at Westminster.
183 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK IV.
habitation doth not oblige me to my own elders, when the institution is
universal all the world over.
Those places that are ordinarily alleged, 1 Cor. xii. 28, and Eph. iv.,
although they import communion amongst churches, by virtue of that
catholic obligation, yet none of them hold forth that that catholic church is
a politic body. Indeed, it is said there that God hath set up apostles, &c.,
in that church ; but it is as a man may say, he hath set up kings and
emperors in the world ; it doth not therefore follow that the whole world is
one politic body, and all the kings and emperors have an authority over the
universe, but only partitive in their several dominions.
And the communion which the members are obliged unto, and the bands
and ties there mentioned, are not only between the saints and the churches,
and the officers thereof now extant, and existing in the world ; the catholic
state of the church in all ages is implied, with whom we profess to hold a
communion now, and we ought to do it as well as with the churches now
extant. And that is clearly the scope in Eph. iv., and 1 Cor. xii. 28, for
he speaks of prophets and evangelists, pastors and teachers, that are given
to build up the churches in the faith, until the coming of Christ, every age
being knit unto another by certain bands and ties ; and the church in
every age receiving a benefit by the pastors and teachers, and by the pro-
phets and apostles, and their writings in former ages ; and in all ages they
have conspired so far as to preserve fundamental truths. And from those
places it may as well be argued, that pastors and teachers, and general
councils in former ages, have a juridical power upon all the churches after-
ward, as that the present churches have, for he speaks both of the one and
the other as one totum complexum.
Ohj. And if it be said that the apostles were ministers of the church
universal, having jurisdiction over the whole universal church ; therefore
once the whole universal church was a politic body in their time, and why
not now ? it is thus answered :
Alls. 1. Besides the difierence of apostles and other elders, elsewhere
spoken of, even to the apostles themselves all the churches universal did
not make one politic body, to be governed in common ; but the apostles
still, as they came to several churches, had power in all those churches
severally apart, so as all those churches are not called one church, no, not
in respect of the apostles' government. But this opinion of the universal
cathohc church being a body politic to all these elders, would make it to be
in order to a combination under those elders as one whole politic body,
govei'ned by them in common, and in and by common assemblies ; whereas
the apostles, severally and apart, had, in all these churches, the power still
as they came occasionally ; and therefore to assert that particular churches,
having their particular eldership, by whom they are governed, make up one
mystical church, is in this to answer the pattern of the apostles' government
itself, that as the whole church then was not governed by the apostles as a
whole chui'ch, but only by parts, — that is, the particular churches by an
apostle as he came into it, or as he had occasion to write to it, — that so
now this whole church is also by parts governed, that is, the particular
churches are governed by their several elders, having jurisdiction therein,
and therein only. And if unto apostles themselves, this whole church was
not a politic body, taken as one, then much less to elders of particular
chui'ches.
2. And also, further, the meaning of that place in 1 Cor. xii. 28 is not
that every elder hath an authoritative politic jurisdiction in all churches, as
occasion is, which is evident by this, because other particulars are there
Chap. I.] the churches of christ. 189
mentioned, as, namely, ruling elders and deacons (whicli our brethren do un-
derstand by those words, helps and governments, for so it is in the original),
so then they also should be officers, as deacons, and as governors in all
churches also. And therefore his meaning is only this, it is as if it should
be said, in a commonwealth he hath set noblemen and judges, &c., who
have the power in the whole, and every part of a kingdom ; and he hath set
justices of peace, and constables, and headboroughs, &c., but it would not
follow, that as the noblemen and judges have power in every part, so the
ordinary justices of peace, and every constable or headborough hath ; and
yet, if from that place they would argue, that ordinary elders have power in all
churches, as elders, they must also acknowledge deacons to have the like.
3. And that place in Ephes. iv. speaks of pastors and teachers, in respect
of doctrine, and therefore mentioneth only those that did labour in the word
and doctrine, such as prophets and evangelists, pastors and teachers ; and
speaks of their being ordained to keep that unity of the faith ; and therefore
speaks only of their doctrinal power, not of their judicial power of acts of
government.
4. And it is farther to be considered, that when it is said that he had set
apostles, &c., in the church, he speaks not of officers in the concrete, or of
this and that church, in this or that age ; but he speaks of church and of
officers in the abstract, he speaks of the kind ; and so answerably we read,
Eph. iv. 8, ' He gave gifts to men,' that is, to such officers in the abstract.
6. The general church receive th pastors and teachers, but as formed up
into particulars, therefore they are set in it only partitive ; and though the
church is said to be the subject in which they are set, yet not as a collective
body, and therefore they do not make up a general government.
Ohj. It may be objected, that the apostles are said to be the church uni-
versal.
Ans. 1. They are not set in it as a collective body ; and if they were, yet
as all pastors cannot supply the office of an apostle, when met all together,
so they are not set as apostles, as the apostles were. The earls in a king-
dom are set otherwise in a kingdom than the constables are ; and therefore
the meeting of all the constables in a kingdom cannot make up one office of
an earl, or the relation they have in the whole kingdom.
2. The apostles were executively set in particular churches only, and so
the whole church was not one church, in relation to them, nor did all churches
make up one church, in relation to them, for a government.
Then, 3, we acknowledge that they may be all set in this body as apostles
and as elders, and that by virtue of communion of churches ; and if you will
keep it in that mystical way, they are to be respected as elders of such and
such churches, by all the churches of the world.
As it is again objected out of those places, Eph. iv. and 1 Cor. xii., that
the gifts there, that are given to the church, are not proper and peculiar to
the elect.
Ans. It is true ; but yet, though they are not given only to those who are
elect in the issue, and in the event, yet they are given only to those that were
visibly such unto men, and to be taken for such ; and such as, if we had
jived in those times, would have been to be accounted saints by us. All that
are true members of churches we are to look upon as elect, for they are elect
to us ; and therefore he writes to the ' church elect in Babylon.' They are
all saints to us, and so they are visibly such that make the visible church.
And that the visible church there, though consisting of men that in issue
proved not the elect, is yet under the notion of such as are, appeareth by
this, that they are said to drink into one Spirit, that is, into the Holy Ghost,
190 THE GOVEENMENT OF [BoOK IV.
alluding to the receiving of the sacrament ; because that none should be sup-
posed to be of that catholic visible body, or of particular bodies of churches,
but such as are supposed to partake of the Holy Ghost, as every true saint
doth. And the drinking into one Spirit there cannot be meant of extraordi-
nary gifts, which may be supposed to be given to reprobates, because the
Spirit in extraordinary gifts is not received by the sacrament.
Obj. Whereas it is said, that the elders and the officers are given to the
whole universal church, therefore that is a politic body ; I answer, that by
the same reason mankind should be a politic body also, for they are said to
be given to men, Eph. iv., and the gifts that are there said to be given to
men, are not to be understood of the inherent gifts or qualifications, in
respect of those men they are given unto (as the grace of an apostleship to
an apostle), but it is meant of men giftedly put into office, given unto other
men, or to mankind ; which appeareth by this, because they are given by*
conversion, before men are of the catholic body, as well as for building up
after they are in it.
It is again objected, that 1 Cor. xii. it is said, that the members are to
' Honour one another, that there be no schisms in the body,' ver. 25 ; 'If
one member suffer, all the members sufier with it,' ver. 26.
A)is. As there is a double body or church to Christ, the one mystical and
the other instituted, so there is a double union, the one mystical, though
external, and the other more special for government and jurisdiction. And
the same things that are spoken of the duty of members in a body instituted,
that are a body to Christ in particular, as the apostle afterward distinguish-
eth, are due also to all saints by virtue of their mystical relation. And we
find that the apostles indeed do argue the instance of the communion of the
body catholic, which is between all saints, to exemplify and to illustrate the
duties that are to be between saints, in a particular body so joined ; yet by
way of similitude, but not oneness for kind. And because also all the duties of
love, which, in particular congregations, the members are to perform one to
another, are duties by a mystical relation, as well as by that special obliga-
tion ; yet they are bound to them by an obligation, beyond that of the mys-
tical relation, which they bear to all saints in the world. For though the
church mystical universal affordeth matter for such an instituted congrega-
tional church, yet that they should thus meet in Christ's name is a super-
added form to this matter, and lays a further obhgation upon the members.
CHAPTER 11.
That the institution for icorship and government faUeth not upon the saints in
a nation, qua nation or kingdom, as the seat of it.
Though the pattern of the Jewish church be urged to prove such a na-
tional church, yet it will not serve the turn.
1. For it was not therefore a church, because a nation, but because there
were no more nations that God had chosen, nor would choose till Christ
came ; and therefore if any other turned proselyte, they were to turn Jews,
and to be as natives.
2. The instance of the Jewish church will rather serve for the proof of
an universal church, than for any evidence that there should be as many
churches as there be nations. When the Jews did turn Christians, they were
the same nation, yet the apostles do nowhere write to them as a national
church. They write not to the church of Judea, but the churches.
* Qu. 'for'?— Ed.
Chap. II.] the churches of christ. 191
3. That the church of the Jews was a type of the churches in nations, as
nations, let that be shewn. We can shew that the whole nation and temple
worship was a type of congregations, and that ' royal nation' (as that whole
nation was then called), and the ' holy priesthood,' is a type of the saints in
all nations.
4. God at first set up a church government, suitable to that of a kingdom,
and suited unto the government of a world ; that policy is therefore called
the elements of this world, unto which the church in the New Testament is
not to be conformed, Rom. xii.
5. And then, when there was a national church, there was a worship for
the whole nation, as a nation, to come unto, and so a government in the
place that God should choose for all to appeal unto ; but there are no such
orders now.
6. If the institution do fall upon them, it must fall upon them either as
they are a church in a kingdom, or as a kingdom ; but not as a church in
a kingdom, for qua church, there is a greater church out of that kingdom,
namely, the universal,
7. This opinion, though it seems indeed calculated to comply with magis-
tracy, for it divideth the independency of government according to the divi-
sion of the supreme power of magistrates, and so would seem to fence them
from any external power, from any other kingdoms or churches, yet it makes
the church-power in that kingdom independent upon the magistrate ; and
that united into a greater body would be too hard for them, whereas the dis-
persing it into particular congregations makes it easily wieldable.
Neither doth the institution fall upon a conformity, either to the extent or
to the government of cities, as those who are for episcopacy have intended,
and some presbyterial divines also, and both upon the same grounds, although
with this difference, that the bishops would have the government of churches
to be conformed to that of the cities, taking in the villages about them, and
so to make a diocese and a diocesan church ; but those for the presbytery
contract it to the extent of a city within itself, and so make a classical church ;
the opinions of either differing in this respect only, viz., the point of extent
of larger and lesser jurisdiction, the one confined within the city walls, the
other extending without.
1. Because, if it were so, then the conformity either must fall upon the
government of cities, or the bounds of the place ; that look what extent
either the government or bounds of the local circuit of cities have, the same
extent should your classical presbyteries have, conformable thereunto, and in
asserting either unavoidable absurdities would follow.
1. To make the government conformable to the government of cities, as
their extent should fall out, is to make a worldly government the pattern of
ecclesiastical, is wholly to conform spiritual government to the government
of the world ; and then the same degrees of ofiicers of superiority and
inferiority that is in cities, should be in ecclesiastical government.
2. The conformity must rather fall upon the bounds of the governments
of cities, than upon the circuit or material consideration, because that which
makes it a city is the government of it, whether the bounds of it be within
the walls, or other towns about it, whether it extend to a larger circuit or
to a less.
3. It must either fall upon a city, as having many congregations in it ;
and if so, it might as well have fallen upon villages in the country, capable
by association to be many churches as well ; and the one would be as uncer-
tain as the other, because there may be many congregations in the one as
well as in the other. Or else, 2, it must fall upon the form of the govern-
192 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK IV.
ment of cities. Or else, 3, upon cities of such and such a circuit, and some
cities greater and some lesser ; that would be uncertain also, because some
cities are greater and some lesser.
2. The foundation of this assertion cannot be a conformity to the govern-
ment of the cities amongst the Jews ; for, 1, the villages among the Jews
had a government in them as well as the cities. 2. Suppose that the go-
vernment of the Gentiles, in their cities, was not conformed to the government
of the Jews in their cities (which may well be supposed), for the government
of the Gentiles was oftentimes to have whole empires under the government
of a city ; so Rome had, and then all the world under Rome, whilst it was
a city government, must have been one classical church ; or, however, among
the Gentiles, the cities were the head of a whole province, and of all the
villages under it, and it is so in many cities at this day ; and that would
make for a diocesan government, and not presbyterial.
If thus the bounds cannot be fixed, we are still to seek even in cities what
should be the bounds, and are as uncertain as in villages. So as the con-
clusion is, the bounds according to this measure are uncertain.
3. G-od doth not shape a spiritual government unto the political, and the
bounds thereof. Political government goes by the bounds of the soil, so
doth not the spiritual. All that do live within such a place, or within such
a country, because they are of that soil, fall under the same political govern-
ment ; but there is no reason that they should fall under the same spiritual.
4. If the frame of the church were to be conformed to the city government,
then, as the city did take in the suburban towns, the daughters round about,
60 the church should not be confined only to the compass of the city, but
extend to a whole province, as the bishops argue for a diocesan church.
5. Christ's government is suitable to all ages, times, and places ; but now
in all ages and places there is not the city government, and there could not
be the same rule for the government of churches in villages, and therefore it
did not suit all places.
G. Jesus Christ's way is rather conformed to the synagogue way, for so
the churches are called, and it is therefore conformed to the government of
the synagogues, although in cities.
7. If this were the ordinance of God, to conform church government to
the government of cities, then all in London should make one church,
because it is but one city ; and Alexandria and Grand Cairo, if it were con-
verted, would be so too, nay, Rome itself (whereof the present Rome is but
the tenth part of what it was, as Lipsius shews) must have been but one
church if they had been all converted ; and there should have been but one
classical presbytery to have governed all the churches there. Yea, in some
places there are two cities built together that have the privileges of cities,
as Constantinople and Galata, London and Westminster, the two Pragues ;
yea, Jerusalem had the city of David within it, and so there must have been
two classical presbyteries in Jerusalem from the first ; for those of the city
of David might have challenged the privilege of it if the church had been
conformed to a city government ; and perhaps that was the reason why we
read of two companies of the three-and-twenty elders that did sit in Jeru-
salem, because each city had an eldership of twenty-three ; and so there
being two cities in that one, that of David and the other of Jerusalem itself,
there might be two elderships for those two cities, besides their great
Sanhedrim.
8. When cities are decayed and do lessen, and are brought low, it may be
to as small a number of inhabitants as villages ; yet they often retain their
privileges as cities, as many decayed incorporations do. Now then, if there
Chap. II.] the churches of christ. 193
were but one congregation left in such a lessened city, it would claim, by
virtue of this city, privilege to be entire within itself.
Ohj. But the apostle hath said, in Tit. i., * Ordain elders in every city,'
and that is parallel with that in Acts xiv., ' They ordain elders in every
church,' holding forth the pattern of a city, and the government thereof for
the bounds of it, to be set for that of a church.
Ans. 1. That place in Acts xiv., ' in every church,' hath relation, as well to
chui'ches in villages as in cities ; and so to churches in those first times of
the gospel, that consisted of no more than might meet in one place ; and,
therefore, as well it may be interpreted, that there was but as many as would
make but one church in every city, as suiting the phrase of his direction, in
relation to what number of Christians were supposed to be in each city of
Crete, when first Titus came thither in the beginning of the gospel ; and this
number may well be supposed to be no more than could make up one con-
gregation, and it was well if so too.
A71S. 2. Oi'dinary elders in every church implies farther, that if there were
more churches to be in a city, that then he should ordain the elders, Kar'
sx.xXrisiav, to every church apart.
Ans. 3. That it is so appears ; because, as hath been shewn, by ToXig, city,
is meant small towns as well as cities.
Ans. 4. The reason why his direction runs to ordain elders in every city,
was because, though they did preach the gospel in villages, yet principally in
cities at the first, because they were to leaven the countries. And the
apostles, when they did write to churches in a province, did use to write to
the church of the head city, as more eminent, not because that was either a
mother church, as the bishops say, or a classical church of more churches,
as the presbyterians say, but because it was more eminent, and from it the
epistle might be spread to others, as Paul's Epistle to the Colossians was
ordered to be sent to Laodicea, which was, in all likelihood, a less city than
Colosse. And thus, when they write to the churches of Syria and Cilicia,
Acts XV., they write especially to Antioch. So when he would write to all
the churches about Corinth, he nameth especially the church of Corinth,
together with them ; and wrappeth up all the rest thus, ' and all that call
upon the name of the Lord.'
Ohj. It was the ordination of the apostles in the primitive times, that all
in a city should be one church, both because the distinction of churches,
and also their names, are taken from the city, as the church of Ephesus, &c.
And therefore, whether in one consideration or more, whether for the present
or for the time to come, the saints, in such and such a city, were to be one
church ; and a congregational church they could not be, therefore a distinc-
tion of a classical church was intended by a church in cities. And the elders
had charge given them, to take care of that whole city to convert them. And
to this pattern of a city government were the villages also to be conformed,
several villages making an association into one church, as those cities did.
• Ans. 1. To the first part of the objection I answer, that they are called
one church in a city, and so distinguished. Because there was but one church
for the present, as in Acts xiii. 1, Kara rr\v ovsav s-/,xXrisiav, ' the church exist-
ing at' Antioch, that is, which at present was there ; it doth not follow that
all the churches, that should afterwards be th^e, should be but one church.
So as Bains saith, there is an adequate acception of these phrases, per acci-
dens, not because the city and church was to make but one church, but
because the Christians, by occasion of their number, not being then too great,
were formed into one church, not because there was to be but one. Now he,
VOL. XI. N
194 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK IV.
who thus uscth ihem promiscuously, doth imply that one church was as yet
constituted ; not that there was to be but one, through the circuit of a city,
suburbs, and country. Thus likewise it is easily answered to the purpose of
the proposition, for thus the multitude of citizens, converted and unconverted,
could not be a church of one congregation ; yet the number of those who,
in city, suburbs, or territories, were actually converted, was no more than
might be ordered into one church ; and the apostles framing these into one,
on the present occasion, did not exclude the after-constituting of any other
within the same local bounds. But if there had been more, there would have
been other ways to have distinguished them ; as when there were many syna-
gogues in a city, they were distinguished (for all the synagogues could not
have been called by the name of that one city, so nor the congregations) ;
and perhaps that was the reason why that a school, which was a kind of a
synagogue, was, for distinction's sake, called the school of Tyrannus, as being
the ruler of it.
Alls. 2. If that were a reason, then also the name of a village or smaller
town, as that of Cenchrea, would make as strong an argument, that in every
small town, if there be a church there, that it should be one entire church
(having the government wholly in itself), as well as that many congregations
in a city should become one church for government.
Ans. 3. The name of a church, in a city, is not taken simply from the
city, but from the people ; as in the Revelation, the church of the Smyrnians,
and of the Laodiceans, &c. Suppose they had removed (as in those times,
through persecution, they often did) to some other city, they would have
been the church of the Smyrnians, as well as the church at Arnheim was
called the English church ; so as the name doth not refer simply to a city,
and the bounds thereof. And when there was a church of strangers, of Aquila
and Priscilla, &c., in Rome, it is called the church in their house ; and so
also when they were removed to Ephesus, it bore the same name, to distin-
guish it from the church of the Ephesians. It is one exception against us,
that when we say the bounds of a church should be so many as can meet in
one place, we hereby do fetch the constitution of a church fi'om what is
merely external and accidental to it ; and the exception were true, if we fetch
it from any one set or standing place, or house of meeting ; but we fetch it
from that which is essential to a church, which is oneness of communion in
ordinances together, meeting with one accord, as in the Acts their meetings
are characterised, which, because it cannot be done unless they do meet in
some place or other, hence we so express it, not as that thing the ordination
is set upon, but as the necessary consequent or adjunct. But this exception
made against us falls fully and directly upon them that would make a city
the extent, either of the local bounds or the government thereof, a pattern or
measure of a classical church, and the institution of it.
If many churches had been in one city, they might have been distinguished
by the names of some of the rulers, or as now they are by the streets, or
places of their constant meetings ; for as if the Holy Ghost doth write to the
angel of the church of Ephesus, as if the king doth write to the city of Lon-
don, he should entitle his letter to the mayor and aldermen, as writing to the
whole corporation in their names, so also might several chui-ches in cities
have been as well distinguished by the names of their rulers, and of their
elders and pastors, as Tyrannus his school was. And there are other reasons
why in that case the names should be taken from the place ; for cohabitation
and dwelling together in a place, we acknowledge is a ground why the saints,
so far as possibly they can, should meet in one church-fellowship, and not
make several fellowships. And we much rather think that still the denomi-
Chap. II.] the chukches of ohrist. 195
nation of one church in a city did hold forth this rule, that in all cities, the
saints dwelling together, and so elsewhere, should make as big churches as
they could, to shew their unity, and to make the worship more solemn, and
to have more of the assistance of the Holy Ghost ; and therefore they should
not make many congregations where there might be one only.
Alls. 4. To the second part of the objection, concerning the conversion
which the elders are to take care of, I answer, 1. To preach is one thing, to
censure is another. And, besides, at that rate of arguing, all those that a
man begets to Christ, he hath therefore authority over, to rule them, to be
their minister. 2. The elders at Ephesus indeed had a charge as elders,
by way of government over the whole flock, the church that God had re-
deemed by his blood, that is, of those that were converted ; and although
that they were to endeavour to convert others (for how should the gospel
otherwise be propagated), yet if more had been converted, then there must
have been churches multiplied, but still in the uniform frame that this first
church was, having the same privileges, and so to have new elders placed
over them, as over a new flock. And, besides, they are not called elders of
Ephesus, but elders of the church at Ephesus, The care of elders set in a
city to convert, was to be extended as well to the neighbour villages as to
the cities, especially then when they had gained as yet but few in a city, and
then by this reason those in the villages were obliged to be associated with
them, as well as those in a city, although all the city should also be con-
verted, especially if those in the villages were the first converts ; and this is
one of the episcopal grounds for a diocesan church ; they in efiect tell the
same story for the rearing up of episcopal government.
Ans. 5. To the third part of the objection we reply, that the way of consti-
tution of churches under the gospel, being uniform according to Christ's insti-
tution, both in villages and cities, it is therefore squared as well to the
condition of the one as the other, and therefore a church in a village may as
well be made the pattern for the constituting of churches in a city, as a
church in a city for forming one in a village. But Christ hath framed his
institution so as will serve both ; and the certain rules for both are the due
bounds of a church set (whereof there are many sure and certain characters
in the word, from the nature and thing itself), that so many as dwell to-
gether, that can conveniently meet in one place, should become one church.
We grant (as Bains in the like case, page 12, conclusion 2, concerning a
diocesan church) that God might have made this pattern of city government
an ordinance of church government, as he did once take a family govern-
ment under the old law, and made that a church, and extended the bounds
still by a family, as they grew either greater or lesser ; but as then, if a
man's family had spread into many families, though he was the priest of all
these families in public worship, because he was the eldest of the family,
whilst he lived, yet that would not have been a binding law to several other
families living together, that had not sprung one from another, that they
should have come under the same law of association that the others did.
And therefore, though this were granted concerning cities, it would not fol-
low that the villages must be conformed thereunto.
196 THE GOVEENMENT OF [BoOK IV.
CHAPTER III.
That the external institutions of Christ, for the government of his saints under
the New Testament, are not the same that was under the law, nor can the
government of the Jewish church be made a certain rule for the government
of the church of Christ.
There are many things that were commanded to the Jews which are obH-
gatory to us Christians, though there are also many things which were rules
and laws to them which are not so to us. It will therefore be necessary,
in stating the case first, to shew what is equally binding to us both.
1. All such duties as depend not upon institution, but are duties belong-
ing to the first commandment, as to pray, to hear the word, to give thanks,
must needs continue as well under the New Testament as under the Old,
and are the same.
2. Such things as then had a morality in them, yet if the morality was
only by mere institution, which depends upon the will of God (which divines
call moral positions), even such institutions, in their own individual nature,
cannot be urged upon us as rules. As to instance in that of the Sabbath
day : if any should infer that that seventh day should be the Sabbath day
under the New Testament which was the seventh after the creation, it would
be a false reasoning, although, indeed, the institution of the seventh day to
be the Sabbath was not ceremonial merely, but had a morality in it, for
it was from the creation. The two sacraments of circumcision and the pass-
over had assuredly, besides the ceremonialness annexed to them, the insti-
tution of typifying of Christ to come (which circumcision did by blood, and
being administered the eighth day) ; these sacraments signifying Jesus
Christ, the substance of them must needs be moral, and that by institution,
as well as ours are now, as in 1 Cor. x. 1, 2, ' They did all eat of the same
spiritual meat (the same spiritual manna), and all drank of the same spiritual
drink.' But yet it doth not follow that the same sacraments for substance
(cutting off the ceremonial part) should continue, but God was pleased to
institute other two in their rooms.
3. Yet whatsoever was moral in the substance of the Jewish institution
then, there is this equality, that Jesus Christ should institute something in
the room of it in the New Testament. As for example, because there was
an high priest, because there was an house of God then, the apostle there-
fore argues (Heb. xx. 21-26), that we, having an high priest over the house
of God, there are assemblies to be now as well as then ; but that these assem-
blies should be formed up, and cast into the same latitude and extent, and
the like, which their assemblies had then, herein a new institution putteth
the difference. They had national assemblies then, not so now ; the priests
were maintained by tithes and ofierings then ; the equity of this continueth,
and the apostle urgeth it in his epistle to the Corinthians, but yet it followeth
not that their maintenance now should be the same way. And although
there was a moral equality in it, yet the apostle superaddeth, ' So I ordain
in all the churches,' 1 Cor. vii. 17.
4. When the gospel hath once made an institution in the room of w^hat
was under the law (as it hath done baptism instead of circumcision, though
not exactly on the same moral ground, yet on the same evangelical ground,
as baptism was the substance extant, under the type of circumcision), this
will warrant the application of baptism unto like infant children now, when
the gospel itself also holds forth the same privilege for substance unto such
children now as it did then, and renews the same promise to them, though
Chap. III.] the churches of cheist. 197
in an evangelical way, far differing from that in the Old Testament, which
contained a tj-picalness in it. And this is not to raise up a new institution,
it is only the application of an institution to a person, and that also when
the gospel holds forth the same ground which the law did. But if any would
reason, that because there was a circumcision under the law, a sacrament of
initiation into the church, therefore there must be the same under the gospel
(if they cannot shew that Jesus hath appointed it for the continuing of such
an institution), the argument from the Old will not hold ; or if they would
argue, that it should be administered in the same latitude ; or that the same
persons who did administer circumcision under the Old Testament may ad-
minister baptism now, we believe our brethren will not concede to it, though
the argument will be as strong one way as the other, for the father of the
family might circumcise them, and did, but they would have only ministers
to baptize now ; and they too circumcised them in their families, and did not
bring their children to the temple.
5. That the laws of the Old Testament do help up to regulate many in-
stitutions in the New, we acknowledge (as likewise the laws of nature do),
but they will not be warrant sufficient to set up the like. So the rules of
the judicial law, concerning the punishments of criminal acts, that none
should be condemned under two or three witnesses ; these rules will serve
unto, and perhaps ought to be received by, every state (as some have held) to
regulate their proceedings against malefactors. But yet unto Jewish policy
(take it for the government of it, and the ranks of officers among them, and
power they had), nations are not bound so, as though the rules of equity,
whereby that policy did proceed, were perpetual, yet the question remains
still of the power. That ministers should be maintained, as they were then,
the equity of the law holds, but it will no way follow, that there should be
the same ranks of ministers.
6. That the New Testament entitles some of those ordinances that itself
hath anew instituted, with the same names and words used in the Old Tes-
tament, argues not that those ordinances are to be framed and formed ac-
cording to the analogy of the old, but they have the same names, because
that the old were types of these. Thus that our ordinances now are called
sacrifices ; that Christ is called an high priest ; that the officers of the
cTiurch are called a presbytery ; that excommunication is called a purging
out the old leaven, and many such hke, in the evangelist : all this will not
prove that there should be sacrifices, high priests, &c., under the New Tes-
tament. In the evangelist, Christ, speaking of the teachers of the New
Testament, saith. Mat. xxiii. 34, ' I will send you wise men, and scribes,'
&c. ; but yet it follows not that the orders oi the officers of the New Testa-
ment should be answerable to the wise men, and the scribes ; so when a
believer or a church is called the temple of God, when the saints are called
a royal nation, and the like, no inference can be made, that there should
be now a temple and a national church.
7. There were many things which are moral now, that were not moral
then. To cast out of the church for moral sins, as such, q}ia moral, is the
law of Christ now ; but under the old law, they did not keep men from
ordinances for sins as moral, but as having a ceremonial uncleanness annexed
to them. No man is to put his wife away now because she is a heathen,
bnt they were to put their wives away then, if heathens, after Moses his
law was settled. In destroying matters of idolatry, they were to be much
stricter than we are bound to be, as meats sacrificed to idols, they were in
no place to eat thereof. Daniel refused the king's meat ; but out of the
idol's temple, we may cat things that have been sacrificed to idols, as the
198 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK IV.
apostle saith. They were to destroy all the temples and groves, &c., but
if places have been abused to idolatry, we under the gospel may make use
of them ; they were to destroy the Canaanites out of the land, not we so
now ; they were to burn idolaters' goods, as in Jericho, &c., not so now.
Having thus made way by these particulars premised, I shall now prove
my proposition, that the Jewish economy is no pattern or rule for modelling
the church of Christ, under the gospel.
1. ' The priesthood being changed, there is a necessity of a change of the
law,' Heb. vii. 12, and so of the law of the government, which depends on
Christ's priestly office. We having a new high priest over the house of
God, we have a new order in this house. For he is the apostle and high
priest of our profession, and it was meet it should appear he was the new
high priest, by altering the institution for worship and government. So
then that old law, which depended upon institutions, as the high priesthood
itself did, is to be changed, and a new law of institutions is to come in the
room of it; and therefore in the Heb. ix. 10, it is called a reformation, and
the time of the gospel is called ' the time of reformation.'
2. That Jewish frame and form of government is called the elements of
the world; and therefore, both in Col. ii. and Eom. xii., the apostle bids
us under the gospel not to be conformed, neither for worship nor govern-
ment (further than as Jesus Christ hath been pleased to take what was
before and make it anew) to the elements of the world. So in Gal. iv. 2, 3,
he saith, they were under tutors and governors till they came to be of man's
estate, or to be of age ; which under the gospel they are in comparison.
And, indeed, the gospel being more spiritual, the frame of the government,
and institutions of it, are not formed to a worldly way to governments of
nations and of kingdoms, as that was then, to an outward external glory, as
their worship also was. As God hath chosen the preaching of the word, which
is foolishness, so he hath also chosen many of those things which are vile, and
base, and contemptible, and a foolishness of government in comparison of
what was then. And this is it deceiveth the world ; for the gospel is a
mystery throughout. He chooseth the synagogue, and not the temple ; he
chooseth a congregation and eldership, and not the Sanhedrim ; he chooseth
baptism, and not circumcision, &c.
3. Our Lord and Saviour speaks altogether of a new church to be made,
a church gathered in his name : as when he instituted baptism, to shew that
it was a new ordinance, he bids them baptize in his name ; so, to shew that
he erected a frame of a new church, he bids that it should be gathered in
his name.
4. Our brethren's principles, that hold the universal church to be the seat
and subject of Christ's institution, argue' this ; for as his church now over
all nations, both Jew and Gentile, is a differing seat from that of the Jew
only, so answerably, to set in his church apostles and prophets, &c., instead
of chief priests, &c., is a new institution ; and it is certain, that that church
whereof the apostle speaks, 1 Cor. xii. Eph. iv., is the church of the New
Testament. And therefore, if the church universal being a poHtic, be argued
from thence, it is by a new institution differing from the former, because
the church of the New Testament, which he speaks of there, began with the
apostles. And besides the institution fell upon the church of the Jews qua
national, but this falls upon the church qua universal, in all nations, else
it would not extend to all nations to be equal standers in it ; whereas, under
the law, they were not to be so with the Jews, but were to come under that
national covenant only when proselyted.
4. There seems to have been several sorts of policies and orders extant
Chap. III.] the churches of christ. 199
under the Old Testament ; and unto which of these should the conformity
now be made ? By what rules should we now judge ?
(1.) There were chief rulers over several bodies of the priests and
Levites, to which government, the bishops say, their order is an allusion.
There was also a power in these priests and Levites, proper and peculiar to
them, to judge of the clean and unclean, and concerning the matters of
worship in the temple. And this government was purel}' ecclesiastical ; and
unto this therefore, rather should the analogy refer of matters in the
church, seeing that these were purely such.
, (2.) Again, there were the civil judicatures in their cities and towns, and
in their great Sanhedrim at Jerusalem, for all controversies within their
gates, as the distinction is in Deut. xvii. Yet these were all* ecclesiastical,
but indeed mixed both in respect of causes and persons ; their church and
commonwealth being so mixed, as it is hard to distinguish what belonged
to them merely as a commonwealth, and what belonged to them as a church,
in respect of what came under the cognizance and power of those courts.
(3.) Then again, there was their synagogical government, which seems to
be differing from what either the priests had in the temple, in respect of
persons clean and unclean ceremonially, or over one another ; or from courts
of judicature in their gates. A government those synagogues had, for there
are the rulers of them mentioned ; and also punishments they had, for when
the Romans took away their government in their gates, they scourged in
their synagogues. There were admonitions also, or excommunications, or
casting men out of their synagogues. The great Sanhedrim, and their
other courts, did punish by civil mulcts, and the Sanhedrim did put to
death. In the temple, the priests kept out the unclean, and the judgment
of that was not by the Sanhedrim, but by the priests, that did look to the
worship of the temple ; but the synagogues did cast a man out, and the
priests did not supervise the government of the synagogues.
And that all this was a matter of a differing cognisance from what was
transacted in their other courts, is evident by this, that for many sins (be-
sides the civil punishments that were adjudged in the courts of their gates,
as to restore, and the like) a man was fai'ther obliged to come to the temple
with confession, and with a sacrifice ; so as the charge of the things of the
temple, and the order and discipline thereof, was another thing than that of
their civil courts. And although a man was cast out of the synagogues, and
was in respect of such a communion as a heathen and a publican, yet he
might still come to the temple and partake in the worship thereof. But
that the Sanhedrim did at any time pronounce that sentence, that a man
should be as an heathen or publican, that this was proper to their courts,
we believe not. Now, it is left very uncertain to which of these the analogy
of the government of a gospel church should be accommodated.
Obj. It is said that our Saviour Christ, in Mat. xviii., reflected upon some
bench or court, the next then extant, to which the people were wont to resort
among the Jews, and so intimated that his will was that the church under
the gospel should be formed up conformably to us, and that so it should be
like to that of the Jews, and so the policy of the church of the New Testa-
ment should be conformed to the policy of the Old by virtue of that insti-
tution. And from thence it is argued that there should be ruling elders
that are not teachers, because there were such among the Jews ; from
thence it is argued that there should be a national church, a national sanhe-
drim or assembly, as was among the Jews ; from thence it is argued that
the power is in the elders alone, because it was so among the Jews, who
* Qu. ' were uot all ' ? — Ed.
200 THE GOVEKNMENT OF [BoOK IV.
are called the cliurcli. And so this analogy of the Jewish church is one of
the great foundations of the presbyterian government, and of classical and
national assemblies.
Ans. But besides that it was not necessary that Jesus Christ should
allude to it, though he useth the same phrase ; the deformity of that
pattern, and the poHcy of the government of the New Testament, is such as
that that cannot be Christ's intent.
For, 1, if we take the Jewish pattern in matter of government, we shall
be worse put to it, to judge what is ceremonial and what is perpetual, or
what was a judicial appendix to the ceremonial, and added upon a supposi-
tion of it, more than we are put to it to judge what was ordinary, and what
was extraordinary in the apostles' practices. If that our Saviour Christ
alluded to it in the gross and in the lump, who shall be able to distinguish ?
2. If that policy should thereby be established, it would as well serve for
the erecting of episcopal government over ministers ; for although it is said
that Aaron's high priesthood was Christ's type, and not the type of bishops,
yet that the priests and the Levites (several companies of them) should have
one that was the chief overseer over all,* who is by the Septuagint called
'Em's-x.o'Troi, bishop and overseer, was no way typical. There were four sorts
of Levites: priests, Kohathites, Gershonites, Merarites, Num. iii. 30, 35;
and over each of these were four eminent persons, whereof Eleazar was one.
Num. iii. 32. And when Eleazar was made high priest, then Phinehas
was governor of the Levites, and had oversight of them, ruling of them, as
1 Chron ix. 20, and Num. iv. 33. Ithamar was over the sons of Gershon
and Merari. And in Neh. xi. 14, 22, they are called overseers, or, as the
Septuagint translates it, 'E'Trlnxo-mi, bishops; the same word is used of the
apostles, Acts i. 20, and their office, unto which (say the episcopal party)
bishops do succeed as rulers over other ministers (though perhaps called
bishops also), as the apostles were over the seventy, and all other ministers.
And for this, will the Jewish pattern and policy (if that were alluded to)
serve as well as for the presbyterian government. And in 2 Chron. xxxv. 8,
we read of the three rulers of the house of Grod, whereof but one was the
high priest. Now, although that the high priest, for his going into the holy
of holies, was a type of Christ, yet not all those other that were the rulers
of the priests and of the house of God.
And if it be replied, as it is by some, that this was but the law of nature,
the heads of these famihes being rulers over the rest, it is answered,
1. So was not Korah, Num. xvi. 1.
2. The law of nature makes as well for one man to govern over many, and
so for a monarchical government, as for an aristocratical ; and so episcopal
government might be argued to be suited to the law of nature as well as to
the Jewish.
3. It belonged not to the ceremonial law, but it served only for order ;
and although the eldest of the family were those governors that were set over
the rest of a company of priests of the same family, and so that the eldest
had it by birth, and by the law of nature, yet that one should be set over
the rest was merely a matter of order, and therefore will plead for itself as
strongly (if we take the Jewish pattern) as for any other way of government.
It may be objected, that upon this ground, that one man makes not the
church, episcopal power is cut off, and that therefore the allusion of our Lord
Christ in Mat. xviii. is to those courts that were erected among the Jews.
Ans. 1. In the first place, either there were two sorts of courts, one civil,
and the other purely ecclesiastical, two kind of Sanhedrims, both in each
* These were called the chief priests, Mat. ii. 4 and xxvii. 1, Acts xix. 4.
Chap. III.] the churches of christ.
201
citj-, and in Jerusalem, which can never be proved ; and if two, which of
these two Christ should allude to will still be the question. Or if there were
but one kind of court, that was both for civil and ecclesiastical government, then
the Jewish pattern will not serve the turn, for then, by that reason, persons
ecclesiastical now should deal in civil causes (for so they did then), and per-
sons civil should deal in ecclesiastical. Yea, and those that hold there were
two courts, the one for causes civil, the other for ecclesiastical, yet they say
the persons in both were mixed. And because that both were thus mixed,
therefore in Deut. xvii. 9, speaking of the Sanhedrim, he saith, ' When thou
shalt come to the priest, or the judges, which shall be in those days,' &c. ;
for sometime a priest was the president of that council, and sometimes a
civil person, that was not of the priest's office, whom therefore he calleth a
judge. It was by institution that there should be some priests, Ezek.
xliv, 24, Deut. xxiv. 8, 2 Chron. xviii. 18, Deut. xvi. 18 ; and also that
others than priests and Levites were of the Sanhedrim, and also judges of
particular cities, as all sides acknowledge. For from hence all presbyterian
divines argue the pattern of lay elders, which yet, if there be not an institu-
tion for it in the New Testament, would never be able to be argued from
hence ; and therefore many of our brethren that acknowledge persons civil,
that were not priests and Levites, to have been mingled in those courts, yet
deny the consequence of that argument unto ruling elders now, which, if the
Jewish pattern had held, it would have argued it. And it appears further,
that therefore the elders and the priests are mentioned. Pharisees that were
not of the tribe of Levi threw ofl'* their rulers, and the priest or the judge,
Deut. xvii. ; and the judges, elders, and priests, are usually put together in
their cities and courts.
And the reason why both were mixed thus, to become but one court, was
because that then the church was mingled with the commonwealth, and both
were but one ; therefore the church of Israel is called the commonwealth of
Israel. And the laws of their commonwealth were given immediately by
Grod ; and therefore the Levites, as well as the civil authority, were the
interpreters of that law. If, therefore, this should now be the pattern, as
when, according to our brethren's assertion, the church grows up to a
nation, there should be a national church, because that was the pattern of
the Jews, so when the churches grew up to a nation, the ecclesiastical state
and the civil should become mingled, and ministers should judge in civil
causes, and those that are not ministers should judge in ecclesiastical, for
so in that Sanhedrim they did.
If it be said that all the acts were not chm-ch acts, as sending ambassa-
dors, making wars, and the like, the answer is, that all such acts as were
towards other nations might not so properly be called church acts, but the
question is, what was among themselves ? And yet even their wars were
holy, and their God was called the Lord of hosts ; and the priests wait f
with trumpets, to encourage the people to fight, as if it had been an ecclesi-
astical business.
Aus. 2. Again, secondly, if that be the pattern that Christ alludeth to,
then if that state had, whilst it stood in the apostles' times, turned Chris-
tian, it might have been conformed to the Jewish pattern of government as
it then stood ; and so the persons of the Sanhedrim, that were judges of the
Jewish church, should have continued judges of the Christian church.
Ans. 3. If that the Jewish government had been the pattern, then there
should be but two courts, subordinate one to another ; for so there was no
more among the Jews in a way of subordination. There was the court in
* Qu. ' thougli of ' ?— Ed. t Qu. ' went ' ?— Ed.
202 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK TV.
each city and town, consisting some of more, some of less, according to their
proportion and bigness, that did judge of all causes within themselves ; and
then there was the gi-eat Sanhedrim, and appeals were made immediately
from each of the inferior courts unto this superior. And whereas it is said
by some that there were three courts at Jerusalem for appeals, we find not
by the Scriptures that there were three such courts, although some of the
rabbins say there were. And when the text saith, in Deut. xvii., that who-
soever would not obey the sentence of the judge that should be in that place
should be put to death ; then when they brought it to the first court, the
judges of the twenty-three at Jerusalem, according to that notion, they
should have been put to death, and never have come to the great Sanhe-
drim. And if there were two such courts of the twenty-three, besides the
Sanhedrim, yet they were not for appeals : but they were either the one of
that city of Jerusalem, which as a city had the privilege to have a judicature
within itself, besides the Sanhedrim for the whole nation ; and the other of
the priests for the matters of the temple (for the temple was an enclosure) ;
or else the one was for Jerusalem, and the other for the city of David (each
having the privilege of a city, although in two places, as Westminster and
London have) ; the one was at the door of the mountain of the Lord, the
other at the door of the temple. If, then, the form of the Jewish govern-
ment be the pattern, then all those subordinate congregational, classical,
provincial, and national assembles, they shall be cut oS; for the Jewish
pattern will not suit these.
4. If that were the pattern, then the national assembly should be the
supreme judge, and there should be none above that ; but over national
assemblies, presbyterian divines do place an universal general council, and
make that to be the supreme ; whereas the national Sanhedrim of the Jews,
qua national, was the highest court.
6. If that be the pattern, the matters brought to that Sanhedrim, so far
as we have a rule in the word for it, were only matters that were too diffi-
cult ; and when they were too difficult for those particular courts in the
cities or towns, they were brought to the general assembly : Deut. xvii.,
' If a matter be too hard for thee,' &c. ; even as the hard matters, which
none could determine but God, were brought to Moses, Exod. xviii. 21.
6. When the inferior court itself did find it to be too hard for them, it
was not by way of appeal that they brought it to the superior ; so in Deut.
xvii., ' If it be too hard for thee.' So, as it was not in the libert}^ of any
person to appeal, but the court, finding themselves not able to decide the
controversy, they were to carry it to the Sanhedrim (therefore the rabbins
say that that place, Deut. xvii., belongs only to a rebellious elder) ; and, if
so, then this place will not serve to have ecclesiastical courts for appeals.
7. The Sanhedrim did only judge of the matter of the law and right in a
doctrinal way in such and such a case ; but it was still left, after their sen-
tence, unto the inferior court to judge of the matter of fact, and to apply the
sentence ; so as by this rule the greater assemblies of synods and councils
should not at all excommunicate, but only doctrinally deliver the sentence,
still leaving to the particular churches the application of that rule, by the
sentence of excommunication, in whose power alone it is. Therefore, speak-
ing to the judges of the inferior courts, he says, ' Thou shalt do according
to the sentence of the law, which they shall teach thee, and according to the
judgments which they shall tell thee,' Deut. xvii. 10, 11.
8. The Sanhedrim executed civil punishments, as putting to death, &c.,
if their sentence was not obeyed ; so that they excommunicated not, but
punishment was civil, which their court inflicted.
Chap. III.J the churches of christ. 203
9. If appeals were macle, and things were carried to the higher courts
from the lower, there was an high punishment for the neglecting of the sen-
tence (supposing there were an appeal), merely because the sentence of that
court was contemned. The man was to be put to death, although the matter
wherein he disobeyed did deserve a lesser punishment. But in the ecclesi-
astical government that Christ hath set up, there is no higher punishment than
excommunication and delivering to Satan ; therefore this pattern will not serve.
10. In that Sanhedrim persons were still the same men, continually resi-
dent. They were officers on purpose that were set and constant for that
church (even as bishops are amongst us), and they resided at Jerusalem.
And so the foundation of the calling of the one to that national assembly,
and the calling of ministers to our national assemblies (which they would
pattern by this), do wholly diHer ; for ours are called by a new choice for
that special assembly, as occasion is, and by a choice too, residing in their
particular congi-egations and charges.
Obj. It is said, 2 Chron. xix. 8, * They returned to Jerusalem.' It seems,
therefore, they rode circuit.
Am. That was occasional, when first religion was to be reformed, and the
people instructed, after a neglect of all order and government amongst them.
Otherwise they were constant at Jerusalem, and had therefore a peculiar
title, being called * elders of the people ;' whereas others were called ' elders
of the cities.' And so the pattern of bishops, who were constant ofhcers for
a national church, and attended wholly upon the public (as the same persons
did always here in the high commission), will much better suit the Jewish
pattern.
11. They had always a chief, whom they called the nasi, or the prince,
in imitation of the first court, wherein Moses was chief, and the number
with him, seventy-one; and so it is too, Ezek. viii. 11, seventy elders in
the midst of them, Jaazaniah as the prince ; and if the Jewish pattern should
hold, there should be such now. Therefore, in Deut. xvii., the court, being
denominated from some one, is called the priest or the judge ; and it would,
according to that, much better suit Kome than Zion, the popish government
than that of the reformed churches ; it being a nearer pattern to have one
nasi, one prince, one high priest, with a constant number of cardinals, in a
place which they pretend the promise is made to. And accordingly Bellar-
mine urgeth it for the state of antichrist, and with more reason and strength,
and more likehhood, than for the presbyterian pattern ; for the high priests
were ordinarily over that Sanhedrim ; so the Asmones in the time of the
Maccabees, Mat. xxvi. 5-7, and Acts xxiii, 5, compared with Exod. xxii. 28.
12. There was a pecuHar place which God did then sanctify at Jerusalem,
in which the great Sanhedrim was always to sit. Therefore it is still said,
in Deut. xvii., Thou shalt go to the place that God shall choose, as well as
that they should go to the judge or to the priest, because it was God's
promise to be in that place, and with the court sitting there ; and therefore
also it is said, ' If they should not do according to the sentence of the priest
that standeth before the Lord.' And if they shew us any one place that
God hath so peculiarly sanctified, and set up such a court, as the papists
would pretend to do, then it would be a pattern, or else not. But God hath
not sanctified any place now, therefore the pattern will not hold. It may
much better, in a type, be transferred to the general assembly in heaven,
even to which we under the gospel are come, or to the general judgment of
the great day, when all causes shall be judged over again.
13. Neither were all causes ecclesiastical brought to this Sanhedrim ;
therefore it is said, ' Thou shalt bring all causes within thy gates,' not all
204 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK IV.
causes in God's house. Therefore the high priest is said to be over the
house of God, and the charge of that house belonged unto the priests ; and
there were three rulers over the house of God. Therefore to the Sanhedrim
belonged judicials, and such ceremonials as did not appertain to the temple,
as the cutting oli' of a man that had leaven in his house, Exod. xii. ]3ut
yet the ceremonial belonged to the temple, and the priests themselves were
judges thereof. And the order of priests and Levites had a peculiar power
to judge of leprosy, and of persons that were unclean, and to keep them out
of the temple, Levit. x. 10, 11 ; Ezek. xliv. 23; Hag. ii. 11-13. There-
fore the priests of the temple put out Uzziah when he was struck with the
leprosy. So Christ answerably speaks : Mat. viii. 4, ' Go shew thyself to
the priest,' saith Christ to the man that he cured of the leprosy, that he
might judge of it whether he were whole or no. Neither were there any
persons that we read of, but those that were priests, that were to do this.
Yea, the leprosy was so infectious, that there was no warrant or promise
that any that conversed with or came to a leper should be kept from it, but
only the priest ; and in Num. iii. 7, they were to keep the whole charge
about the tabernacle of the congregation ; and in Ezek. xliv. 27, they were
to look to the Sabbath. Now it is evident that others besides the i^riests
made up that great court at Jerusalem.
14. If that this were the pattern, then the church in each village or city
now should have an immediate and entire government within themselves ;
and so it would suit the congregational government. For each town in Judea
had elders in their gates : in the smaller, there were three to judge their
causes ; in the greater cities, there were twenty-three.
15. The number of the persons were all set, they were seventy; so that in
the conclusion we may say, as Paul of those of the circumcision, and observ-
ing the law, that they themselves keep not the law, so nor those that are for
the analogy of the Jewish pattern here ; being these so great, so essential, and
many diiierences between the Jewish and presbyterial government as to a
national assembly.
And if it be said by them, We urge not the identity, that it should be the
same ; we reply, 1, Why not the identity in things that were not ceremonial
(for such they pretend to make a pattern), but matters of mere order and
policy, suited to them as to a national church, and that by God's institu-
tion ? If they make the institution of God the pattern in one thing, why
not in another ? 2. If it be only a mere analogy, they themselves must
shew some other warrant, first, for the like things instituted anew by Christ
under the New Testament, which, being so instituted, doth bear analogy with
what was under the Old. For otherwise it is left unto the pleasure of man
to take and refuse what he pleaseth, and set it up as analogous to the old ;
and so others may set up other things, and indeed pick another form of
government out of other things that were analogous to the government of
that pattern. As when they argue out of Mat. xviii. that Christ alludeth to
the courts that were then in Jewry, where he saith, ' Go tell the church,'
and urge the analogy to hold in this, that as their courts, which were called
ecdesiiB, were a college of elders and judges, and that, therefore, the church
that Christ means under the New Testament must be a consistory of elders
and national assembHes, as the lesser and greater Sanhedrim was distinct
and apart from the people, we have just reason to reply. Why should the
analogy hold in this only, unless the New Testamant hold forth that the as-
sembly of a company of elders, apart from the people, are called a church ?
If that were first found, then, indeed, this analogy might be applied there-
unto ; but to pick and choose out one piece of the model, and leave out the
Chap. III.] the churches of cheist. 205
rest, and to say that Christ intends this rather than the rest, without a special
warrant of his so to do, is but human and arbitrary, under the colour of
divine institution.
To us this is an infalhble rule, that where God hath applied a type or any-
thing out of the Old Testament to an institution under the New, we
should so far be led by it as he hath in this or that particular applied it, for
otherwise the analogy of those chief priests which are called s-TrlaxoTo:, over-
seers, as the Septuagint rendereth it, Ps. cix. 8, Acts i. 20, Zech. xi. 14, 22,
would hold for the order of bishops by way of analogy, as strong as any
argument can be framed from the analogy of their courts to the hke ecclesi-
astical now.
It is urged by some, that that which belonged to that church, as a church,
is moral in all ages, as that which belongs to a child, as he is animal rationale,
belongs to a man, though what agreeth to him as a child agrees not to all
men, but what agrees to a child, as it is animal rationale, is common to all
men. Now this church, say they, did not belong to the church as Jewish, and
as in its infant condition in a typical respect, but as a pohtic national church.
We answer, 1, that their being a national church was in a typical respect,
and therefore all their laws, ceremonial, judicial, moral, the laws that were
given the state, were given by God. Jus civile Judaicum pars theoloqia: fuit,
the Jews' civil law was part of their divinity ; and therefore the common-
wealth of Israel is called the church ; and in 2 Peter i., Peter, speaking to
the saints, saith, applying the type, you are ' a holy nation, a royal people.'
He speaks not to them as they were a nation under a government, one na-
tional church, although he writes to the Jews that were dispersed over many
provinces, 1 Peter i. 1. Totus status illius 2^opHU fuit Jiguralis (Aquinas,
prima secundfe, qujest. 104, art. 2).
Yea, 2, that great Sanhedrim at Jerusalem seems to have a typical respect
upon it, it being restrained to the place that God should choose, and was a
type of the general assembly in heaven, or at the day of judgment, for to that
assembly doth Christ seem to allude when he saith they shall sit upon twelve
thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel ; and the great Sanhedrim at
Jerusalem was only that court that did judge the twelve tribes, and no other
court besides.
3. There was that peculiar ground of the Jews being a national church,
which was the main ground why God made them a national church, as is
compatible to no nation under heaven ; they were a national church, not
only as men living under the same government, and under the same prince,
and in the same land, or of the same language, but chiefly and principally
as they were the children of Abraham, to whom the promises were made as
to one common father, whose seed did grow up into a nation, whom God
did sever from all other nations as such, and made a nation of them dwell-
ing alone, so as they were not to marry out of their own nation. And herein
Abraham was Christ's type, Jesus Christ being now the Father of all the
faithful in all nations, who are become one royal nation unto him, but a
royal nation spiritually, and a royal kindred, although out of several nations,
but not as formed into a national government. And when they did grow up
into a nation, then God gave them laws for the government of them as a
nation, God did institute them to a national church and kingdom, and made a
new covenant with them, and gave them laws. And if now, under the gospel,
we should come to a national church and have a like government, it may
have an institution under the New Testament as that had then.
And there is hkewise this difference between our churches under the
gospel and that of the Jews, that the prima notio, the first notion of a church
206 THE GO^'ERXME^•T OF [BooK IV.
fell upon them as they were a nation, but now doth not fall upon the saints
as they are a nation in that sense that they were ; but it falls either upon
the church universal, which is the church mystical, or upon congi-egational,
but upon none, qua nation, as it did upon them ; and therefore, their being
a national church was a type of the universal, and not of this or that par-
ticular nation now, qua nation ; but we can shew too, that, qua nation,
they were the type of particular churches and congregations.
5. There is a great fallacy in this argument. It is true, that that which
agreeth to a chm-ch, qua talis, as such, is in ever}^ church that is such ; and
so what was in that chiu-ch as national, purely so considered, may be and
ought to be in any other church that is national in a political respect, as
whatsoever belongeth to a man qua rationalis, belongeth to every man.
When, therefore, it is said this government did belong to it qua church, so
we deny it, for it belonged only to it qua national church in the general,
and hath many specifical differences annexed. There is a church national,
such indeed was the Jews ; and there is a church congregational, and such
are those under the New Testament ; there is a church universal, which is
the church mystical. But what belongs to the church of the Jews as na-
tional and cast into a kingdom, will not belong to the church universal, nor
will it belong to the church congregational, for it belongs to it only as national ;
and so we might as well argue, that what belongs to one species under a ()enus,
belongs to the other species ; or that what belongs to a man qua animal
rationale, should belong to a beast because he also is animal. So that this
remaineth fii'st to be proved, that Jesus Christ hath made national churches
under the New Testament to be politic bodies, and then the argument might
have some show in it, that what belongs to a church as a national church,
should belong to a national church under the New Testament for matter of
government. But otherwise, it may as well be argued, that what form of
government agrees to a kingdom as a body politic, must be found in every
corporation, and that the same government must be in the one that is in the
other ; whereas a body politic is the genus, as also church is, and national,
presJjyterial, &c., are but specifical differences annexed, and also that what
belongs to the commonwealth of Venice as an aristocratical commonwealth
must belong to all commonwealths ; whereas there are commonwealths that
are monarchical, which we call kingdoms, others that are democratical, and
what belongs to the one, with these differences, belongs not to the other.
What belongs simply to a monarchy as a monarchical commonwealth, must
not be said to belong to a democratical commonwealth. In a monarchy there
are differing degrees of marquesses, and earls, and lords; it will not therefore
follow, that in a democracy, or in a commonwealth whose government is
by several Hanse towns, there should be the same too.
6. And if Christ had appointed national chm-ches under the New Testa-
ment in a political respect, it was not necessary that the analogy of the Jewish
government should be observed ; no more than that, in every kingdom and
commonwealth, the analogy of the Jews' political government should also be
observed. And the analogy, too, might be kept and observed in its pro-
portion in every congregational church, as the analogy of the three estates
in the superior court in parliament is shadowed out in many corporations,
where there is the mayor, aldermen, and common council ; but it is not
necessary that there should be the same subordination of courts, all keeping
the same analogy as was amongst the Jews ; for churches depending im-
mediately upon the magistrates in every kingdom might be well governed, as
we see the church in Geneva is, and the Helvetians are. But we answer,
7. Whereas the argument runs that that government was not ceremonial,
Chap. III.] the churches ot christ. 207
suppose that their having such a form of government with courts of appeals,
having judicature in them, were not typical and ceremonial, yet it will not
follow that the like must be in the churches in nations under the gospel ;
therefore Gersom Bucerus^' distinguisheth that some things were merely
ceremonial, and they were cut off; other things were perpetually moral,
and other things, though they were not ceremonial, yet they did peculiarly
serve to the conservation of that policy, and were annexed for order's sake
to the preservation of what was ceremonial. Now, that national sanhedrim
was of that latter sort ; for suppose it were not ceremonial altogether, yet that
church being constituted a national church as a politic body ecclesiastical,
it must have a national sanhedrim that was suitable and answerable ; for, if
we suppose a national church, it must have a national government propor-
tionable to it, and officers accordingly ; and so that there should be those
heads of the priests, and that imparity accordingly amongst the priests, was
a thing proper to the policy of the Levites, and yet not typical ; for multi-
tudes of them meeting in their ranks and courses for tbe service of the
temple, it was necessary that there should be one that should order those
multitudes of them that in their courses came up.
It must be acknowledged, that whatever constitution of churches as politic
bodies Jesus Christ hath made, he hath took a suitable order for the preser-
vation of order among them; so, having made congregational churches those
politic bodies, he hath taken order for the government of them as such.
And if he had made churches national, as politic bodies, he would have took
suitable order for them also, as he did among the Jews, and he would have
done it afore such time as churches were multiplied, so as to come up to a
nation, for so he did with the church of the Jews afore they came into the
land of Canaan ; but so he hath not done in the New Testament, nor did
the apostles live to see it settled ; and it were strange that that form should
be erected by Christ that the apostles lived not to see.
So that the conclusion of all it must be this, that Jesus Christ did still
suit the government of his church to the condition of the matter. Thus the
church, when in families, had a family government, and when a nation was
singled out and chosen, it had a national government ; but the saints being
to be dispersed over all nations (as the Jews themselves were when they
had their synagogues dispersed), he hath established a government answer-
able.
A church is said to be national, either, 1, in respect of the members, that
all that are of the nation are members of the church, which was the consti-
tution of the Jewish church ; or, 2, in respect of government, that, because
they are a nation, they are cast therefore into a national government. Now,
indeed, the national government of the JevTs did follow upon their national
constitution of members, and answerably under the gospel, even in nations,
the government of Christ's church doth follow the condition of the members.
Now, the condition of those that are saints (which are only fit to be mem-
bers of churches) is to be scattered up and down, and to be few, for they are
redeemed out of nations. There are few cities in England will afford more
saints than will make one church, but London. So as the reason why that
under the gospel, there is not this national government for churches, is
because a nation comes not up to Christ's terms; and if it should, there are
other respects that make the alteration ; for it was fit that the body of the
saints, the people, should have interest of presence and of a virtual concur-
rence, and of edification, yea, of suffrage in the government. It was for the
honour of the saints that are come out of their nonage that it should be so,
* Ue Guber. Eccl. p. 51.
208 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK IV.
and that worship and government, and communion in both, should be com-
mensurable, God loving more the spiritual communion that saints have in
public worship under the gospel than the national sacrifices under the old
law, and did therefore cast the government under the gospel thus to attain
this end, without which it could not be attained, and also because that
churches, as churches, would be more sweetly ordered by the law of com-
munion of churches without jurisdiction, than by a jurisdiction placed in
combination of many churches over each, seeing that government could not
be transacted in the presence of the saints, but by delegated messengers and
representative elders.
CHAPTEK IV.
Whether a fixed and constant assembbj of presbyters or elders have a right of
authority over imrticular congregations. — The question stated.
Though those who have stood up and written for the presbyterial govern-
ment (as it is practised in the reformed churches), do assert it to be the
only ordinary standing and perpetual government which ought to be em-
braced in all churches and Christian states, yet the wisdom of the assembly
of divines at Westminster thought meet to propound it to this debate, that
the Scripture holds forth it may be.
And whereas, when the asserting the jus divinum of it is waived, that yet it
is a government the nearest, and in a conspicuous eminency most conformed
to the Scripture rules and examples in the New Testament, is a position in
succession the next, though a far lower step than the former. And less could
not have been expected to have been held forth, when all other governments
are laid aside, to give room for its entertainment. Yet this first and leading
proposition to all the other that follow about it, viz., that the Scripture inti-
mates that such a government may be, falls as low in its undertaking as any
government that can be supposed to pretend the least for itself. And in the
like manner the rest of the propositions that follow run but in the same
style, that it is lawful and agreeable to the word that things should be ordered
thus or thus.
Though the reverend assembly would not venture so far, yet the next
fairest way left for deciding this controversy had been to have patterned the
practices and directions which the several ways of church government pre-
tend to for their warrant, and to have compared these each with the other,
and by an harmonious draught and platform of either, when set together, it
would easily have been discerned, not only which of them may he, but which
of them rather should he ; and that of the two which appeared to hold the
greatest likeness to the primitive picture, drawn in the stories of the New
Testament, and in the rules and commands in the epistles similar thereunto,
let that have been esteemed the true child there. But the proposition is so
cast that we must directly oppose it with such grounds as may shew that
this presbyterian may not be, without troubling ourselves to consider which
of the forms of government this should be.
The proposition as thus stated for the dispute upon a mere it may he, as
it allows the greatest latitude and compass to the aflirmers of it for their
way of defending it, and paves the way for passableness with all men, of all
sides whatever, whose judgments are not bound up with the opinion of a
jus divinum in church government, so it did put the greatest difficulty upon
those that were negative in judgment to disprove it. The difficulty lay in
Chap. IV.] thk chukches of chbist. 209
this, that the most direct and punctual way to overthrow the proposition is
first to prove and make good this other more general assertion, so much con-
troverted, that there is a certain standing ordinary form of church govern-
ment held forth in the directions given to the apostles, or the examples of
those churches we read of in the Scripture erected by their guidance, and
that also seconded by this negative, that there ought to be no other than
what is by institution. Which two general principles, if supposed or gained,
then indeed this alone had been argument sufficient to disprove the presby-
terial government, that if it be not held forth in the Scriptures as the ordi-
nary standing government for the churches, that then it may not be. These
aforesaid general propositions having been determined, there needed no more
words to have been on the opponent's part, but to examine the assembly's
proofs, whether therein there appeared this standing government instituted.
But the discussion of the general propositions was denied by the assembly
(in the very first entrance into the dispute of discipline) to be so much as
debated, and therefore could not be assumed here nor anywhere else into
any debate, but against the former order of the assembly ; so that they stood
upon this advantage, to maintain their assertion upon Erastian principles,
and yet left us to disprove it upon the contrary principles, which yet are
common to them and us, and which (as one said when it was laid aside)
would require a quarter of a year's debate, and also would have been left
wholly upon us to make good, although it be laid as the foundation by the
church of Scotland and other reformed churches of the presbyterial govern-
ment, and made use of against the episcopal to prove that the government
of the church by bishops may not be.
And whereas it may be said that yet this was left us, that by proving the
congregational way to be by institution, we might by that, as another medium,
have shewed that the presbyterial government may not be, we were in this
disadvantaged also (if we would have introduced the debate thereof as against
the proposition), that though we had never so sufficiently proved all (that is,
a complete government) to be in a congregation by Christ's institution ; and
yet for this demonstration of that (as our brethren full well know), it had
been necessary to debate and discuss at large, first, that fore-mentioned prin-
ciple, by what ways the institutions of Christ in the New Testament are held
forth, whether in ordinary examples and practices of the primitive churches,
yet that had been (as to our brethren) an insufficient argument to disprove
this proposition, that therefore a presbyterial government over many con-
gregations may not be. And the consequence would have been denied by
many of our brethren that hold all power of government to be in a congrega-
tion, but not solely or only ; and so a classical government over many con-
gregations may yet be. And, therefore, to have overthrown their assertion,
there were two propositions yet more necessary to have been proved by us,
or the proof had not been sufficient as to them : first, that an ecclesiastical
government may not be set up (unless warranted by institution) over many
congregations that have it by institution within themselves ; or, secondly,
that the Scriptures do not hold forth by institution an ecclesiastical govern-
ment in classes, &c., over many congregations. One of these, or both, must
have been proved by us. If the first, we should fall again into a new general
head about institutions, namely, that what in church government is not by
institution, may not be. The latter, we also saw, the assembly did decline,
and stated their assertion upon an it may he ; and then, again, this latter
also being a negative, the demonstration lies not in positive arguments to
the contrary, but in a defensive denial, with answers to the arguments which
VOL. XI.
210 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK IV.
might be brought to prove the affirmative. And our brethren not under-
taking to prove an institution of the presbyterial government, all our answers
to their arguments had answerably still fallen short of disproving the insti-
tution of that government ; so that our attempt this way to oppose their
proposition would have been unavailable and in vain.
But this was not all the obstruction that lay in our way to the confuting
this proposition, in respect of this their stating it upon an it man ^^ •' ^^^
the difficulty was increased further also, and yet no less from the vast in-
definitcness and indeterminate ambiguity and uncertainty of that other term,
presbyterial government over many conyreyations, which, importing an associa-
tion of the elders of many congregations for government, doth admit many
variations, and includes in it several patterns of government, and also diifer-
ing constitutions of those congregations. For (to give an instance) there
might be conceived a twofold presbytery or association of elders over many
congregations. There might be one for the ordinary and standing govern-
ment thereof, so as the greatest matters appertaining to any of those congre-
gations should be in a constant way brought before their consistory as
belonging to their jurisdiction ; so as the congregations and their several
elderships should not proceed but as first warranted by the sentence of the
higher presbytery. And there might be another presbytery or meeting of
elders (and the assembly had not declared any difference between synodical
and presbyterial assemblies set for a standing government), but only in case
that schisms and contentions fall out in the several congregations, either
about matters of doctrine or government, or for difficult cases, which the
several elderships of the congregations do find too hard for them, and so
seek their help and direction ; or otherwise, when the eldership of a parti-
cular congregation hath scandalously managed their government, or wrong-
fully excommunicated, &c., then the neighbouring elderships offended, or
appealed unto by the persons offended, are to judge and determine of it.
This is the first and most general division of the presbyterial government,
into which, as it is propounded in the may be, it can be cast. If it be
limited to an ordinary and standing government, yet still as great an ambi-
guity as the former remains touching the sevei'al ways, sorts, or kinds into
which this presbyterial government, and the constitution of these congi'ega-
tions, may be and are cast in the reformed churches, arising from a diflering
relation that the elders (that thus are to make a common standing presbytery)
do bear unto these congregations.
1. The one is common and promiscuous, unfixed for all sorts of duties,
of preaching, &c., as well as for ruling ; that as in common they make one
presbytery over them all for government, so likewise they all are alike elders
and pastors to each congregation, and do bestow like pains and care for all
pastoral duties of preaching, feeding, &c., in their courses and rounds, as is
practised in some cities in Holland.
2. A second variety is, that they are a presbytery unto all in common for
acts of discipline, yet they are pastors or elders fixed in their relations pro-
perly but to one congregation, to perform all such duties thereunto, and not
unto the rest.
In the first, the ministers of all these congregations do, in a circular way,
preach to them all in their course, as well as they do rule in common ; as
if three or four parishes be together, the ministers of each should in their
turns feed them all, and the people partake of the gifts and graces of all, as
well as the ministers rule all. Now, if these congregations, for the number
of the persons belonging to them, consist only of so many as can at times
meet altogether, with their common elderships, for matters of discipline,
Chap. IY.] the churches op christ. 211
choice of ministers, admonitions, and excommunications, and can be all
present upon such great and solemn acts of government, in which we con-
ceive all are interested, so to join in them, and to be edified by them,
although, in respect of convenience, they make several set and fixed con-
gregations for worship, either on the account of persecution, or of distance
iVom each other, or the like ; and if they are so few congregations, and so
near as that elders, that make up an eldership in common, can fulfil the
duties of the relation of pastors to them all in their round and course, so as
those congregations do partake of the gifts and graces of them all, as well
as are ruled by them all, this kind of presbytery of elders in common over
such a number as can and do for their great acts of government, meet in
one assembly upon such occasions, both people and elders altogether make
up one kind of government and constitution of congregations. But when
there are presbyteries, that either through their extent and compass of the
number and distance of the congregations under them, or otherwise by the
law of their combination, neither do nor can hold the relation, nor discharge
the duties of pastors in common unto them, but do only and merely rule
them (and so do, in respect to this, make a greater presbytery over their
many lesser congregations, and this for the ordinary government of them),
and when the members of these congregations cannot meet to be present at
the acts of discipline (wherein they have an interest of presence and edifica-
tion), this is a second sort of presbyterial government, and which is generally
practised in the reformed churches.
3. And again, yet further, this latter may also be (in rational supposition)
cast into two sorts of government.
The first sort of government is wherein the elders of these many congre-
gations have no share of government in public admonitions or censures, nor
bear no rule in those congregations they are respectively affixed to, but such
as under the bishops, the pastors of the congregations had, of preaching,
private watching, visiting the sick ; all suspensions from the sacrament,
public admonitions, censures, being immediately to be brought to the com-
mon presbytery of elders, set over them all for government.
2. Another form of government is, that many congregations (as in Scot-
land), having their proper and peculiar pastors and elders, hereby come to be
60 many formed and distinct churches, for the relation of a pastor and other
elders or rulers cannot but be unto a church properly so called, for church
and elders are relative, as rulers and a commonwealth ; and therefore they
are called ecdesm prima;, as those to whom the notion and true nature and
state of a chm-ch doth first belong. And further, these officers, and pastors,
and teachers, being first in these several churches, and there being in each
some competent number of elders or officers, as a pastor or teacher, with
other ruling elders (for otherwise the greater presbytery should not be made
up complete of some of all these sorts of officers out of each church, since the
first seat of all these officers is some particular church), these pastors and
ruling elders do make up a presbytery over each of these churches respect-
ively. And further, being thus particular churches, or having a presbytery
or eldership, they have some, yea, and a great part of government allotted
to them within their several churches, as suspension from the sacrament,
public admonitions, &c.
For to suppose them churches, and to have elderships over them, and to
have no privilege of governing, would be to make an empty title, without any
of those things the Scripture gives to the churches and their elderships.
There is only this difference, that when it comes to the great matters of ordina-
tion or excommunication, these are taken up to the great presbyteiy ; and
212 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK IV.
thus within the territory of this presbyterial government intended in the pro-
position, two sorts of elderships are to be understood as included, lesser,
and greater ones over them, and two sorts of churches (though called only
congregations), churches lesser and incomplete, joined to make one church,
as the subject of the common presbj'terial government.
In these unlimited and incomprehensive senses was this proposition (the
first-bom of all that follow about this government) propounded to the debate,
although we urged upon the assembly that they would specify and determine
which of these governments they intended and would maintain ; but it would
not be granted, nor anything added for the limitation thereof, as must be, nor
ralher he, instead of it may he, not over many churches instead of many congre-
gations ; the advantage of which on their part was a liberty to defend it in
any of these senses, and each upon the lowest terms, it may he ; for the pro-
position might vary and alter with any of these shapes for its defence ; as if
a standing government immediately over many congregations could not be
defended, then extraordinary and mediate of elders associated in synods
might. If the common standing government of fixed elders to their several
congregations would not abide the touch, then still the proposition (they
might say) is not confuted, for presbytery of promiscuous unfixed elders might
notwithstanding be true, and so the truth of the proposition would stand.
Being reduced to this narrowness in the entrance into the debate, both for
the state of the question, and for the medium of arguing, w^e (1) profess to
lay our arguments against that way of presbyterial government over many
congregations, as it is extant, or practised in the church of Scotland over
many congregations, having elders fixed to them ; and we did also desire that
no other answers might be given, but such as they would, in rearing up the
presbyterial government, reduce to practice ; and, 2, for the medium of
arguing, we had little else left us to have in a direct and open way recourse
unto, but those exhortations and charges given to elders in the epistles of
the apostles, as lying apparently cross to this way of presbyterial government,
as thwarting the rule of Christ and directions of the apostles.
The state of the question then is this :
1. By government is meant a standing, ordinary, and constant govern-
ment, exercised over many congregations, in all the matters of greatest moment
that concern any persons therein.
2. These congi'egations are such, and so continued, as to have severally or
apart each their proper elders afiixed to them, to preach to them and watch
over them, and to be interested in lesser cases of government, as admoni-
tion, &c.
3. But it is questioned whether for all cases of government that are the
greater, as excommunication, &c., that shall fall out in any of those congre-
gations, those elders in common, meeting in one great presbytery or elder-
ship, and made up of them all (even as for lesser matters, the elders of par-
ticular congregations meeting are lesser presbyteries to their several congre-
gations respectively) should not appropriate this greater government to
themselves, which we deny, and shall endeavour to refute in the following
chapter.
Chap. V.] the churches of christ. 213
CHAPTER V.
That if a presbytery of elders be elected, haviny power over many conyreyations,
besides their yeneral relation, they would also bear a particular relation to
each congreyation.
That no company of elders assembled together hath a power and rule over
many congi*egations, will appear if we do but consider what the New Testa-
ment declares concerning elders in their relations to their flocks committed
to them, and concerning the exhortations and charges to them, of duties
towards those flocks founded upon that relation, as also the duties of their
flocks to them ; all which is like to be the surest measure to find out the
extent of their power and bounds of their flocks, and whether that power for
the ordinary way be limited to one congregation or many. For those exhor-
tations and charges must needs be supposed suited to that boundary of
churches, and that constitution and extent of relation, that the elders of those
primitive times were placed in over them ; likeas in the question about
polygamy, what the Scripture hath said of the duties between man and wife,
which were given and suited to the extent of that relation, as God from the
beginning bounded it, manifestly evinceth that one man cannot have many
wives, but one.
We have hitherto taken this for an undoubted maxim, that as a mutual
relation is the ordinary foundation of all power, whether economical, civil,
or ecclesiastical, so the extent of all power is commensurable with the extent
of that relation. A master, as a master, hath power but over such servants of
whom he may say, I am your master, and they of him. We are your servants ;
for what hath any man to do to judge another man's servant ? as the apostle
saith. And the same is true correspondently here. Those elders that
assume to be over either one or many congregations, must have, as the oflice
of elders, so the relation of elders unto that one, or those many, congrega-
tions, that they may be able to say. We are your elders, and you are our
church ; which two are in Scripture expression the relate and the correlate,
as king and kingdom, magistrates and commonwealth.
Now, against this standing government of these elders in greater presby-
teries (as the question hath been stated), we shall humbly make use of the
fore- mentioned maxim for a medium to overthrow this government, by pre-
senting together therewith the incongruities and inconsistencies of it, and also
by arguing what the New Testament speaks of the elders and their duties in
relation to the flocks committed to them, which all do argue that according
to the Scriptures such a government may not be. And we frame our argument
thus.
If many congi-egations, having all elders already fixed respectively unto them,
may be under such a standing presbyterial government, then all those elders
must also (according to the Scriptures) sustain a special relation of ordinary
and standing elders to all the people of those congregations, as one church
their flock, and to every one as a member thereof.
But for a company of such elders already afiixed, &c., to sustain such a
relation, carries with it so great and manifold incongruities and inconsistencies
with what the Scripture speaks of elders in their relation to a flock or church
committed to them, and likewise with the principles of the reformed churches
themselves, as cannot be admitted, and therefore such a government may
not be.
That according to the Scriptures such a standing presbyterial government
214 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK IV.
necessarily draws such a standing special relation, we endeavour to evince by
parts, thus.
1. They must have the relation of elders, for church and elders are
relatives. And the argument for the presbyterial government is taken by the
presbyterial divines from this, that many congregations in Scripture are made
one church, and the elders thereof elders of that church. This we had the
greatest reason to take for granted from the former writings and expressions
of the presbyterial divines ; yea, the main arguments by which themselves have
proved this government, have been taken from this, that many congregations
in the New Testament do make one church, and the elders thereof elders of
that one church, and therefore are to govern that church. And this we
have the greatest reason to take for granted still, for in the proof which was
presented to the honourable houses of parliament by the reverend assembly
(and before we entered into the debate was brought in by the committee in
the instance of the church of Jerusalem), this is one medium, that mention
is made of multitudes there as of one church, and of elders as the elders of
that church. Yea, and there being no mention made of any distinct parti-
cular congregations or churches therein, but of a church, and the elders
thereof, as thereby the prime notion of a church is held forth and attributed
thereto, so the prime and more principal relation of elders, as elders to this
one church, and every member of them, is imported, and so as true and as
genuine a relation (according to the Scripture's intent and expression) must
be supposed to be intended, as can be supposed between any particular con-
gregation and their elders. Yea, and moreover, to make out the presbyterial
government over those many congregations, as one church, whilst the apostles
were the rulers of it, the apostles themselves are made to act and become as
ordinary elders to that church. It was therefore desired that they who should
deny this proposition would raze out of their writings for ever all such expres-
sions ; and that in the proofs after to be brought to establish the presbytery,
they would forbear that medium, which yet, as a main stud in this building,
cannot be wanting.
2. This relation, which these elders have, must be a more special rela-
tion, as is evident from the practice and principles of this government. For
when the congregations in shires are divided into several presbyteries or
deaneries, the elders (though neighbours) of a bordering presbytery inter-
meddle not with the congregations under another presbytery, and yet they
are for their office elders. It is therefore a special relation puts the differ-
ence, that those of these presbyteries judge the congregations under them, as
having a special relation to them, such as not to other congregations. So the
elders of the church of Jerusalem, as they all had the relation of elders
to that church, so they had a special relation to that church ; and the church
was an entire distinct church within itself from the rest of the churches in
Judea, and the elders of that church were in such a special manner elders
thereof as of no church else in Judea; yea, in such a sense as they might be
said not to be elders of those other churches, but of this.
3. It is an ordinary standing relation ; for they exercise and assume a con-
stant and ordinary power, as the presbyters of lesser congregations do. Their
meetings as elders in a presbytery are constant and ordinary, as those of the
lesser presbyteries are; and as these are established for the smaller matters
of government, so these always are for the greater and most solemn, and they
are both alike ordinary; for their meeting, work, and exercise of power being
standing, their relation must be suitable and answerable to that of elders in
their congregations respectively.
Unto the argument several answers were given by the reverend respon-
Chap. V.] the churches of christ. 215
dents. 1. Some said that they meet not qua elders, only qui; they meet as
commissioners, but not as elders. But this answer is taken away by the first
and second argument, which proves they have the relation of elders in ruling.
2. It was denied by others, that if they make up a presbytery to these con-
gregations, and all the people of them, that then they must bear the relation
of elders to these congregations, and every member of them ; for though they
are elders taken singly and apart, as in relation to their several congregations
which they are affixed unto ; yet in this their conjunction into a common
presbytery over them all, they bear not the relation of elders, but of a pres-
bytery or eldership acting all in common. For as all these congregations,
under this government, are to be considered as one body, and as making up
one church, so all these elders, met in this community, are to be considered
as one body and comm.unity ; and therefore, although they be considered alto-
gether a presbytery to that whole church, yet it follows not that they bear
the relation of elders to each congregation or person they govern ; for accord-
to that logic rule, quod convenit totl qua toti, non convenit cuilibet parti, what
agrees to the whole, as a whole, doth not agree to every part. These elders,
as in a presbytery, make one totum a gg re;/ at urn; and these congregations, as
making up one church, make another totum ar/firei/atnm correlative thereunto ;
but take any elder out of this presbytery, and consider him in a single rela-
tion to any of those churches under the presbytery, and he is not an elder
of any of those churches, no more than if you take any member of all those
congregations that make up a classical church, it would follow that there-
fore he is a member of all those many congregations, whereas he is only a
member of that community as making one church. And it was exemplified
thus, that in Judah the heads of the tribes governed the tribes, but so as the
heads of the tribe of Benjamin were not the heads of the tribe of Manasseh;
and so in the university, the particular heads of Trinity College and of
Queen's College are altogether heads of the university as a common body,
but it follows not that the head of Trinity College is head of Queen's and
of all other colleges. And so in parliament, a burgess of Warwickshire acts
for all England, yet it follows not he is a burgess of Norfolk; so the case is
here, they are elders in semu compodto, as united into one presbytery or
community, but not in sensu diviso, to each of these congregations, but each
to their proper congregations to which they are afiixed ; as the colonels in an
army are colonels but to their several regiments, yet they all join in one body
as a council of war to the whole army. And so these are elders here in sensu
agfirefjato, collectively to all the congregations, though apart with a more
special relation to each. It was retorted also that in a particular congrega-
tion, according to our principles, the community of all the brethren have
power over any particular member, as Thomas and Peter, with the rest, over
John ; but it follows not that Peter hath power over John apart, but only as
in this community considered; and so in this presbytery, all these elders are
a presbytery to the whole, but yet bear not the relation of elders to each apart
considered. But we answer,
1. That we had the greatest reason to take it for granted (from the former
writings and expressions of the presbyterial divines, as also because the mam
arguments, by which themselves had proved this government, have been taken
from it), that many congregations in the New Testament do make up one church,
and that the elders thereof are elders of that one church, and therefore they
are to govern that church.
2. That logical axiom is indeed true, quod convenit toti, qua toti, non con-
venit cuilibet parti ; and so here, that which doth competere toti, to the whole
of those elders, belongs not to every part ; for take them all as met together,
216 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK IV.
they are a presbytery, and accordingly each elder is not a presbytery to all
these congregations. Nor doth the argument suppose it, but only that if
they all be a common presbytery to all these congregations, that then they
bear the relation of elders to them. Thus in a particular congregation,
though all the elders are acknowledged by all to be elders to every member
of the congregation, yet each cannot be said to be a presbytery to the whole
or each member; for that which belongs to the whole as the whole, belongs
not to every part. That indeed which belongs to an aggregate whole, or col-
lective community, formally considered as such, cannot be attributed to every
part; but what materially belongs to them, belongs to each apart. As take
an heap of stones, it is true each stone is not an heap of stones, but each
stone is a stone ; and both the stones apart and as an heap may be said to
be such or such a man's propriety, and to relate to him ; so this company of
elders must be supposed both a presbytery and also elders to this whole
people, and every member of them.
3. If they be a presbytery in common to those congregations, then accord-
ing to the Scripture notion and expression (and what the Scriptures hold
forth is the subject-matter of this debate), they bear the relation of elders
also ; and then they must be such elders as the exhortations and duties of
elders mentioned do concern. Now, this consequence we make good by
these arguments.
(1,) The Scriptures would have the people look at them, and honour them
as elders in all acts of ruling and governing, those especially wherein the
most and chief of government lies, and wherein the excellency of their ruling
is seen. Now the chief of the acts of government, and the most excellent
thereof, are assumed and exercised by these elders, met in a common pres-
bytery, as excommunication, &c. And therefore they that exercise such acts
of government over congregations, must bear the relation of elders to them ;
for upon that relation we are to honour them as performing this rule, and
under that relation they must be said to perform it : ' The elders that rule
well are worthy of double honour, especially those that labour in the word
and doctrine,' 1 Tim. v, 17. From whom are they to have this honour given
them, but from the people under them, and to be honoured in their relation ;
and this as well in ruling as in preaching, though an especially is put upon
that. And therefore, if in giving this honour to them that labour in preach-
ing to them, they are to look at them, under the relation of elders, and their
elders labouring in the word to them, then, in giving that honour to them
that rule them, they are so to look upon them, and therefore they must sus-
tain that relation in that ruling ; and besides, otherwise we destroy the relation
of elders as elders in the highest acts of governing, which are exercised in a
presbytery, whereas the apostle calls them elders in ruling as well as in
preaching.
(2.) The New Testament doth indifferently and promiscuously use the word
presbytery and the word elders of the same persons, in relation to the same
people ; and therefore to whom the elders are supposed to be a presbytery, to
them they must bear the relation of elders. That the phrase is promiscuously
used, is evident by Mat, xxi, 33, where those that are called ' elders of the
people' are called, Luke xxii, 66, rh '7r§cgj3vrB^/ov rou Xdov, ' the presbytery
of the people,' so that if they were related as a presbytery to the people, to
the same people they were related as elders. Neither are they said to be
elders in relation to their being a presbytery, but to the people ; therefore it
is not said the elders of the presbytery, but of the people, as bearing a direct
relation as elders to the people ; and so in analogy thereunto, if they be a
presbytery to many congregations, they must be supposed elders of those
Chap. V.] the chtjkches of christ. 217
congregations ; for to whomever they are a presbytery, to them they are
elders ; and to whomever they are elders, to them upon occasion they are a
presbytery. And in analogy, the New Testament useth the word ■presbytery
as under the gospel but once, and in all places else, the Holy Ghost still, when
he exhorts them to their duties, calls them elders, or them * that have the
rule over you;' and yet, in all those places, he intends to involve the duty
of elders as met in a presbytery, as well as those singly performed to each
person.
(3.) It is evident from the like parallel instance of the eldership of a parti-
cular congregation, where the elders bear the relation of elders to each member,
and when met in common, they are an eldership or presbytery in common to
that church, and each member of it. And then this their being a community
takes not away their relation of being elders, as, if the answer given by the
respondents should hold, it would; for they would only be a presbytery, and
not elders in that community, whenas they never are elders more than then,
and are not elders of that church, because met in a presbytery, but therefore
meet in a presbytery over that congregation, because they personally bear the
relation of elders to it ; and when they meet in that presbytery, they are
elders particularly to each member, as well as are universal elders in the
assembled presbytery. The Scripture commits the care of churches to these
aa in a presbytery, as well as out of it ; and therefore they are elders of their
particular flock in this presbytery, as well as when out of it. Thus (Acts
XX. 28) all the care of the flock was committed to them as elders, and having
relation to it as such ; and therefore when met in a presbytery (therein to
have care of the flock, or any member of it) they were elders to it. And they
are therefore to meet in a presbytery, because they were first elders to their
several respective congregations ; and that they must be acknowledged elders
of all the people in those congregations, the very instance itself alleged by our
brethren will evidently clear ; for the general elders of all the tribes werS'
called elders of the people, Mat. xxi. So as suppose the same individual
persons had been members of the general sanhedrim, or common eldership
of the people, and also elders of the tribes respectively, yet they might as
justly be caUed elders of all those tribes in their general relation, for such
ends and purposes, as truly as they were elders to their particular tribes, for
other ends and purposes. Now, therefore, by like reason must all the elders
in this common presbytery have the relation of elders to all the congregations,
as well as severally they have their proper relations to their several congre-
gations. For if, in the instance given of the Jewish government, we take all
causes common to all the tribes, as the elders of Manasseh were elders to the
tribe of Benjamin, so in like manner must these elders of a presbytery, in
common to all these congregations, be supposed to be to each congregation,
when any cause comes afore them in their cognisance.
(4.) Lastly, Those places and exhortations of Scripture concerning the
duties of elders, &c., to their flocks, and their flocks to them, may be alleged
to strengthen the argument : Heb. xiii. 7, ' Remember them that have the rule
over you, and have spoken the word of God to you.' And 1 Thess. v. 12,
' Know them which labour among you, and are over you, and admonish you.'
And to the same purpose is the charge. Acts xx., to the elders of Ephesus,
* Feed the tlock,' &c. These are all spoken of them, and to them, under the
very notion and relation of elders and rulers (which is equivalent), and as
their rulers and elders. And surely if any person in a congregation were
called afore one of those presbyteries over many congregations, they would
urge upon the conscience of the person these and the like places, to obey
them by virtue of these commands. If he should reply, that these places
218 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK IV.
speak of such as have the relation of elders to their flocks, and every person
therein ; and that by virtue of their being such to them this obedience is
urged upon them ; but you of the presbytery do not own the elders of your
presbytery to have a relation to the congregation I am of, and so I am quit
of obedience to you ; how could they, by virtue of these places, holding this
principle, that they have not the relation of elders to him, enforce obedience
from him ? And how will his conscience ever be brought to a submission to
their sentence against him, if not satisfied of this relation to him thus speci-
fied ? And yet would not these elders, by the presbyterial principles, expect
equal, if not more obedience from him, than the elders of that particular con-
gregation he is a member of would do ? I am sure that in practice they
assume more ; and I doubt not, but any one of these elders, or all of them
apart, would as authoritatively admonish him (as an elder to him) in private
after the cause is brought afore the presbytery, to obey and submit to them,
as any of his own elders would do before or after their public admonition,
and would require obedience to him as an elder, by virtue of these places of
Scripture ■ before mentioned. If therefore they would require it, then the
relation must be the same ; yea, do not often some few of the elders of a
common presbytery come into particular congregations, and perform acts of
government, and ordain elders to them ; and, in case of obstinacy, excom-
municate the elders of any particular congregation ? Upon what plea of
authority do they this ? as elders to that particular congregation or not ?
4. We come now to consider the other distinction : 1, Of their being
elders only in a community to all these congregations as one church, in sensu
(i'JiP'^Odto ; and, 2, of their being apart elders unto their particular congre-
gations respectively. And so the duties mentioned of feeding the flock, &c.,
concern them only as considered apart ; but acts of government belong to
them as elders in a presbytery. We reply, 1, that this answer supposeth
two distinct difi"ering relations, the one a more particular relation of elders,
as proper elders to their several congregations apart ; and another more com-
mon relation of the same persons considered as elders merely, as in a pres-
bytery. Now, for the confirmation or establishment of this distinction, by
the one side or the other, the foundation on which we proceed must be
remembered, viz., what the Scriptures hold forth; and therefore whatever
suppositions or instances may be found in other constitutions, to illustrate
such distinctions here, yet, if what the New Testament speaks of elders in
relation to their flock, warranteth it not, yea, crosseth it, it may not be.
Now then, it is to be considered that, when the New Testament speaks of
elders and churches, it speaks universally, and without distinction of a dif-
ferent relation. It calls them simply and singly elders of the church, and
delivers (in that relation) to their church they were elders of, exhortations to
their duties, which that relation specially called for ; and in those exhorta-
tions intends their duties, as their elders, met in a presbytery, as well as
those they are to perform in other ministrations towards their flocks ; and on
the other side, exhorts the people, in like similar expressions, to obey and
honour their elders that preach the word, rule them, and admonish them,
prescribing obedience to them in their rule as a presbytery, as well as in
other administrations ; and all this without any distinction of this relation
of elders, in common and in special. And farther it is enjoined, that these
presbyterial elders must perform those duties which belong to their ofliee,
unto all those they are thus elders unto, without any manifest distinction
of any several bounds of this so diff'ering relation. This evidently argueth
that there is but one single relation of elders to one flock, to whom thej per-
form these duties, and that the same that preach ought to rule them in pub-
Chap. V.] the churches of christ.
219
lie ; and that the same persons that admonish them privately, do also in the
pubHc presbytery rule them ; and that the same persons that rule them in
those public presbyteries do admonish them in private. So then, the same
persons sustain in the Holy Ghost's intention and view, when he made those
exhortations, one and the same univocal relation of elders to their flocks,
committed by him to them, whether they be met in a presbytery for acts of
government, or otherwise perform the duties of elders apart. And it is evi-
dent, that in a particular congregation they are elders in one univocal simi-
lar relation unto the whole flock, and every member thereof. But now this
is the wonder, that when elders are thus aflixed to particular congregations,
and that their relation is a diflering relation from that other in common
presbyteries (yea, so vastly diflering, that our brethren dare scarce acknow-
ledge them elders, calling them rather a presbytery than elders of those
churches), that yet the exhortations in the Scriptures should so univocally
fall on them, to so diflering duties, founded on different relations ; and that
yet this only general relation of elders to their particular congregations
should not be mentioned apart, and the duties accompanying it, singled
out from the rest, seems to us very strange. Yea, and to direct the dis-
charge of the duties of the people likewise to either of these elders (that they
might know what duties to perform to their more proper elders, acknow-
ledged theirs by way of so eminent and diflering a relation, and what to those
more common ; and that all confusion might be prevented, that the one
assume not the duties of the other), it was as necessary to have set the dif-
fering limits of these, as to set the bounds of ofiicers in the church, which
the Holy Ghost hath done.
2. And secondly, if tliere had been this differing relation of elders, which
from those similitudes in commonwealths, armies, and universities is given,
it was necessary that the Scripture should have held it forth, either by differ-
ing names and respects, or by diflering charges, whereby it might appear that
this relation obligeth them to this duty, and the other relation to that ; which
being not done in Scripture, the distinction will not pass upon us. That it
is thought necessary that the Scripture should prescribe herein, appears
from the instances brought by the reverend respondents. As, 1, that of
the tribes, where there were general elders of all the tribes, and there were
(and perhaps some of them the same men) heads and elders of tribes ; but
as this was a differing relation and respect in the same or diverse persons,
so they had names and titles of difference and distinction ; for the heads ge-
neral (as we call them) were called elders of the people ; the particular
elders of particular tribes were called, by way of distinction from them,
elders of such cities, families, &c. ; and there were as distinct laws given, so
that in some causes the elders of the several tribes did judge such and such
particulars in their tribes respectively ; and the general elders had reserved
cases of war, blasphemy, &c.
So in that instance of heads of colleges and heads of the university, there
is a differing relation, so a distinguishing character ; for the names are
changed, since the particular bodies are called colleges, and the general body
the university. And their several special relation to their colleges is ex-
pressed by the title of masters of such or such colleges, and the other by the
title of heads to the university. Yea, and accordingly there are diflering
statutes, the local statutes for each college apart, or for colleges as colleges,
and the duties of masters in their special relations ; and there are statutes
for the university, and for their duties as heads of it. And this distinction
or diflerence was necessary here too, if there were this diflering relation ; but,
for the case in hand, if we come to the New Testament, to find out the
220 THE GOVERNMENT OP [BoOK IV.
several modifications and relations of elders therein, we still read but simply
and singly, elders and churches, as relatives, without any such note of distinc-
tion of a classical church, and the presbytery thereof, and the congregational
church, and the elders thereof. The New Testament, in all its mentioning
of elders, speaks uniformly of them as elders of the church, and this rule is
to us certain. Ubi Scripium non distinr/uit, nee debemus distinguere, where the
Scripture makes no distinction, we ought not to make any.
But, however, I will represent the difference between us and our brethren
by the proposition of such a case in law as this is : If all the records and ruled
cases and laws of this kingdom should, in setting down the ordinary govern-
ment thereof, have made mention only and singly of burgesses (as the rulers)
of corporations (as the correlate to them), and used no other distinguishing
word (when yet there were undeniably burgesses of every incorporate town
continued from antiquity), might any one afterwards pretend that this word
corporation was intended by our ancestors to import an association or com-
munity of many of these corporations in one shire ; and that by burgesses of
these corporations were meant a community of all these burgesses in one
body for government ; and so pretend to the same name without distinction,
and say that these communities were also meant, and to prove it, give in-
stance in some foreign government, where there are states general of pro-
vinces, and states particular of cities, whenas they have in their laws a
distinction and differencing character, but in the laws of this kingdom there
is no such distinction made ? But now, if the laws about the choice of such
burgesses in each corporation, and the duties given them in charge, and their
relation to their corporations, do run without any distinction of what the
burgesses in the supposed greater corporations should do in that relation and
community, from what the same burgesses in their lesser corporations do in
their more proper relations ; yea, and if the duties set down in those laws,
mutually between corporations and those burgesses, should argue an incon-
sistency with the government of burgesses over many corporations in com-
mon ; but should all naturally fall in with that of burgesses over single
corporations, and argue such a relation, would not this plainly evidence that
therefore the laws of the kingdom did hold forth, there might not be (that is,
according to the laws thereof), such a government of the burgesses of corpo-
rations over many others ? And if, in answer to such arguments, it should
be said, that both these might be consistent ; for that in other foreign states,
and kingdoms, and societies, there are burgesses of particular corporations,
and there are burgesses in an assembly of parliament (so called by way of dis-
tinction) met in common for the ordinary government of all those corpora-
tions in common, and therefore the like may be here in this ; the reply were
easy, that whatever such distinction there is in other states, yet the question
is of such burgesses as the laws of this state holds forth, and as this kingdom
hath set up, where there is no such distinction of burgesses of corporations
and burgesses in parliament mentioned ; but, on the contrary, only one single
uniform style and title in the laws, namely, burgesses of the corporations ;
and further, the rules about their choice and duties mutually between them,
and the corporation they have relation to, be also delivered without any dif-
ference ; which doth argue them to have been anciently the relation of bur-
gesses to some one corporation, and not many, yea, to be utterly incongruous
and inconsistent with such a manifold relation. Now, parallel to this case,
are our arguments, and the answers given to the arguments of our presby-
terian brethren.
But they retort the argument upon us, and say, that it follows no more
that they are to be elders to each congregation, because joined in a common
Chap. VI. j the churches of christ. 221
presbytery, than that in a particular congregation, Peter, or one member
apart, hath a power over John, because, in community with the rest of the
brethren, he hath power over any one.
We answer, that let this parallel decide it, and then, as the foundation of
any one member's having an interest in that community over John or any
other, consists in this, that he stands in the relation of a brother to John,
as a member of that church, and so ip like manner to all the rest of the
members in that community ; so likewise all, and every one, when in that
common fraternity, stand in the very same relation of brethren to John, as
well as when they are apart out of it, and do not become brethren, having
power over him, because met in a community, but therefore meet, because, as
brethren, this duty lies on them in common, to judge him, as much as in
private to admonish him, and so one and the same relation puts them upon
both these duties. And in Scripture, the exhortations run to the same
persons to perform these duties, though of differing sort, because of their
I'elation as brethren. Let this parallel be applied to the thing in hand, and
as it answers the instance, so it strengthens our argument.
Lastly, If they be acknowledged to have the relation of elders as assem-
bled in a presbytery, and in that respect to have a relation to all the people
in the several congregations, yet still the same incongruities mentioned will
follow upon it. For many of those duties, from all the congregation, as
honour, maintenance, &c., are due to them, as well as to their own elders,
for that their work's sake ; and the acts, too, also of these elders in this
presbytery, though in common, are the most eminent acts that belong to the
office of elders, and in which the consciences and interest of the people, and
each member, is as much concerned, as in the daily preaching of their more
proper elders (as for distinction's sake we now call them), for they have power,
and they alone, to cut them off' from all ordinances, and to deliver them unto
Satan. Now, then, if they are to be interested in the choice of their proper
elders, to rule them in smaller things, then their concern ought to be as
much in the choice of, and consenting to these their general elders, and they
should be present at the ordination of all of them ; for one great part of their
function is to be exercised towards any and all of those congregations, in a
standing way, yea, and to rule them in matters of the greatest concernment.
Thus, then, so far as they are acknowledged elders, so far these inconveni-
ences will still follow upon the heels of that acknowledgment ; and the
Scriptures indifferently speaking of the same thing, without distinction of
both these kinds of relations, under the common name of elders, the people
have as much cause to challenge their right about the one as they have about
the other, and these elders may expect the same (by virtue of those scrip-
tures) from the people.
CHAPTER VL
The incongndties which flow from the elders of a preshjterij sustaining special
relation of elders to all the particular congregations.
I have proved that if a presbytery be set over many congregations, the
presbyters thereof must bear a special relation of constant and established
elders to all those congregations. I shall now evince, that for these elders
already fixed to several charges, to sustain also a special relation of ordinary
and standing elders to all these congregations, as one church, and all the
222 THE GOVEKKMENT OF [BoOK IV.
people thereof as members of that church, carries with it great and manifold
incongruities and inconsistencies also, with what the Scriptures hold forth
concerning elders and other officers of churches, as also with the principles
professed by the reformed churches themselves.
1. This breeds an incongruous disproportion between the relation of the
officers of a church, of this sort of officers, namely, elders, in the extent of
their relation and power ; and of those other sort of officers of the churches
acknowledged by the reformed churches, viz. deacons. Now let us there-
fore put it to the examination of the conscientious, whether what the Scrip-
ture speaks of elders, and of their commission, duties, &c., in their several
relations to the flock under them, will aff'ord clearer characters of the extent
of their standing government, to be congregational to one congregation, than
of its being classical over many. Yea, let us see whether the descriptions
of elders, and exhortations given unto them concerning their several charges,
do not plainly overthrow any such relation of elders (as elders) unto many
congregations, as inconsistent thereunto. Sui'ely unto us there appear many
great and unanswerable incongruities and inconsistencies in this classical
government.
If we compare the extent of this office of elders in their relation with the
extent of other church officers in their relation, we shall find that what holds
true of one sort of ordinary officers of a church, according to the word, may
well be supposed to hold true of another ; or else there is a disproportion
between the several relations of officers, and the one is not of like extent
with the other, which yet the Scriptures make commensurable, and to be
of equal extent. More plainly, if the Scriptures had intended, and held
forth many churches as making one church ; and the elders of those many
churches to have been elders in common to those churches, as one church ;
then the deacons of all those churches should make up a common deaconry,
and be deacons in common unto all those churches in an ordinary way, as
the other are elders. But this is contrary to the practice of the reformed
churches, though subject to the presbyterial government, in which the
deacons have the ordinary relation of deacons, in no respect extended further
than to a particular congregation ; nor do they exercise acts of that office in
a set way to other congregations, nor to neighbour congregations more
than to another, much less is there a common deaconship of them all. And
yet, why should not this common deaconry be erected over all those churches
as one church, as well as a common eldership, especially if in matters of
this nature a parity of reason should carry it ? For,
1. A church in Scripture, and all the officers, are alike relatives, as a
church and the elders are. The best of the presbyterial arguments for this
common presbytery are foimded upon the commensurable extent and relation
of church and elders, that if any churches make one church, then the
elders of them all make one eldership, and they are elders in common unto
them ; then why not the deacons also ? Now this reason of theirs, fetched
from this mutual relation of one church, and one eldership or elders thereof,
will require the like for deacons; for every church, as it is a church, being a
body, hath a relation to all its officers as organical members thereof. As we
have it asserted, Kom. xii. 4, ' As we have many members in one body, and
all members have not the same office,' so it is also in the church of Christ ;
and the members have several offices in the church, which he mentioneth,
ver. 8 ; and so if that church of Rome were one body, and a church of many
churches, then the deacons were deacons in common of those many churches
as they all were one church. For as the pastor's and teacher's office is held
forth in that following description, ver. 8, ' he that exhorteth,' and ' he that
Chap. YI.] the churches of christ. 223
teacheth,' so the deacon's in that, * he that giveth.' And in the analogy of
the natural body (to which there the apostle refers us, to exemplify this of a
church organised with officers, as a body to Christ), though one member
may be less and inferior to another in bulk or use, yet it is a member of that
whole body in its use. The little finger is a finger of the whole body, as
well as the arm is a member of the whole ; the foot that serves the whole
body is a member in its ; office as fully as the hand, and the extent of its
jurisdiction or use, according to its kind, is the same, by virtue of the same
relations. If, therefore, these are elders in common, or an eldership do rule
in common those congregations as one church, and as organical members
thereof, as one body, then why should not the deacons, in as ordinary a
way, perform their office in common, and bear the relation of deacons in
common unto all as one church ? And,
2. The Scriptures do confirm this like commensurable extent of the
deacons' and elders' offices, as relating to a church, for the apostle writing to
Philippi, a church in a city (which therefore we suppose our brethren will
needs have to have been a presbyterial church, of many congregations, lest
any one instance of a complete congregational church should be left unto us),
he wi'ites to the bishops (the elders) and the deacons of that church. And
Acts vi., the deacons of the church of Jerusalem (if there were many con-
gregations, as our brethren suppose) were chosen by the whole multitude
when gathered together by the twelve, and therefore were deacons of that
whole church, as well as the elders were elders thereof. Now if the deacon's
office should thus be extended to all the congregations, as the elder's is, then
why should not each church be bound to bring contributions to the deacons
of each church, to be distributed in common ; and so our purses should be
subject to the deacons in common, as far as our consciences to the elders in
common, and they might challenge the same power in their office over the
one that the elders do over the other ; and then also each congregation were
in as ordinary and standing an obligation bound to relieve all the poor in
those churches, as well as those in their own, not only by the common law
of charity, but by virtue of a special relation of their being one church, which
relation in all these things doth beget the like obligation that it doth in
government, and so all things in this nature should be alike common to all
and each, and there should be a common treasury for this one great diaconate
chm'ch (as we may in a parallel allusion to that other name of presbyterial
call it), as there is a common rer/imeii or government for this great presby-
terial church. This strange disproportion between the officers or members
of this body which the presbyterial government doth make, seems to us, at
least, unnatural, whereas this (as all other things) fall in suitably and natur-
ally, when the relation of elders and elderships is extended no further than
each congregation, which, as it is to be an organical body unto Christ, so
the officers and members thereof, according to the law of nature, are alike
members of and for that body, and the use, service, relation, of all and each
in their several kinds bear a like proportion to the whole. And that, even
by the practice and judgment of the reformed churches themselves, the
deacons are confined to each particular congregation, is to us a testimony
(as the remaining office of overseers for the poor under the episcopal govern-
ment hath been judged a pregnant evidence of the deacon's office once in the
church) that the limits of a church and elders were all once within a parti-
cular congregation, although the elders, because a superior office, have
assumed to extend their power and jurisdiction in their kind further than the
other more inferior in theirs.
But let it be supposed that some reason of difference might be given of
224 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK IV.
this disproportion in the elders' office, and the deacons', and that a common
deaconry would not follow upon a common presbytery ; yet,
2. There are other as great incongruities will fall upon the very relations
of the elders' office themselves, which this frame of fixed elders to some con-
gregations respectivel}', and yet of ordinary elders to all of them, causeth.
God hath made some preaching elders, some ruling elders (as the reformed
churches allow) or church governors, to assist the pastors in government.
And to preaching elders both preaching and ruling belongs, which are con-
junct in that office, according to the principles of the presbyterial govern-
ment and the Scriptures. But the business of ruling belongs only to the
other, and by this they are distinct, as two subordinate species, or as the
sensitive and reasonable soul, whereof the one hath sense only in all its acts,
the other both sense and reason, and yet are specifically distinct.
Every church of Christ is a body ordered. Col. ii. 1, 'rejoicing' (says Paul)
' to see your order.' And the intent of the presbyterial goverment is professed
to be, to preserve order in the church ; and if in anything this order is most
to be seen, it is in the distinction and order of the officers thereof. Now
this frame of government brings in a great disorder in the offices and officers,
and confounds them and their relations. To demonstrate this, let us con-
sider the pastors, or preaching elders. They are all undeniably preaching
elders to their particular congregations, of which they are the fixed pastors ;
and yet they have another relation of elders (by means of this presbyterial
government) to all these congregations, considered as one church ; and if
these pastors be any way elders to both, they must sustain the title of both
sorts of elders in these two differing relations, which is an evident confound-
ing of both these offices in one and the same person. For,
1. It is evident that they do each apart bear the title and relation of
preaching elders unto their particular congregations, and such pastors, or
such preaching elders, they can be to no more or other than those they
ordinarily preach unto, for they labour in the word and doctrine unto no
other ; and this is the character of distinction from the other elders and
governors in 1 Tim. v. 17. And it is evident that they, being fixed each as
pastors to their particular congregations, cannot labour in the word and doctrine
to them all ; therefore they sustain this title in distinction of elders only unto
those their several charges. And it is certain that all offices have their dis-
tinction and denomination from that special praxis or function they are
ordained unto, as that is an eye to the body whose praxis or function is to
see for the whole body. They can therefore be said to be preaching elders
to no other of this classical church than that praxis of preaching is extended
unto. It is an argument which Whitaker useth against the pope, and our
divines make use of it against the bishops, that nor he nor they can be said
to be pastors unto all they jet pretended to be pastors unto, because they
are not able to exercise the functions of pastors unto them. Therefore,
2. We ask what sort of elders the pastors are that are in this common
presbytery ? What sort of relation of elders do they bear to this one pi'es-
byterial church, over and above that relation they as pastors bear to their
own (and this church and elders as elders are relatives, as well as the parti-
cular congregations and their elders, or else this great church must want its
correlative of elders to it) ? Surely they bear no other relation than of ruling
elders, if they be elders at all (and to make them no elders, and not to have
the relation of elders to this great church in this presbytery, we believe will
not be affirmed) ; and if they be elders, then the notion of their being elders
must have one of those two fore-mentioned formal diflerences annexed to it,
either of preaching elders or merely ruling ; and this difference and denomi-
Chap. VI.] the churches of christ. 225
nation must be fetched (as was said afore) from the differing praxis or use
they serve for. And it is evident that the ordinary acts they serve for and
exercise in those common presbyteries are merely acts of ruHng elders (in all
which therefore ruling elders concur in common with them), and accordingly
it is called the presbyterian government.
And further, the power of an office in the church (though exercised but as
conjoined with others) is a relation in respect to some administration in a
constancy ; now the constant and ordinary administration they serve for in
such a presbytery is only ruling, not teaching, there being no acts but such
that ruling elders join in. So as by this frame, the same preaching elder
or pastor must bear two sorts of ordinary offices in these two- relations, of a
preaching and a mere ruling elder, as if one were both a physician and a
chirurgeon, and were fixed to one of the companies in the city to practise
physic to them, he sustained the office of a physician to that company ; and
if he were besides called to practise chirurgery to many other companies, he
were certainly only a chirurgeon unto them, as truly as a physician to the
other. So as we shall not need to dispute the point of ruling elders any
more ; for here are such as are elders, acknowledged such by all sides, and
yet for the sort of their office but plain ruhng elders, and deserve properly
in this relation no other name, if we hold the presbyterial government ;
and they are as truly and properly to this presbyterial church such, and no
other, as those governors that preach not at all are unto those they are
elders unto.
And this incongruity no distinction will salve ; call them elders in this
presbytery, in what sense you please, whether in sensu diviso or cvnjuncto,
yet elders they are ; and if so, then one of these two sorts of elders they
must be to this presbyterial church, either both preaching and ruling elders,
or merely ruling. Their being elders together in this presbytery, cannot be
supposed to divest them of the title of some sort of elders (and there is not
a third sort), no more than the elders of a congregation, met in a presbytery,
do thereby lose the title of elders which they sustain to that congregation,
or no more (as was even now instanced) than when the body hath two eyes
that always concur in one act of sight, either of them should not be denomi-
nated eyes unto the body apart, and the one called the left, and the other
the right.
The disorder and confusion hereby may be further set out, 1. That by
this means the same officer hath a full relation to one church, and but half
a relation unto another ; and it causeth him to perform the whole of his
offices to one church (the particular church) to which he hath relation, and
but the half thereof to the other. And 2. It makes an ordinary pastor, not
only perform the work of two officers, but to bear the relation of two offices;
for in his several relations to these two several churches, his congregational
and classical, his relations are parted and divided.
And it brings up the same absurdity which was put upon episcopal
•government, that a bishop, professing himself to bear the relation of a pastor
to the whole diocese, yet was but a ruling elder to them, not a teaching.
3. To extend a pastor's power of ordinary ruling beyond the extent of
his ordinary teaching, is against the order which Christ hath set (and all
extent of power must as well have an institution of Christ, as the power or
office itself; for the difference of evangelists, and of ordinary pastors, lay
but in extent of power), and then we argue thus : If the extent of a pastor's
ordinary ruling power, as a pastor and elder, be but to the flock, as his
whole flock, which he is able to feed, then to bear the relation of a pastor
VOL. XI. P
226 THE GOVEENMENT OF [BoOK IV.
or elder for ordinary government to any more than he is able, and doth thus
feed, may not be ; but the extent of a pastor's ordinary ruling power is but
to that flock, as his whole flock, which he is able to feed. And this argu-
ment, as also the former, besides that it serves to make up more incongrui-
ties of this presbyterial government, so it might stand alone, and make a
complete argument of itself against it ; for if the pastor's ordinary power in
ruling be not to be extended further than of his ordinary preaching, then
this ordinary standing government of pastors fixed for preaching to their own
congregations may not be over those many in common.
Now, that the extent of a pastor's ordinary ruling power reacheth only to
that flock which he is able to feed, I prove, 1, by Scripture ; 2, by reason.
1. I prove it by Scripture : Acts xx. 28, ' Take heed to yourselves, and
to all the flock (the whole flock, ^ravr* rcC toz/xv/w) over which the Holy Ghost
hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath pur-
chased with his own blood.' Here are, 1, elders (ver. 17) spoken to. 2.
Their having relation to a flock, an whole flock, is mentioned. 3. They are
enjoined to 'feed the flock,' and 'the whole flock;' and all these are com-
mensiu-able. Whence, 1, we see that the special limitation of their exten-
sive power and relation to a flock, and to all the flock, is set by the Holy
Ghost, and not by man ; and therefore is not to be extended by man, further
than the .Holy Ghost hath appointed. 2. The extent of that relation is to
that flock, and the whole flock they feed ; and they are to feed all that flock
aUke. And if they be preaching elders, then they must feed it by preaching ;
and therefore are overseers to them, to feed them, and because they feed
them. 3. He speaks to preaching elders especially, that feed by doctrine ;
for (1.) he propounds his own example to them, ver. 20, that he had re-
vealed the whole counsel of God ; and (2.) he says, ver. 30, ' Some of you
shall arise, speaking perverse things.' And it is Paul's farewell ; and (as
Bains argues against bishops) those to whom at last the apostles commended
churches, were the ordinary governors left ; but he commended them not to
a bishop, but ordinary elders. Thus we argue also, for the extent of the
relation of those elders, that they are to govern only that flock that they are
able to feed ; and therefore they have not the ofiice of overseeing, as ordinary
elders, over those whom they feed not. And Peter seconds Paul in this :
1 Peter v. 2, ' Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the over-
sight thereof.' The flock, Jv ■J/z./P, among you, is that flock that any of them had
relation to, as his flock respectively. Thereupon, writing unto the churches
in a whole nation, in chap. i. ver. 1 (whereas in Acts xx. 28, the charge is
to the particular elders of Ephesus, to that whole flock), he therefore puts
in that note of respectiveness, Iv v/jJv, among you, that is, that which respec-
tively belongs to you, answerable to which is that text. Col. i. 17, ' Who is
for you a faithful minister,' that is, your proper pastor; and Acts xiv. 23,
they ordained elders church by church, elders to them, that is, proper
elders to them ; so the flock, ev v/Uyh, signifies your several proper flocks that
belong to you. Hereby it appears, that their feeding and their oversight
over any of those flocks are commensurable ; and that flock which they are
not able to feed, they have not the oversight over, for they are both of the
same extent. Thus also, Heb. xiii. 7, 17, ' Remember them that have the rule
over you, and have spoken to you the word of God,' which he speaks of preach-
ing elders, for the extent of their rule and their preaching is all one. And
of ruling elders he speaks, ver. 17, ' Obey them that have the rule over you ;
for they watch for your souls, as those that must give an account.' And not
to dispute whether these places note out two sorts of officers, preaching
elders, ver. 7, and ruling elders, ver. 17, or but one sort, and so but several
Chap. VI.] the churches of cheist. 227
acts of the same office, yet this is certain, that these are commensurable, for
they are officers together in the same church. And if the pastor's power of
ruling extends no further than his preaching, then the mere ruling elder's
power, or his that is assistant to him, must extend no further also. 1. Re-
member those that have spoken the word to you. 2. Obey and submit to
those that watch for your souls. This is the natural obligation to obedience,
and so is the measure to set the bounds of the extent of ordinary church
power. It is one argument used against episcopal power, that they are en-
forced to obey him that speaks not the word to them, nor watcheth over
their souls ; and this holds as well against these presbyterial officers. And
when a man comes before such to be excommunicated, he may say, I am not
bound to obey you in such an authoritative way, nor do I owe a subjection
as to a power of censure in you ; for many, nay, most of you, have never
spoke the word to me, nor do watch over my soul ; nay, perhaps the man
can say he never saw their faces afore. And it avails not to say, that they
may occasionally preach ; for the apostle, 1 Thcs. v. 12, speaking of respect
to their officers, ' Know them,' says he, ' that labour among you, and are
over you in the Lord, and admonish you.' These two, those that labour
and are over you, are commensurable, and they are meant, who make it their
callings to have the care of the flock, which the many pastors and elders in
a common presbytery do not. But in what is it they labour ? The 1 Tim.
V. 17 expounds it to be, 'that labour in the word and doctrine;' 'the
eiders that rule well, as worthy of double honour, especially those that labour
in the word and doctrine.' Axid whether you expound this latter known place
of teaching elders only, or of ruling and teaching both (as the reformed
churches do), however it affi)rds this to us, that the extent of ruling, in either
the one or the other, is but as large as teaching. And if it be meant of
teaching elders only, that both rule and labour in the word and doctrine, yet
if they be limited in labouring in the word, as being fixed pastors to their
own congregations, then in ruling also. And if it be meant of ruling elders
(as distinct from them), yet their ruling is of the same extent that the others'
labouring in the word, and that is extended but to one congregation, where
as pastors they are fixed. And
2. Though in a pastor's office preaching and ruling is joined, yet his
power of ruling flows in him from, and is the adjunct of, his power to preach ;
and to be sure it is not extendable further. And however, yet there is the
same proportion of either ; and then by just reason, the extent of the church,
which is the subject of his ordinary ruling, cannot be extended larger than
what is the ordinary subject of his preaching ; and so those relations are of
equal limits (which is the present case of a pastor's authority, appropriated to
a congregation, and extended but to his own in an ordinary way), and to make
the ground of a relation narrower than the extent of it is absurd. If a father
hath the power of governing as a father, then it is extendable only to those
he is a father to. And that a pastor hath his ordinary ruling power annexed
to his ordinary power of preaching, we prove by these reasons.
1. If he hath not his ruling power upon this ground, then must be assigned
some other. He hath it not by any special faculty or office over and above
this of preaching ; for then he should be made a ruling elder, over and above
his being first a preaching elder, as a new faculty given him. Nor hath he
it by being made a ruler first, and then having this of preaching superadded
(as the bishops fii'st made deacons, then presbyters). For
2. All the keys are given him at once, the keys of ruling with the keys
of knowledge. The power of the staft' intrinsecally follows, his being a pastor
or shepherd; and though the one is a power of mere order, namely, that of
228 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK IV.
preaching, and tliat of bis ruling is of jurisdiction (to be exercised in many
cases with others, and not alone), yet still bis receiving power to join with
others in those acts of rule of jurisdiction, is from this power of order, and
the ordinary extent of his authority therein is extended no further than his
ordinary call to preaching. Yea,
3. The extent of the power of the apostles themselves in ruling in all the
churches was founded upon and extendable with their commission to preach ;
and their very call and obligation being not to preach in a set and fixed rela-
tion, as an ordinary pastor's calling is, but to all nations and in all churches,
hence their power of ruling was answerable. It was their very call to be
universal pastors, and therefore universal rulers ; yea, and their authority of
ruhng was narrower in the extent of it than of their preaching. The apostles
might preach to heathens, and their call was so to do, to convert them, but
they had not power to rule all men : ' What have I to do to judge them that
are without ?' says the apostle, 1 Cor. xv. 12. But in this way of presby-
terial government, though they also may occasionally preach where they may
not rule, yet the proportion of their ordinary ruling is extended beyond the
proportion of their ordinary preaching, which was not so in the apostles
themselves. Let but the same line of proportion equally be drawn over the
apostles' power in these and theirs, according to their several measures.
Their call to ruling was uniform to preaching in all churches, though their
preaching was larger than their rule, namelj', to those without ; but ordinary
pastors have a standing fixed call to preach but in one congregation. Let
their call and power of ruling be uniform to it, and they can have an ordinary
standing power to rule but in that congregation ; either extend both further,
or contract both to this. It is no answer to say that they may preach as
pastors in neighbour churches occasionally, for so they may preach to any
reformed church, as in Scotland, where yet they have not so much as an
occasional call to rule ; and in such occasional acts of pi-eaching also they
have but the proportion which the apostles had, whose power in preach-
ing was larger than of ruling, for it was extended to them without ; but still
if an ordinary standing power in ruling, although with others (for the apostles
exercised their power with others), should be stretched where they have not
an ordinary standing call to preach, it should exceed the proportion of the
apostles in that respect.
4. And, fourthly, from hence ariseth another disproportion between these
officers, ruling and preaching elders, compared among themselves, and it is
such a disproportion as is like to the former alleged between the deacons and
the elders ; for this government makes the extent of the ruling elder's ofl&ce
and relation to be larger than that of the teacher's or pastor's ; for the pastor,
as pastor, is limited to his particular congregation he is fixed to, as the
deacons also are ; but the ruling elder's office, as ruling elder, is extended
over all these congregations in this presbytery. The ruling elder performs
his office in the highest perfection of it, as to admonish, excommunicate, &c.,
to all in these churches, but the pastors are limited as pastors in the highest
work of their callings (which preaching is, and more excellent than ruling,
yea, than baptizing), unto one congregation. That place in 1 Tim. v. 17,
(interpret how you will) justifies what is asserted.
Now these are strange disproportions, which are occasioned by this and
the presbyterial government ; and this greatly makes for the congrega-
tional way, wherein as to these particulars no such incongruities are found,
but all things fall naturally uniform.
2. A second head of incongruities and inconsistencies which will follow
upon this government, concerns the mutual duties required, that do necessarily
Chap. VI.] the churches of christ. 229
follow upon this standing relation for a constant government of these elders
to all this people of these churches, and of the people to these elders.
1. The people of all these elders (according to what the Scripture speaks
of as due to standing elders) owe at least honour and esteem to them, yea,
maintenance to all of them, whether they ordinarily rule them or preach to
them, and they owe it on both accounts : 1 Tim. iv. 17, 18, * Let the elders
that rule well be counted worthy of double honour, especially that labour in
the word and doctrine ;' which honour is (ver. 18), in the analogy of that law,
' not to muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn ;' and this is
certainly due to elders on account of what is the work of elders, whether
performed apart or together by way of jurisdiction. And it cannot be denied
but that their constant ruling, as in the presbytery, is one great part of the
work of elders here intended, and mentioned with preaching, for which an
especial honour is due. God appoints no constant work in the ministry, but
he appoints a reward from those for whom it is performed ; and as they owe
a duty of ruling to every one in the flock, as Acts xx. 28, so there is a due
of maintenance and honour due from all this people to all and every one of
those elders, to those that rule, as well as to those that labour in the word
and doctrine ; and in reason, if the elders that rule well and perform the
lesser acts of ruling in their particular congregations are to have this honour
from them in their relations, then all these elders that rule well in the com-
mon presbytery, and perform the greatest acts of ruling, are to have the like
from all of that classical church ; for the emphasis being put upon ruling well,
and in those acts done by them the excellency of ruling consisting, therefore
to these is this honour due from this great church, more especially than from
the lesser congregations respectively unto their proper elders. Neither will
the distinction of being a presbytery in common salve it, for if the particular
elders of congregations are to have this honour for what is done by them in
their joint acts of ruling in the particular presbyteries, then these are to have
it in what is done in their common presbyteries also ; and the precept is not
to honour presbyteries in common in an abstract notion, but to honour elders,
because the particular persons of the elders are to be the object of it, and
those most who excel most in that rule, that rule well or best. But when
there are many congregations apart who have their proper fixed pastors and
elders, whom they maintain for performing one part of the elder's work (for
they perform but one part of it), how shall they perform this due to all the
rest for that other part of the work ? How burdensome, how confused, must
this be ! And j^et due it is, for they are all one church to them. And then
how can this duty be proportioned (suppose it should not be maintenance,
but honour and esteem), for the people will not be able well to judge of it,
not only because they cannot be present at their work, and so cannot judge
of it, but because either it must be proportioned to them that are constant
as preaching elders or as ruling ; for the ground it is there (1 Tim. v. 18)
required upon is that they tread out their corn, and the apostle saj's, ' Esteem
them for their work's sake that labour among you,' 1 Thes. v. 12, 13, so as
it is to be proportioned to the work of a pastor, as pastor ; but to honour
or esteem them as ruling elders only, were to honour the preaching elders
below the rank and degree of their office.
2. It also brings the like incongruity upon the performance of those duties
of elders, which the New Testament indifferently requires of all those that
it acknowledgeth to be elders unto a people, and therefore no such constant
relation of elders to so many churches may be. 1. One duty is praying
with the sick : ' Send for the elders of the church, to pray for them,' James
V. 11. What ! are these elders of the presbyterial church bound to this ?
230 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK IV.
And this duty lies in common upon elders of the churches ; and how shall we
distinguish when the Scripture doth not ? 2, Another duty is visiting from
house to house, as Paul in his example instructs the elders of Ephesus,
Acts XX. 20. B. Another duty is watching over men's souls, as those that
must give an account, Heb. xiii. 17 ; and that the people should obey
them, and no warrant is given to obey others in the way of an ordinary rule.
And to watch, is not to stay till causes are brought by appeals or so from
the congregations, but personally to watch over them as souls committed to
them. 4. Another duty is preaching (if they be preaching elders) in season
and out of season. The bishops said, the flock was theirs, and the whole
care committed to them ; and to salve the incongruity of not being able to
preach themselves to them all, they professed a derivative delegated power
to inferior pastors, whom they called their curates. This was plain dealing,
but these elders make all the whole flock theirs, and this from those scrip-
tures that speak of elders and flock ; and yet themselves have no curates,
and so are personally obliged, according to the rules in Scripture, and yet
cannot perform the obligation, which is a worse incongruity. 5. It will be
their duty also to attend to all causes, which so many churches will fill their
hands with sufficiently, for churches will be full of scandal, and there will
be cases of difficulty. What a deal of work did one church of Corinth find
Paul ! And it is the duty of each elder to attend to all those that come in
his cognisance, as if he alone were to judge, for he is to give his judgment
of them all, as one that is to give an account. It is an argument against
episcopacy, that they cannot take the care (according to what the Scripture
seems to require of an ordinary officer) of so many churches in a diocese ;
now this work (suppose of ruling only, as in a presbytery) lies upon each of
these elders, as if he were but one, as to the matters of attending thereto
(as was said) though each is helped by the suggestion of others. And besides
the common work that must needs arise from all these churches, they are
to attend to all cases of conscience and of temptations in their particular con-
gregations, or from elsewhere, if those churches will have recourse to them.
If it be said, that they may part these duties among them, and perform only
to' the whole those that are in common, the answer is plain, Ubi scriptura
71011 distiiufuit, nee nos dehemus distinrpAere, Where the Scripture makes no
distinction, we ought not to distinguish. Now all those duties are spoken
of, as owing from elders to the flock, without any distinction. Paul saith
to those Ephesians, ' Feed the whole flock,' Acts xx. 28. Peter says the
like to those he writes to, that they respectively should feed and take the
oversight over the flock, h v/j^Tv, which was among them. The apostle tells
the Hebrews that their elders watched over their souls, Heb. xiii. 17. And
to the Thessalonians, he describes them to be those that are over them, and
labour and admonish them, 1 Thes. v. 12. When these injunctions are
thus laid upon all, how shall the conscience of elders be able to part and
distinguish themselves out of the discharge of them, and to say. Though I
am an elder in common to all in these congregations; yet I am bound but
to govern them in greater matters, and to admonish them as with others,
when publicly met in a consistory, and to no other acts of eldership ; and
yet to my own particular congregation, I am obliged to private admonition,
rule, and watchfulness, &c. Where hath the Scripture set these bounds, or
thus parted them ? Therefore, certainly all these places hold forth singly
only the elders of a particular church fixed thereto, and their duty to it, as
knowing no other. And indeed it was necessary that Christ should set the
bounds and give the distinction, and not indifi'erently lay all these duties upon
Chap. VI.] the churches of christ. 231
all ; and either in these places the duties of eiders in a common presbytery
are contained, or they are not to be found in the New Testament.
Lastly, That which is inconsistent with the ordinary way of the call of
elders held forth in the word, and by the reformed churches allowed, may
not be; but such is this presbyterian government. It is the call which breeds
relation between elders and church, and is the foundation of it. None are to
assume the honour of ruling the church of Christ, that are not called thereto, as
Aaron was not to have been over all the church, but that he was called of God.
There are two parts of this calling: 1, choice; 2, ordination.
1. As for choice, Chamier, in the name of all the reformed churches, allows
to the people the approbation of their elders ; and so it is in Scotland. And
if the apostles themselves allowed them the choice of the deacons that had
the charge of the church treasury, and took care of their bodies, then much
more of their elders, that have to do with their consciences. Look whatever
right of the people is in the choice of those who should preach to them, there
is as much reason they should have the exercise of it in the choice of these
that in a common presbytery do rule over them ; for they perform one part
of the elders' duty, namely, ruling, as the preaching elders do the other; and
therefore by the equity of the same law that speaks of elders indefinitely, if
they choose any elders as elders to them, they are to choose these also, there
being no distinction put of choosing preachiug elders only,^ but elders inde-
finitely. And further, the greatest and highest acts of power over them are
committed in an ordinary way unto them, as of excommunication, which is
of all punishments the most formidable ; and so there is put as much, if not
more, than every man's life, that is a member of that classical church, into
their hands. The enjoyment of all ordinances for ever, and the power of de-
posing their ministers already fixed to them, and the power of refusing to
ordain them they shall approve, is lodged in this classis. And therefore in
the primitive church the persons of the bishops, who had the power of all
these, were chosen by all the people, and by panegyrical meetings.
And the argument is strengthened by this further paa'allel. A minister's
call hath two parts : 1, ordination, which belongs to the elders ; 2, choice,
in which the people have some interest ; therefore these elders as elders in
common, and these congregations as one church, being relatives, that interest
which a church hath as a church is commensurable to the interest of these
elders as elders. If therefore in ordination all the elders in a common pres-
bytery join to ordain an officer, then all the people as a church must join in
choosing and approving him ; for the common right of choosing cannot be
swallowed up by the interest of their elders ordaining him. And if it be said
they all choose by virtue of the general law of combination, as in the shires
they do parliament men, it is answered, that the constitution of the state
makes it so, and if the like be found in Scripture for this other, it is sr.lfi-
cient ; but if not, but that this interest must be common to the people of
the classical church, it is asked, when a fixed pastor is to be chosen to a
particular church, what office he shall be chosen to with respect unto the
people of the other congregations ? Not to a pastor's office, for he is not to be
such to them. If he be chosen to be a ruling elder only, then besides that
he hath two offices, he must have two choices and two ordinations. We
choose him for our pastor, says the particular church he belongs to ; and we,
say the other, to rule us. And besides, the people have an interest of pre-
sence, and joining in fasting and prayer, at his ordination. And this there-
fore must be performed either in a panegyrical meeting of all, which cannot
be as the practice is, or in all the several churches, which will multiply the
ordination of him.
232 THE GOVEBNMENT OF [BoOK V.
BOOK V.
The jurisdiction of synods debated. — That appeals are not necessary to the
government of the churches, and therefore there is no necessity of synods npon
that account. — What p)ower may he allowed to a synod occasionally meeting
to consider the maladministration of any particular church. — That they have
not that grand j^Terogative of poiver given hy Christ to excommunicate other
churches, and so by that rod to enforce them to revoke their sentence of mal-
administration, and to receive a jjerson wrongfully excommunicated by them.
— The subordination of synods consideo-ed and refuted. — Though particular
churches are 7iot subject to the jurisdiction of synods, yet they are riot ivholly
independent, hut there is a communion ivhich they ought to hold one with
another.
CHAPTER I.
Concerning appeals ; that they are not absolutely necessary to the government of
the churches.
That appeals are not of absolute necessity to the government of the churches,
and that the law of nature doth not necessarily require them, is apparent from
these reasons :
1. In the first government under the law of nature there were no appeals
in criminal causes, but Judah, the head of his family, peremptorily pro-
nounceth the sentence, ' Let her be burnt,' Gen. xxxviii. And indeed, to
whom then should any appeal have been made ? Therefore appeals are not
necessary by the light of nature.
2. The law of nature among the Jews required them not. The govern-
ment was in the cities, and no appeals (in Deut. xvii. or elsewhere) in case of
wrong were made by the injured party, but only in case of difiiculty they
had recourse to the judgment of the great sanhedrim to resolve cases that
were too hard for them. And as for that instance of Moses, Exod. xviii. 22,
that the great matters were brought to him and the small matters to other
elders, it was a dividing of causes according to their sort and kind, and not
a bringing of matters by way of appeal unto him.
3. Some of the reformed churches have no appeals, and yet are well
governed, and in as much peace as those in Scotland. In Geneva there is
but one consistory, and if there be any appeals in case of maladministration,
they are made to the magistrate. And if it be said that it is so because
they, being a commonwealth, and having supreme power, do bound the
church power, yet still however, if the power of this our government would
appoint magistrates to hear appeals of particular churches, and so bound
their power in themselves (as the imperial towns in Germany or the cantons
in Switzerland do), there is a great possibility to govern these churches
without any other or further appeals in case of unjust sentences, as well as
Geneva and other reformed churches are governed.
Chap. I.] the churches of cheist. 233
4. In matters of life and death in this kingdom there is no appeals, not
such as to right the man if wronged, but every corporation hath the privi-
lege touching the execution of the man to do it within themselves, and yet
if in anything, De morte hominis dcUberandum est, there is the greatest deli-
beration to be had about the life and death of a man; and yet this way of
proceeding without appeals in such a case as this is not against the law of
nature.
5. In democracies, where the sentence of life and death (as in many cases
it was so) were referred to the immediate sentence of the people, there were
no appeals ; and yet such a government is not against the light of nature.
Now, taking away of a man's life may well be conceived to be of as much
moment as casting a man out of a church, for that deprives the subject of
all ordinances for ever, and also of further time to repent; and yet incor-
porations and a recorder are betrusted with this, without the ordinary benefit
of appeals to relieve the man; and therefore why may not a church, a com-
pany of saints, that hath the promise of Christ's presence to guide them,
and which is a body to Christ, being sufficiently furnished with officers,
having two or three elders over them, be as well betrusted in ecclesiastic
administrations ? Nor can it be supposed that God should take more care
under the New Testament for relief of wrongs in churches scattered than he
did in that national church of the Jews, which (as a nation) was capable of
appeals, or that God, for the pretended relief of particular persons wronged,
should subject whole churches, yea, provinces, to a coercive power armed
■with the dreadful sentence of excommunication in a national assembly.
(2.) That appeals are not absolutely necessary is evident, because if they
were so they should be brought either antecedently to the sentence of
excommunication in a particular church, or after it hath passed on the
person excommunicated.
[1.] But that an appeal should not go before the sentence of excommuni-
cation, appears,
1. From the power and duty of that court to which the person's cause is
first brought. The congregation that is told of the person's sin (according
to Christ's institution. Mat. xviii. 17) hath the power of the censures, and
Christ's command lies upon them to execute Christ's ordinance, if he hears
not that church to whom the accusation of him is first brought ; whereas, by
an appeal afore, the sentence would be suspended, and so it would be in
the power of an obstinate sinner to hinder the sentence from coming into
act.
2. It is apparent from the good of the person. For, 1, if an appeal was
thus brought antecedent to the sentence of excommunication passed in a parti-
cular church, then a man should never be obstinate until he came to the
national assembly, and so he would want the means of his conversion all that
while, which would be the ready way to harden him in his sin, to defer his
repentance at least for a year ; and then he must run through all the same
course of admonitions by the higher courts ere they can pronounce the sen-
tence. 2. Then God must wait upon and lacquey after men, and suspend a
sentence till a man hath gone through all these courts on earth, and baflied
both God's sentence and also man's.
[2. J That appeals are not to be made after the sentence of excommunica-
tion passed in a particular church appears,
(1.) From the nature of the sentence, which is decisive, and is irreversible,
as being bound in heaven, unless the person repents, and upon his repent-
ance is restored again.
(2.) Because a particular church, by yielding to such appeals, would give
234 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK V.
up that power and authority with which Christ hath entrusted them. For
Christ hath given them full power to exercise all acts of discipline within
themselves (as hath been proved) ; but if they admitted of appeals to be made
to a superior court, as having power over them, to disannul their acts, they
would thereby acknowledge a supreme authority, and that they had not the
perfect power in themselves.
2. If there may be such appeals, whether afore or after sentence (other
than to relieve the person, and those we grant), then there should be a greater
punishment for the appellant, if he be cast in the provincial assembly, and yet
a greater also than that if he be cast again in the national. So it is in civil
courts, and it deserves it here as much as in any, for a man becomes guilty
of a greater sin by so appealing (if indeed he is criminal), for he is guilty of
more obstinacy ; if the appeal be afore the sentence, by hindering it, if after,
by continuing more impudently impenitent, and in both cases in troubling
all the churches. But these courts have no greater punishment to inflict
than what the congregation or first church hath ; for the man is by excom-
munication out of his own church, cast out of all churches as well as when
cast by the national. They can only admonish and excommunicate at last,
if the sentence be not passsed afore the appeal ; or if the appeal be after the
sentence, they can only pronounce the sentence to be just, they have no
further or more grievous excommunication for him. There is indeed a final
excommunication with a curse, Anatliema Maranatha (1 Cor. xv. 22), to
him that loves not (which is a diminutive), that is, that shews hatred against
the Lord Christ after enlightening, and so hath sinned against the Holy
Ghost ; but we believe that such an excommunication is not that which upon
appeals to the national assembly (if the person be cast there also), they shall
have power to inflict. In the case indeed of eternal damnation, every degree
for every sin is another hell added to the former (not an increase of torment
by a circumstance, but substantially), but it is not so here, for every new
sentence of these gradual courts add not a new degree of excommunication.
Whereas excommunication is a giving up to Satan, if the congregation excom-
municating gave up to one devil, and the classical to more, and the provincial
assembly to more, and then the national to worse than the former (as in
the Gospel Christ says of a man apostatising, that seven devils worse than
before enter into the man), then these courts might arrogate such appeals to
them, and proportionably punish the person's obstinacy who wrongfully
makes them ; but the case is otherwise. If it be replied that the shame is
increased, that he is rebuked by so many, and that is a punishment ; and
that as Christ's death is aggravated by the shame, so here the excommunica-
tion is made the more shameful in the national than it would have been in
the lesser assembly. The answer is, 1, That still that which is of the sub-
stance of this spiritual punishment, and which is spiritual in it, and in which
the spirit of it lies, is not, nor cannot be, added unto, viz. ; Gad's binding the
man in heaven, which God did, and doth as much upon the first excommunica-
tion as upon the second or third ; and as for Satan's power to terrify him, he is
as much delivered thereby to it, and he is as much cast out of the ordinances
in all churches by it, as by the confirmation of the sentence in the national
assembly. And what is that outward shame of it (such as follows upon all
other civil crimes made public), to be compared with these, or to correspond
to that further proportion of authority, that these higher courts, by challeng-
ing of appeals to be made to them, do seem to usurp, as if an answerable
degree of spiritual punishment were by God's promise ministered in them ?
And if there should not be a further punishment unto the appellant, then it
comes all to one with what we afiirm ; for if it be in order to relieve the party
Chap. I.] the churches of chkist. 235
only, we acknowledge appeals in those respects to be useful to, by declaring
the sentence null, and that there was no due or just excommunication. And
if it be a just sentence, we acknowledge appeals so far to be made to neigh-
bour churches, that they may declare it is a just excommunication already
past. So that what we contend against is this, when under the colour of
appeals they challenge to themselves a juridical power, to rescind sentences,
to have the power of excommunication as much as the churches that do ex-
communicate, to oppose or stop any church inferior from proceeding ; and
in a reverence to this their power, to give liberty to any person otiending, to
appeal before sentence unto them to judge of it, and to pronounce it.
3. The liberty of such appeals, afore or after sentence, through all those
gradual remedies, of classical, provincial, national (which we conceive should
be rather for matters of doctrine, than for the relief of persons of all sorts ;
and they should deal in generals rather than in such particulars, as them-
selves are more general assemblies), will breed great inconveniences. As,
1. Either the lower churches must spare many gross offenders in a nation,
that there may be few excommunications, and so prevent occasions of appeals
(and then they would not take away the dishonour done to Christ by multi-
tude of scandals), or else, if the lower churches be faithful in proceeding
against all such otfenders, yet by setting up three such courts over them for
gradual appeals, with liberty to appeal to them, there will, instead of reliev-
ing particular persons, be occasioned the greatest trouble and cumber to these
assemblies in multitude of causes depending ; for who will not appeal, know-
ing at last he can be but excommunicated '? And they must despatch these
causes either by committees only (and so to do, is to reduce the supreme
judgment to a fewer company of elders than were in the first classis or pro-
vincial synods that judged it, besides that it is a mere delegated power which
such committees exercise), or else they must trust the lower courts wholly,
and proceed according to their sentence ; and then to what end are such
appeals ? Surely the highest national court cannot deny to hear any man
that appeals to them, and if they will hear all that will appeal, they will be
filled with them ; and that will prove vexatious both to the persons and
churches appealing, and will be impossible to be despatched. And besides,
no man being to be excommunicated, but upon impenitency, which may be
where the fact is acknowledged and confessed, and yet the church not satis-
fied with the repentance (for an undue outward formal confession will easily
be acknowledged not to be that upon which churches should forbear excom-
munication, m case the fact be scandalous, it being a godly sorrow, 2 Cor.
vii. 9, 10, that is required of men in such a case), may therefore proceed
justly to excommunication, because they judge that he repents not, though
the appealer says he doth repent ; and then the trial will be of the man's
repentance, performed at his confession, whether it be godly or no, which how
can any judge of but upon their own having seen it, or putting the man to
a new repentance afresh upon a reiterated admonition by them, and how
then will a national assembly so easily be able to judge of it ? And if they
could, yet if they hear all things as fully over again, as all the inferior courts
did (or how shall they judge to the satisfaction of the appellant?), what
work would this create to all such assemblies ! It was objected against the
bishops' extensive power over so many congregations, that they had more
churches, and so more business to come before them, than any one man
could or themselves did manage, and therefore had their archdeacons and
chancellors, and the like under them ; but a national assembly will have
much more to do, and yet it sits not as the Sanhedrim, all the year, but only
a few weeks. To discourage men from those appeals at last by banishment,
236 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK V.
&c., if cast, is to eke out the spiritual power with the temporal. A sufficient
spiritual remedy is sought for, and it must be within itself; for that of the
magistrate is but external, though helpful, and we seek a sufficient govern-
ment, that was in the primitive times, when there was no Christian magis-
trates.
2. Such national assemblies, in a due proportion, should rather have work
suited to their constitution, viz., national reformation, and advices to the
magistrate about that which is common to all churches in the nation (and
they will find enough of it in all times), than every man's personal cause by
way of appeal (that hath a mind to appeal), to come afore them ; even as
civil assemblies, parhaments, &c., do not admit ordinary appeals from all
courts in this kingdom, but leave them to these courts, the kingdom afford-
ing matters of iar greater moment for their cognisance.
3.. These appeals still being made from one ecclesiastical court to another,
and those superior (when the cause is out of the congregation's hands), con-
sisting most of pastors, or if of others, yet of persons ecclesiastical (for as
such they sit in those assemblies, being homogeneal members of presbyteries,
and lay elders you will not call them), by this means all causes are taken up
into the clergy's hands, abstracted from the people ; and the clergy will take
part one with another, and the one ratify what the lower hath done, as the
high commission did what a particular bishop had done, against an inferior
minister or other.
4. When the cause comes to the national assembly, whose power is purely
ecclesiastical, either the appeals must rest here and go no further, and the
civil magistrate, if he back their sentence with a civil mulct, must, without
his examining of the cause, judge as they have determined it ; and so the
temporal power must pursue and execute the decrees of the spiritual, by an
implicit faith (which was the bondage the secular powers were in unto the
popish bishops in those times) ; or else they also must take full cognisance
of the cause, and have a power to redress and rectify the wrong, if they find
all these courts to have injured a person, perhaps difiering in judgment, or
the like. And then it must either be the supreme power, the high court of
parliament (and then that honourable court must be filled with all men's
ecclesiastical appeals), or it must be some lesser ordinary court of magistracy
inferior, which shall have power to correct the wrong ; and we believe the
national assembly will very hardly subject their sentence to their power, to
rescind and declare it to be unjust, so as to be bound by the magistrates'
power on them to recall it ; and yet, otherwise, it is in vain to appeal at all
to the magistrate. One of these ways must be taken, or else the civil magis-
trates must be denied to have appeals in such cases brought to them, but all
be left in the church's hands, and the benefit of appeals made to them alto-
gether be cut oft'.
5. If the king and parliament should, in the judgment of the national
assembly, aggrieve you in point of religion, may appeals be made to the
national assembly therein ? Will you appeal to the national assembly against
them ? Whether our brethren will not decline that answer that was given
by one of the brethren in the debate, why should we be afraid to affirm they
might appeal to them, we know not ; but we cannot see how the principles
of the prcsbyterial government can avoid the asserting of it. Surely that inde-
pendency so opprobriously ascribed to us, and retorted on us, is with sub-
mission to the magistrate, and an obedience by sufi'rage, without appealing
farther, we professing not to know any spiritual power on earth, to which an
appeal may be made from the sentence of the magistrate, especially if it be
the supreme authoritative magistrate. Though we acknowledge a relation to
Chap. ILJ the churches of christ. 237
no other ecclesiastical autliority that hath a coercive power sub poena excom-
municationis, or of delivering unto Satan, yet we own a subjection to an
assembly of other churches, as occasion is, and that as to an ordinance of
Christ. But now, to set up a national assembly, growing up from the eccle-
siastical state, as a court to whom appeals may be made from the sentence of
the supreme magistrate itself, is so transcendent a waj^ of independency, not
negatively only, as knowing no superior, but affirmatively also, subjecting the
civil power to the church, as the other deserves not the name of it. And if,
from the civil power, appeals may be made to such assemblies, then they have
the authority over it, such as under the notion of appeals is contended for.
They will have a power to convent, yea, to excommunicate, and that as a
joint body or parliament.
CHAPTER II.
What power synods composed of the elders of particular churches, occasionally
assembled, have in case of maladministration by any particular church.
As we acknowledge elective occasional synods of the elders of many
churches, as the churches have need to refer cases of difference to them, so
in case of maladministration, or an unjust proceeding in the sentence of
excommunication and the like, we acknowledge appeals or complaints may
be made to other churches ; and the elders of those churches met in a synod,
who being offended may, as an ordinance of Christ, judge and declare that
sentence to be null, void, and unjust ; and that not simply, as any company
of men may so judge, giving their judgments of a fact done, but as an ordi-
nance of Christ in such cases, and for that end sanctified by him to jud^e
and declare in matters of difference. And the church and eldership of a par-
ticular church, that proccedeth so unjustly, ought to look at this their deter-
mination as an ordinance of Christ to them ; and, entertaining it as such,
more sadly to review their own act and proceedings, to consider the grounds
which the synod gives why it is unjust, and themselves ought to acknowledo'e
it such, and receive the brother again, with acknowledgment of their sin, and
of the wrong done him ; yet not with an implicit faith, because the synod
hath so determined, as having a greater power from Christ to restore the inan.
In case this church will not own this person thus wrongfully ejected, these
churches, or any of them, upon this determination of their elders (the churches
at their return approving their sentence), may both receive the party in amoncr
themselves, and so relieve the man ; and further, also profess to hold no
communion with that church, if they perceive that church doth continue
obstinate, having either for the manner proceeded therein against the com-
mon principles of equity and right (such as in judging of matters of fact, civil
courts proceed by, as when matters are not sufficiently proved, &c.), or against
and besides the principles whereby churches are to proceed (as for the matter
of excommunication itself), which that church itself hath, and doth hold
forth and profess.
If it fall out that a person be thus cast, first by his own church, and now
by a synod of many churches, to whom he referred his cause and appealed,
he is bound rather to sit down than cursitare (as Cyprian's word and advice
is), run up and down, still to other and greater number of churches, and to
suffer wrong rather (as in 1 Cor. vi. the apostle in another case exhorts) than
engage churches against churches (which may prove the event) in his own
private quarrel.
In Christian commonwealths, appeals may be made in all such cases of
238 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK V.
wroncf to the magistrate, as to the other churches, the subject-matter of
excommunication being but such things as are against the common profession
of Christianity, in doctrine and manners, and not the niceties and curiosities
in theology, and such as the laws of the magistrate approve of; and the
manner of proceeding for the proof of the fact being the same that are to be
in all other courts civil.
Now these things being premised and acknowledged by us, we proceed to
the negative part, what power we deny to synods in point of maladministra-
tions, which our brethren would give them ; and herein the points in difference
are three.
1. We deny them to have power to rescind a sentence, but only doctrinally
to judge a sentence of excommunication to be void and unjust. Now the
power to rescind a sentence, according to the acceptation of the words, im-
ports, 1, An act of the same kind of ministerial power that gave the sentence.
It imports the same power to make it void that did establish it ; yea, a power
containing in it all that the inferior hath, and is withal superior to it. The
Christian magistrate hath a power over churches, in case of wrong, not only
to declare the sentence to be unjust, as he is a Christian magistrate, but to
cause that church that pronounced it to revoke it as such ; but yet the assem-
blv will not own that they have power to rescind the sentence, as they say
synods may. Therefore this word (as in synods the assembly would place
the power of it) must import not simply power of judging and declaring the
sentence unjust, for that is refused ; but further, a power of the same kind,
and yet superior, by virtue of which the sentence is made void, coram ecclesia,
before the church, and is now so to be conceived of all. And as in the act
of the church that excommunicated the man, there was a further power put
forth than a bare declaration that he was to be excommunicated ; for they
actually, with the power of Christ, did cast out and deliver the man to Satan ;
so here, in this act that bears the name of rescinding, there must be supposed
a power not simply to declare the sentence unjust, but further, a power upon
their sentence to make void the other's act, that the person before excom-
municated stands now coram ecclesia, unexcommunicated.
2. A second power which we deny to synods, which is contended for by
our brethren, which also the word rescind imports, is the like coercive power in
this svnod given them by Christ, whereby to compel this church to acknow-
ledge their sentence unjust, and to receive that brother again. And the
punishment by which they are enabled to compel them to it, must be of the
same kind with that which these supposed inferior churches have over their
members, if they did not obey ; namely, to excommunicate and deliver up
to Satan that church, classis, or province, that hath thus unjustly proceeded,
and will not receive this man in again, upon their rescinding it. And this
it imports in the sense of our brethren, for otherwise they do but intend that
government in these cases to be in synods, which we the dissenting brethren
contend for ; which is, that these synods, and the churches under them, may
in some cases withdraw a communion from other churches offending, but not
presume to excommunicate, or deliver them to Satan, or unchurch them ;
and lay a law upon their consciences to shut up their church meetings, and
to be all heathens and publicans to one another, as well as to their synod
and their churches. And yet this which we contend for is cried down with
this common prejudice, that it is no government, because their power of ex-
communication is wanting. Again, when they restore the party wronged, is
it to their communion only, or to the communion of that church out of
which he was excommunicated also ? If only to their own, then still it is
no more than what we acknowledge neighbour churches may do in case of
Chap. II.] the churches of christ. 239
wrong, and it is a relief to the party. But if also they have power to re-
store him to the cliurch he was cast out of actually, then they must have
power to compel that church to receive him. In this case these whole
churches and their officers would be subjects to be dealt with by these
synods ; for, 1, the appellant wroncjed is one party, and they another ; and,
2, the excommunication was a public church act, wherein the elders and the
people are involved, especially when they all stand to own him, and^' to exe-
cute the sentence.
3. A third thing wherein we differ is concerning matters of appeals, we
taking them as importing, in the sense of our brethren, a juridical superior
power, in the superior synods to be appealed unto. Concerning which we
say, 1, that such appeals are not so absolutely necessary to the government
of the churches, nor doth the law of nature necessarily require them ;
2, especially not such appeals as should acknowledge a superior power in the
synod appealed unto, either by making the appeal afore the sentence is
given in particular churches, and so the matter is taken out of their hands,
by virtue of a superior power in synods, or by making the appeal after
sentence given, we deny them to be such fixed and solemn courts of judi-
cature.
First, As for that rescinding power pretended, if more than declarative is
intended, we conceive that the nature of the sentence of excommunication,
when untimely executed, is such, that by whatever court (that is the first
subject of pronouncing it) it is pronounced and executed, it is not capable
of being rescinded. It is capable of being declared void, null, or unjust ;
but not of being rescinded, in the sense afore explained. In matters civil,
one court having a superior power may in a true and proper sense rescind
the sentence of another, because it hath a proper power of the same kind,
by virtue of which it can make that act void which stood before by virtue of
the inferior power as valid, each act depending upon that power which on
earth is set up ; and so the greater may undo and reverse what the former
did. But thus to rescind a sentence of excommunication, no power on earth
is able to do. Which is evinced thus :
There are two parts of that sentence, one outward, which the church per-
forms (which is ejection out of communion), the other inward, which God
accompanies the sentence with. And if the sentence were formally no more
but a casting out of the outward communion of the church on earth, then a
greater power in earth might have power to rescind their sentence, and re-
store him to communion ; but there is a further judicial act annexed unto it,
which is binding in heaven, and delivering to Satan, &c., which must be sup-
posed a special judicial act of God. Such man's sin is in some sense bound
in heaven, till he repents, when he commits it, and is admonished by any
Christian, whether he be in the church or no, and whether he be brought
before the church or no for it ; and so the brethren that admonish him in
order to excommunication, may be said, in some sense, to bind his sin. But
there is a further judicial act of God's put forth, when the church hath
ministerially sentenced the man aright ; for the church so binds sin as no
private brother can, or else it might be said, that a brother may deliver to
Satan. Hence that assembly, which is the first subject of this power from
God, hath the promise of this, and God is supposed by us to have performed
it upon their sentence ; and then it is impossible there should be a superior
power of the same kind on earth to rescind it, or unbind it in heaven, and to
whom a further promise is made, that when they pronounce it void there is an
unbinding in heaven. So as suppose the congregational or classical church (be
* Qu. ' to own and '? — Ed.
2-iO THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK V.
it either the one or the other that is acknowledged the first subject of this
power ; and which of these should be, could never yet be brought to the de-
bate) hath bound the man, and the provincial confirms it, and binds him
also, if the national hath power to rescind this, it hath then one key to
unloose what these three keys have locked. The answer to this is only that
this argument goes upon a false supposition, that appeals should be when
the excommunication is just, whereas they are only when the appeal is
unjust, and so the sin is not bound in heaven. To which it is replied,
1. In case of appeals. That is the thing still in question between the
parties, whether it be just or unjust ? And therefore to suppose that all
appeals fall out only in cases of real injustice and wrong, cannot be a suffi-
cient answer. Yea,
2. The sentence is to be judged by all the churches (till the matter is
examined and cleared to the contrary) to be a right sentence of excommuni-
cation, and that his sin is bound in heaven : for they are rather to judge that
the church hath proceeded rightly, than to judge on the appellant's side,
until the matter is cleared. And so still it goes up as a sentence binding
in heaven.
3. "Whether the sentence be just or unjust, the matter is capable of no
more than declaring and adjudging it such accordingly ; and therefore it is
capable of no such act as may be called rescinding. For if it be just, no
sentence on earth can rescind God's act upon that first sentence, for it is
bound in heaven, and man cannot alter God's act ; and if it be unjust, then
there needs no power to rescind it, but only to declare it to be unjust and
void, and so to hold the man as if he had never been excommunicated. And
if synods have but such a declarative power, then let no more be affirmed,
and we will not contend about it.
4. If they have power of rescinding the sentence, then the act done by
the inferior courts is made void by their sole sentence, without any act of
reversing, by the consent of those congregations or churches that have pro-
nounced it. For no superior court hath that power to rescind the sentence
of another, but hath it so, as by their act the sentence is made void, with-
out any act of revocation by the lower court. Thus the honourable house of
parliament, if it rescinds an act of an inferior court, sends not down to that
inferior court to reverse it, but doth it without them. And if that be the
intent of this rescinding, let it be so declared.
CHAPTER III.
The other prerogative of power chaUenged by synods, to excommunicate other
churches, considered and invalidated.
The second prerogative of power challenged by synods, which we contend
against, and deny to them, is such a coercive power to be in them, as given
them by Christ, to excommunicate other churches, and so by that rod to
enforce them to revoke their sentence of maladministration, and receive a
person wrongfully excommunicated by them.
That such a power is not in synods to excommunicate a church or churches,
or so rescind a sentence passed in a particular church, is evinced by these
following arguments.
1. For such a pretended power, there is neither precept nor example.
(1.) The apostles never did exercise such a power, who yet had power in
all churches, and over persons among them.
Chap. III.] the ohueches of cheist. 241
(2.) None of the reformed churches ever practised it. Mr Paget, a learned
presbyterial writer, acknowledgeth that none of the reformed churches ever
practised it. Mr Cartwright, speaking of this power, did in his days put
an if it may he upon it.
If it be said their government is so good, as it hath had no occasion to put
such a power into act : I answer.
Let the Arminian congregation, that were in the low countries, be remem-
bered. Though a national synod was called, yet none of them were excom-
municated ; and yet we believe they judged their errors worthy of their cen-
sure. So the churches of anabaptists among them, who not only hold the
not baptizing of children, but run into many other gross errors, were never
yet excommunicated.
If it be said that they forbear to do it, because of great inconveniences
that would follow, by provoking of multitudes ; and that it tends more (in
such cases) unto edification to forbear it, than to execute it ; it is replied,
1. That God hath suited his ordinances to the ordinary way of his provi-
dence, and therefore would not have given an ordinary standing power for
government, which could not ordinarily be executed without tumult and dis-
turbance ; and therefore there is no such power given.
2. If a church or churches did deserve it, it cannot be for edification to
forbear it ; for not to excommunicate them is to edify them in sin. Churches
that deserve excommunication, can bo edified in nothing by being connived
at in their sin, that will damn them. And excommunication is the means
appointed by God for the destroying the flesh and saving the soul.
3. Neither can a multitude be an excuse for the neglect. For, however,
these synods (if they have such a power) are to discharge their duty, and
the soul or souls of sinners must thus be punished.
4. Let it be observed, that such a power is contended for by the presby-
terial divines which was never practised, which themselves think and judge
inconvenient to practise ; and yet without this power granted to them, they
say there is no government. And herein lies the main of this great con-
troversy, whether they should have such a power or no, which they never
have exercised; and themselves think it to be ordinarily inconvenient to
exercise it, reserving it as a rod in the house which they never will use, as
if they kept it to scare children with. But the efficacy of government lies
not in the speculation and doctrine, but in what is practicable. Shall king-
doms be disturbed about the dispute of that which in the practice is a
chimera, and when they have it, shall be exercised arbitrarily, and at discre-
tion? Yea, may not a trial be made, whether that the other way (which
they call no government) may not be sufficient ?
We further conclude this first head of argument with this, that as such a
synodical power hath no precedent or example in the primitive practices, nor
in the reformed churches, so it hath this character upon it, that none but
the pope and bishops, and synods of bishops, ever practised it ; and they
have practised it by interdicting kingdoms, not simply as civil states, but as
churches in kingdoms, commanding the ministers to forbear to administer
the holy things unto any that did cleave to their prince, or for any the like
causes. And certainly, by the principles of this doctrine, a general council
of all the reformed churches may in like manner excommunicate any nation
or kingdom whom they judge heretical, or to make a schism from them ; for
whilst the foundation of the power of synods is pleaded to lie in Christ's in-
stitution, as it hath ordinarily been urged in the assembly in answer unto
our reasons, that the church catholic is one politic body, and so the elders
VOL. XI. Q
242 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK V.
of all churches have power over any churches that are parts of that great
body, be they in nations or in provinces ; which subjects all states as truly
to the thunderbolt of excommunication from foreign churches, as it did once
to Rome.
What though it be said that such counsels are not likely to be practised ;
or if so, it must be with the states' own consent. Yet still the mystery is,
that such a power is contended for as a rod over them, as well as over lesser
churches ; for though they have not excommunicated, de facto, any particular
churches, yet they have claimed that power as a rod to keep them in awe
with.
If it be said, the pope challenged to do this as an head of the church
universal, and as infallible, we reply, that there is indeed this difterence,
that he, as but one, usurps it, and as the external head of the church ; but
yet these challenge the same power, as being themselves the catholic church
itself representatively. For if to tell the church, Mat. xviii., be in its ascent
to tell general councils as the church, then they must be interpreted to be
the catholic church, and infallibility may in the issue (through men's pride)
become the claim also, by how much many consenting are more likely to
have the Holy Ghost to assist them. than that, and so have more reason for
their claim than one set up to challenge it. And at first, that one was set
up only to receive appeals, and to rescind sentences, and to excommunicate
churches ; and from granting to them that power at the first, did that other
of infallibility spring.
A second head of arguments is drawn from the nature of excommunication,
because that it contains more in that, than that which we call non-com-
munion, namely this, that persons are not only cast from communion with
all these churches (which we acknowledge), but further, are delivered to Satan
for the internal part thereof. And for the external part, it is strange that
this law of synods should oblige their conscience, that they should not meet
among themselves, whenas yet they are already a church, and were a church
without any power derived from their associating with others. All then that
they can fall from by virtue of the sentence of the synod, is but what they
have from them and among them by their association, and not what they
have among themselves. Yea, the very words whereby excommunication is
expressed is but this. Sit tihi ethnicus, 'Let him be to thee an heathen,' and
* Take that wicked one from among you' ; and therefore when neighbour
churches deal so with a church, they can but eject and keep them and their
members out from amongst them. But this power contended for goes fur-
ther, for the synod assumes to throw a church out of itself, and to make
them to be heathens and pubhcans inter se, among themselves, who yet have
all this while been a church.
And that which further strengthens all this, is that very principle which
the assembly doth go upon to establish this power in synods and presbyteries
(given up in their answer to our reasons against presbyteries), that as fami-
lies are bound to join into some congregational church, so those churches
into association together ; and as these joined in a new congregation gives
them power over each other, so this association of churches gives the whole
a power over each of these churches. Though we wholly assent not to this
latter, yet supposing it (and it is one of the best and fairest grounds for the
presbyterial way), the law of this principle (if the parallel be rightly made
up) will not extend to a power of excommunicating any of these churches so
associated. For, 1, if you take that external part of excommunication, it
is a cutting men off from all ordinances wherein church communion Hes (as
some hold), but more especially from the sacrament of the Lord's supper
Chap. III.] the churches of christ. 243
(which latter is acknowledged by all) ; for since suspension cuts off from
the Lord's snpper, therefore excommunication must do it much more.
Now the parallel law between these two kinds of associations must run thus,
that as a congregation casts out of the communion of all those ordinances
which a congregation is the proper seat of, so this greater association can by-
virtue of its association only cast out of those ordinances that belong unto
them, as such an associated body in common, and from among themselves
in particular ; and then that sentence can arise to no more than what we
contend to be the only power that churches have one with another, and that
is non-communion. The reason is clear, because they can but cast that
church out of their association, and from having any interest in their counsel
and advice, &c., for associated presbyteries have not the sacraments, nor
the solemn constant ordinances of worship, and therefore they can but by
virtue of this association deny them communion with themselves ; and this
we grant to neighbour churches, that they may and ought to deal thus with
an offending church, by virtue of that apostolic rule, ' From such turn away.'
But this power of excommunicating a church contended for is a further thing :
it is a laying a law upon a church, to dissolve their being any longer a church,
until they do repent of that sin they charge them vv'ith ; it is to call in their
charter, that they can meet no more inter se, among themselves, to enjoy the
sacrament, or any other ordinance whatsoever. This is beyond the extent
of the power of an association ; yea, this is more than they are able to exe-
cute ; and doth Christ give power to do that which they cannot execute ?
Now they may keep them from communion with them, either by not letting
them into the assembly (and therefore they had ostiarii, door-keepers, in the
primitive times), or they may do it by thrusting them out, as the priests of
Israel did the king when he came to offer sacrifice ; or rather by a moral
contest against them, or forbearing to communicate when they are present ;
but they cannot keep them from meeting inter se, among themselves. In
the primitive times, indeed, they had recourse to the power of magistrates
for it, but we seek for a sulficient ecclesiastical remedy.
To this, if it be retorted, that such will the case be too when in a particular
congregation a company of persons deserving excommunication are ejected
(as a pastor, and others with him), yet they will meet still, and no law can
oblige them to the contrary ; we reply by giving this difference of the case.
1. That when a congregation doth cast out the very members, the act itself,
whereby they cast them out from among them, leaves them barely a company
of outlaws, without church state or relation among themselves ; for they had
it but as members of that church they are now cast out of; and they can
retain no other relation left them that gives them actual right to ordinances,
for this is their original first relation. And therefore if they meet, yea, with
a mutual consent to be a new church, they meet as men, and outlawed from
a church relation which they had put their souls upon the laws of, or at least,
by a judicial act passed on them, they have now forfeited. They fall as the
angels from that original state, and if they will set up a new kingdom, they
do it but as the devils do. But although neighbour churches did cast them
out from among them, that act, in the nature and extent of it, reacheth not
to cast them out of that relation of a church that they had originally among
themselves ; neither do they fall by virtue of that act (which is all that is in
the Synod's power) from that church relation they had among themselves,
which they had before their associating with them, and was the foundation
of it.
2. By that act of being cast out of this congregational relation, they are
cast out of the formerly enjoyed communion of the Lord's supper, in a con-
244 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK V.
staney in that church, which they never enjoyed at all in that other classical
church, for it is not the seat of it. And so this act of excommunication, as
in a congregational church performed, casts them out of all ordinances, and
out of all that is proper to such relation and fellowship ; but it is not so in
the other case. And hence it comes to pass that excommunication from all
ordinances can only be in a church where all ordinances are ; and therefore
not in or by a classical church, where the main ordinances men are shut out
from are not administered.
3. This act of a synod's excommunicating a church is yet further, for the
external part of it, not simply an obligation not to meet for ordinances, and
to account of each other as heathens, but further yet, the sentence terminates
itself upon their church fellowship and communion, dissolves that, cuts them
off from being an external body or spouse to Christ, gives them such a bill
of divorce as removes the candlestick, takes that in pieces, yea, delivers them
as such to Satan, and makes them as heathens and publicans each to other.
For otherwise, if the act be only the synod's putting away this church from
among themselves, or the communion of other churches, that we readily grant
may be done, and surely it is remedy sufficient, through Christ's blessing,
(although this is reckoned no government). But to do the other act men-
tioned to church or churches, Christ hath not given power to synods.
If it be answered, as it is by some, that the object of this excommunica-
tion of a church is only the persons therein materially considered, but not
their church state, otherwise than by consequence, we reply, that formally,
the object of this sentence is a church as such, which is evident from this,
that the great argument alleged by the presbyterial divines is, that else there
is no remedy for an erring church as well as for heretical persons ; and
also that the sins which are the grounds of such excommunications be still
church acts, public, not personal, as grossly evil administrations, or per-
missions of notorious sins, or heresies professed, upheld, defended, adhered
to by all in their assemblies. And how else should excommunication of a
church differ from the suspension of a church ? This puts them into that
state, as during the time of their excommunication they are to be reckoned
as no church until they repent ; for if they are as heathens and publicans,
then they are no church, unless we will make heathen churches, which is a
contradiction. And if that whole church should die impenitent, they are to
be reckoned to die as out of church state among themselves, as well as in
relation to other churches.
Now, to prove that it is not in the power of synods thus to do to churches,
let the following reasons be considered.
1. This is a maxim of the reformed churches, that ecclesia sunt pares,
churches are equal, and par in parem non hahet potestatem, one equal hath
not power over another. Admonish they may, withdraw communion they
may ; for as one brother may do so from another, so these churches may
from an erring church ; yea, and a synod being an ordinance to them to heal
them, and consisting of more elders than are in that church, they may declare
Christ's command and will to them, but yet they have not power to deliver
to Satan, to unchurch them, &c. We find not that a synod or company of
elders are called a church, and if they should be so named, yet still they
have not more of church in them than other churches have ; nay, they have
less, for they want a body of the faithful, and their interest joined with these
elders, who are more usually called the church. They are not the seat of
the main ordinances for which churches were constituted, they have not the
sacraments administered, they are not bodies erected primarily for worship,
but only so far as may occasionally accompany and subserve their discus-
Chap. III.] the churches of christ. 245
sions and determinations. It would therefore be strange that these should
have so much more of church in them, as to have power to unchurch other
churches and bodies to Christ, when themselves are but representative at
most of the body of Christ (for Christ hath no representative body to him),
but every church consisting of elders and people are the body of Christ, and
so called, when the other never hath that name.
2. To dissolve a church's external estate as to all ordinances is a matter
so far above excommunicating single persons, though never so many, that it
is Christ's j)rerogative alone to do it. This is confirmed,
(1.) By like instances in civil states, wherein to dissolve an incorporate
town, and to call in and take away their charter and privilege, belongs to the
supreme power ; and though judges and others may deal with persons in
corporations, yet the corporations themselves depend on the crown.
(2.) It is confirmed by Scripture, Rev. ii. 5. Christ from heaven makes it
his prerogative to remove the Ephesian candlestick : ' Repent, or I will come
quickly and remove thy candlestick.' The candlestick was their church state :
Rev. i. 23, ' The seven candlesticks are the seven churches ; ' and therefore he
speaks not of their mystical state as they were members of the mystical body,
but of them as they were a candlestick artificially formed up into that holy
fellowship amongst them. So also it was God's prerogative alone to give a
bill of divorce to Israel as she was a church, and so it is expressed. And if
it be said it was done ministerially, by the prophets declaring it, and so may
this also be done to a church by its ministers, we reply, that it was done by
them prophetically, as foretelling it ; but there is no such spirit of prophecy
in synods.
(3.) It is Christ's prerogative alone to build and erect a church, without the
intervention of ministerial ecclesiastical power to derive power to them ;
therefore also to dissolve that fellow-ship, and the use thereof, belongs only
to him. Churches to be erected may and ought to have the direction and
consent of neighbour churches, because a new sister is to be added to, and
associated with them, but they receive no power from them to become a
church. It wasjiot the intervention of the apostles' power that constituted
churches, further than as they converted materials for churches to be made
out of, and as they directed and taught them to become bodies unto Christ,
teaching them to do whatsoever Christ hath commanded them ; but we never
read that making them churches was a ministerial act in them ; we read they
ordained elders, but not that they ordained churches. Paul says he planted
indeed, and he was a wise master builder ; but he speaks the one of con-
verting persons, the other of doctrines, because he speaks of building hay
and stubble afterwards.
It is the great error of some of this age, that having lost all church state
and ministry, therefore, say they, there must come apostles to make churches
again ; whereas if all ordinances had been lost under antichrist, yet if there
be saints alive, and they have the apostles' writings, those writings do
authorise them as fully to become a church, and choose ministers, and then
to ordain them, as if the apostles were alive. Moses was not the builder of
the national church of the Jews, but Christ immediately did it, and not
merely gave directions : Heb. iii. 3, ' This man Christ hath more honour
than Moses, inasmuch as he that builded the house hath more honour thaa
the house,' whereof Moses was but a part himself.
If it be answered to all this, that by excommunication their fundamental
church state is not dissolved, as the character of a brother or of a minister
is not so defnced when excommunicated ; but that, if he repent again, he re-
mains a minister without a new ordination ; we reply. Besides the reasons
246 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK V.
fore-mentioned, that so likewise if Christ should remove the candlestick and
unchurch any, if they repent their church-state would be restored ; and
2, if they be thrown out of their own church by excommunication, this
church-state must remain as it were in the air, as an accident without a
subject ; and 3, if they be cast out of the visible church, which is the greater,
by excommunication, then they are cast out of the less also.
It may, and hath been said, that in cases of maladministrations, wherein
churches have miscai'ried and erred, though synods have the power of ex-
communication in such cases, yet it is not necessary for the rectif3'ing of that
evil that they should proceed against the church, so as the church should
be the object of their dealing with ; but it may be enough for them to deal
with persons only that are scandalous, whom the church will not amend;
and that then, in case of the church's neglect, they may excommunicate
those persons.
Now unto this we reply, that in these cases of evil administrations, what
power synods are to be trusted withal is to be primarily, or at least as much,
exercised upon the church that hath miscarried and neglects its duty as upon
the persons ; and therefore it will not salve it that they should let the church
alone, or deal more lightly with them, and so take upon them to excommu-
nicate the persons whom the church neglects to excommunicate. Which is
made good by these reasons.
1. From the privilege and power of that church, be it classical or con-
gregational, that is the first subject of excommunication ; they have the
power first from Christ to do it, and a command so to do, and the duty lies
on them. And therefore synods are to call upon them, and to provoke them
to do it who have that power committed to them, and not to take it out of
their hands ; for synods are not to assume more power than the apostles did.
When the church of Corinth had neglected to excommunicate the incestuous
Corinthian, Paul did not take it upon him and excommunicate him himself;
but in this case he deals with the church for not doing their duty, because
the power of judging was committed to them : ' Do not ye judge them that
are within ?' 1 Cor. v. 12. He blames them, lays it upon them as a sin,
and if they had still continued in that neglect, their sin had been as great as
that of the man himself, and greater. And therefore, Christ also in his
epistle from heaven to the church of Thyatira, Rev. ii. 20, blames that
church and the angel thereof for suflering Jezebel to teach, and lays the sin
upon them in this case, as well as upon Jezebel herself. And therefore, if
synods are to excommunicate at all, and have power to excommunicate the
persons, they must proceed against the church also.
(1.) If it be said that the church must be supposed not to see that reason,
for want of light, to excommunicate a member or members, that the synod
doth, and so they may not have that cause to deal with the churches that
they have with the person or member ; we reply, that if the sin be not evi-
dently notorious in all men's eyes, deserving excommunication, but such as
it may be well supposed the inferior church might not see ground for ex-
communication, why should the synod meddle with cases of that nature, why
should they not rather rest in the sentence of those inferior courts ? And
if it be such a sin as is notorious, and the scandal answerably, then, surely,
this church that person belongs unto is as much, yea more, in fault for their
neglect or partiality. And surely synods, if they had any such authority,
being such great and superior bodies, should not intermeddle but in cases
suitable to themselves, in cases of moment, great and manifest to all men's
consciences.
And (2) the constitution of synods, and the relation they bear to churches,
Chap. III.] the chubches of chkist. 247
argues it. They are not as totum integrale, but colledivum, not an integral
whole; they are not ecdesia inteyralis, but collectiva, not an integral church,
but collective ; that is, they are in our brethren's intent a church of churches,
if a church at all, and not in an immediate way a church of the members of
those churches singly and apart considered. Their first and primary rela-
tion is therefore to the churches as a part of that whole, and but secondarily
unto the members ; and they are therefoi-e accordingly to deal in all such cases
of omission with the churches. Their work is to have the care and cure of
churches, and their miscai'riages ; and therefore, to deal with members only,
and let the churches alone, is to neglect that which is their proper charge.
(3.) So it was in the government of Judah ; the Sanhedrim did not them-
selves meddle with the person to be judged, and pronounce the sentence in-
stead of the judges of a particular city, but left it to them still to judge,
according to their proper privilege, but dealt with the judges in case they
pronounced not the sentence. And so here it should be, if we will suppose
any such power at all to be in synods.
2. It may, and hath been said, that presbyterial government supposeth
the fault of this excommunication to lie in the elders that excommunicated
the man, and so need not deal with the churches by way of coercion to them,
but only with those elders that had the hand in it, who may be deposed, and
others placed in their room.
To which we reply, 1, That the people are supposed also at least to give
their consent to the excommunication of a person in a church, by their own
acknowledgment, and according to the practice of the reformed churches,
yea, and are to judge, as the jury doth, by finding a man guilty ; and the
officers are as the judges ; so in the church of Corinth, 1 Cor. v. vi., and if
so, then they are to be judged in fault as well as the officers.
But, 2, if the people are not to be censured and judged, yet suppose they
cleave to their officers in this act, as thinking that they ought, and as being
convinced with them that this man is to remain excommunicated, and there-
fore dare not partake with him, as it is their duty in such a case, then the
people are to be excommunicated as well as their officers, and both of them
for this same thing, as being a church act according to their interests common
to both.
3. If the officers only should be excommunicated in this case, and others
put in their rooms, then, 1, if the people do cleave to their former officers,
these officers will want a church to officiate unto ; and why should they desert
their elders, when they in their consciences judge their act to be just ? It
becomes them to say. Let us all die with them in such a case. And if the
synod will excommunicate a pastor and the elders of a congregation (supposing
the people cleave to them), where is it that you will excommunicate him ?
In their own church, or in your churches ? In his own church the people
are against it ; and if in your churches, where is the people's concurring
consent to this man's excommunication ? And if it be done in your churches,
you only throw him out of your own ; or, 2, if they do not cleave to their
officers, yet they conscientiously judging that they ought not to receive the
man into communion with themselves, here is still no sufficient remedy for
the man by this.
4. Let it be further considered, that if these elders only should be deposed,
yet they are perhaps the whole, the greater part at least, of a classis (for by
the greater part everything is carried), and so of the elders of many congre-
gations ; yea, if the provincial had seconded the sentence, then the greater
part of the elders of a province are to be excommunicated also, and if the
people cleave to them (as of old they did use to do to theu' bishops), then the
248 THE GOVERNMENT OP [BoOK V.
people of all those churches also must be excommunicated, and what a havoc
of the churches will this make !
If it be said that in this case, as in a rebellion, some few are singled out
for example to the rest, it is answered,
1. It is not in this as in civil government, for there capital punishments
are chiefly for example, to prevent and deter others ; but here this of excom-
munication is for the personal good of those that have sinned, to destroy the
flesh that they may be saved, and therefore the souls that deserve it ought
and must be excommunicated ; neither is there any warrant to think that
when the merit and obstinacy of the sin calls for that ordinance appointed, the
only means to cure it (which ciire is only to bring sinners to godly repentance),
that that sin will be healed by any lower means of making others an example.
The excommunication of some few may be a means to prevent those that are
not fallen, but not those that are fallen into obstinacy. 2. In such civil
mulcts, princes and states have power to pardon the rebels, or to pass the
crime by, because the injury (so far as it is civil to themselves), but no
ecclesiastical court hath power to forgive but where Christ forgives, and he
forgives only the penitent ; nor yet ought they to forbear if they have the
power of inflicting this spiritual punishment.
Lastly, let the inconvenience be considered, if synods should excommunicate
persons (when the inferior churches did acquit them) without excommunicating
the churches themselves, what confusion and disturbance it is like to bring.
The persons excommunicated will say. Where I am known and am a member,
there I am acquitted and not meddled with ; but by strangers and the elders
of a nation (having taken the cause out of their hands) I am condemned.
This will bolster up persons, and make them obstinate, and they will oppose
sentence against sentence.
CHAPTER IV.
Arguments against subordination of synods to exercise ecclesiastical jurisdiction
or government. — The first argument, that there is no warrant or designment
of such a subordination in all the Scriptures.
Though we judge synods to be of great use for the finding out and declaring
of truth in difficult cases, and encouraging to walk in the truth, for the healing
ofi'ences, and to give advice unto the magistrate in matters of religion ; and
though we give great honour and conscientious respect unto their deter-
minations ; yet since not only an occasional but a standing use of them is
asserted and maintained, and that in subordination of one unto another, as
juridical ecclesiastical courts, and this in all cases, we humbly present these
reasons against it.
All subordinations of these spiritual courts, having greater and lesser degrees
of power, to which in their order causes are to be brought, must have the
greatest and most express warrant and designment in the word for them.
"Whence it is argued thus.
Arg. 1. Those courts that must have the most express warrant and design-
^ment for them in the word, and yet have not the least, their power is to be
suspected, and not erected in the church of God ; but these have not the
least : therefore, &c.
There ought to be the greatest and most express warrant, and that for two
things belonging to them: 1, for their subordination and number; 2, for
their bounds and limits of power ; and because this principle is made use of
Chap. IV.] the churches of christ. 249
both in the point in hand and other of like nature, namely, to argue a pari
ratione, from like and parallel reason, the argument to establish this propo-
sition shall proceed accordingly from the strength of like reason in other cases
and instances, that there ought to be a warrant and designment in the word
for them.
1. From the like reason, in the case of subordination of officers in the
church one over another, there was a special institution, and it is required,
or we own them not ; and that for intensive power and extensive power ;
and therefore for the subordination of such courts also. The rule of pro-
portion holds ; for a government of and by special subordinations, whether
of one church officer or person over another, and of him over others, or of a
many in the like degree of subordination, are but several forms of govern-
ment, of which there is the like reason in common. As of subordinations
in a monarchical way, wherein but some one person is superior to another
downwards, or in an aristocratical way throughout, in tbis they come all to
one ; that if there be to be an institution or warrant for the one, there is to
be for the other, whether God or men be to be the instituters of them. Now,
in the government of the church for the subordination of officers, there was
an express institution, or men ought not to have assumed it : 1 Cor. xii. 18,
' God hath set in his church, first apostles, secondarily prophets and evan-
gelists' (who were of a parallel order), ' thirdly teachers ;' and the difference
of power in apostles and evangelists is by subordination ; but Christ hath
not set the like subordination of courts.
2. It is proved from what the presbyterial principles themselves reject.
An institution is required by them in the case of subordination of bishops,
archbishops, popes, in their arguing against them and their power ; yea, and
by the episcopal writers themselves, who, when it is objected that if there
may be a bishop and an archbishop over them, why not a patriarch over
archbishops, and a pope over all ? they deny this, and reject a patriarch
or pope (although these popes should renounce infallibility), as not warranted
by the word. They say, an higher and more universal subordination alters
the case. And the usual exception against this subordination of such church
governors is, that in Scripture we read neither of the name of an archbishop,
nor of the thing, and therefore not of a subordination. The hke may be
said of these ; where read we of councils provincial, national, names, or
things ? Yea, and in this way of arguing (in this respect) the advantage is
on this side rather ; for we are sure that once there was in the church such
a subordination in church officers, evangelists over pastors, apostles over
evangelists (only they were extraordinary, and so no patterns). But of such
subordinations of councils in an aristocratical way, there is nothing to be found.
3. It is argued from like and just reason, in other societies and bodies
politic. In all kingdoms and commonwealths, well ordered and constituted,
there is, and ought to be, a set and express order, by the laws, both of the
number and bounds of courts of judicatory, from whom and to whom appeals
are made, and in what cases, &c. ; and that this subordination should be set
forth and fixed by the law, is as necessary as the laws and rules by which
men in a kingdom are to be governed. The wisdom of the law doth judge
it not enough to appoint several kinds of officers, as to say, councillors, Ser-
jeants, judges ; but designeth also and appoints several courts, with their
power and bounds, the designment of which (especially standing courts being
made up of these) is a matter of much more moment than the other. Yea,
and still the greater and higher such courts and assemblies are, having
amplitude of power over others, the more express evidence and warrant for
their power there is and ought to be, as for parliamentary power, and the
250 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK V.
privileges thereof. And this is evident, as from the example of all kingdoms,
so from what the Scripture speaks of the constitution of them. Each part
of the subordination of such power, in all government, both was and is called
a creation of men in things human, whether it be in a monarchical or aris-
tocratical way : 1 Pet. ii., ' Submit ^yourselves to every human creation.'
Aud he speaks there evidently of (and therefore thus styleth) the subor-
dination of powers in a commonwealth, whether officers or courts ; for it
follows, * whether unto the king as supreme, or unto governors, as those that
are sent by him,' &c. ; and so have subordinations of power under him. Now
parallel, spiritual, and ecclesiastical government with this. As in the rear-
ing of an human fabric, and contignation of power, there must be an ordi-
nance or creation from man, when God hath left the framing of it (as in this
case he hath), so this subordination being in divine power, there must be a
divine institution of it, besides that of the distinction of the officers them-
selves.
4. It is argued with like reason from Christ's institution. Mat. xviii. If
in a particular church Christ hath prescribed the several subordinations of
proceedings, and set forth the degrees, bounds, and orders of them, then
much more it is required in these, by how much a larger extent of power is
committed to them. The fii'st rule in Mat. xviii. for proceeding is, ' If thy
brother ofiend thee, tell him thyself ;' then, 2, ' Take two or three, and if he
hear not them,' then, 3, ' tell the church.' If there were a thousand breth-
ren in a congregation, a man were not bound, nor were it orderly in an
ordinary and set way, to take, as the church shall please, first two or three,
and then ten, and then twenty, and still the like proportion of a greater and
greater number, ere he comes to the church itself. But Christ hath set the
order, and his wisdom saw it meet thus to design and limit the proceedings
in a particular church. And it had been much more necessary to have
appointed the like about these more general and greater assemblies, because
every one of these courts (intended) have the power of a sentence and judg-
ment, whereas those two or three proceed but in a way of admonition, in
order to a superior court. Shall he take care of congregations (which are
esteemed the meanest), and not for these, of which, if he should not have
set the bounds of power, and the subordination thereof, none would know
what belongs to them, who is in fault, if offences be not corrected ? Nor
would any know whom first to appeal unto. I will appeal to the national
assembly first, says one, and am not bound to the classical or provincial.
Another would say, I will appeal to a general council, which can best judge,
and will be sure to make an end of it. Why should any be hindered from
going, jMr saltiim, if Christ hath not set forth and obliged us to these sub-
ordinations in their order ?
5. In the churches of the Jews, the subordinations that were, were set
forth and determined by institution or example, how many courts there
should be, and where to rest. There were the courts of the cities and the
towns, and then their Sanhedrim, to which the cause v/as to be carried, if
it were too hard for their particular courts, Deut. xvii. In the New Testa-
ment, we have, for removing scandals, a congregational standing court and
government (or be it a classical standing presbytery, over many congrega-
tions, as our brethren say), and we have an example also of going out from
a particular standing church, whether the one or the other, electively to
another church or churches, when divisions are therein (which Acts xv. holds
forth), but still for such standing subordinations and courts as these, out of
this church, nothing at all. If there had been any national Sanhedrim, a set
and constant judicatory, then Christ would have appointed it as he had done
Chap. IV. J the chukches of christ. 251
before ; but he bath not ; no example, no constitution, holds it forth, which
is the second. And
I come now to prove that these subordinations of synods have not the
least warrant and designments of them in the word of God.
1. The New Testament is silent in it. And if it be said that all nations
were not then converted when the apostles wrote, it is answered, that God,
in the Old Testament, took care aforehand to set the order when they had
no cities, nor were settled in the land. And, accordingly, if the apostles
had not lived to see that which might occasion such an institution or precept,
yet thej would some way have left order for time to come.
2. But, secondly, though the apostles lived to see many famous particular
churches erected in a province as well as in cities, in a nation, as in Judea,
in Asia, in Crete, there were many cities and churches in each ; and
although all the people in those countries were not Christians nor members
of churches, yet there was matter for the moulding and casting them into
these subordinations, as well as now in France, where not the third part are
protestants ; or in the low countries, where not the tenth part of the inhabi-
tants are members of their churches. It had been as necessary to have
appointed them. They set up and appointed all needful remedies for order-
ing the churches after them when they should be gone. And it is more
strange, that in the case of the spreading of errors they should not write to
churches as gathered into synods, and as having the standing power to pre-
vent and suppress them (if such ordinary standing assemblies, armed with
coercive power, had been then in that existence as now), that upon no
occasion this should be done, when yet they had occasions.
Take the seven churches in Asia, Ephesus, Tbyatira, Smyrna, &c., with
the rest of the churches there, in a province, called therefore proconsular
Asia, and though therein we find many great disorders, and some in doctrine
(the more proper work of these standing synods), yet we see that Christ
writes only to each of these churches apart, and reproves each for the dis-
order in each. Whereas, had they been one church, in such a standing
association for government, and had had ordinary provincial and national
assemblies extant, as now, the reproofs would have been especially directed
thereunto. As if errors and disorders were in the classical churches (as
those all are pretended to be) of Scotland, the chief rebuke would now more
justly fall upon the national and provincial assemblies, as their constitution is.
3. Yea, thirdly, the Holy Ghost would have at least vouchsafed to these
or some other churches that were in like manner in a nation or province,
as Galatia, &c., in respect of such a combination, the name of a church, who
must have had, according to the principles of this government, so much of
the power of a church. But nowhere are the churches in a province called
a church, but churches, in the plural. And if the lesser churches, then
these ; yea, rather these, having most of the power, should therefore rather
have had most of the name. Yea, and by how much the church power
thereof should have been most independent (as a nation is), and so come
most eminently within that rule, I'ell the church (from which words these
pretend their power, and yet cannot shew so much title thereto as to have
the name church given them), let a rational account be given of this.
252 THE GOVEENMENT OF [BoOK V.
CHAPTER V.
The second argument against subordination of synods, that it woidd introduce
a foreign ecclesiastical power over every state and kingdom. — The third
argument, that there is no constant standing rule by which such a subordina-
tion should be ordered and managed.
Arg. 2. If there be such a subordination of synods in the church of
Christ, then there is no independency but in an ecumenical council, which,
first, would bring in a foreign ecclesiastical power over each state and king-
dom ; and secondly, which therefore of all other should have its designation
and existence in the word, and is more needful than all the other two sorts
of synods mentioned ; for if any should be extant, then that which is reme-
dium ejficacissimnm. It is said there is wanting remedium efficax, if these
subordinations be not ; but according to these principles, there is wanting
that which is the most efficacious remedy, if a general council be not extant.
For if there be not a resting in a classical presbytery, but provincial also
must be, and appealed to ; neither are they reckoned efficacious enough, but
there must be national also, upon this supposition, that the greater assembly
hath more of the promise and assistance of Christ than the lesser ; then, of
all other, a general council must be supposed, in a transcendent manner
above all the rest, to have the promise of assistance made to it, and so to be
the most eminently efficacious (if not the only) remedy on earth ; yea, and
only to be rested in, being that which only is the ultimate. Some of the
papists, they give this to such a general council, that it cannot err ; but
according to these principles of presbyterial divines, though it might err, yet
it is supposable to be transcendently more irrefragable than all the other
under it, and God more with it than with all the rest. And therefore God
in his word would have given especial order for this above all other ; and
the same God that suits his providences to his institutions would not have
failed in what is the most sovereign remedy of all other, that it might have
been existent in all ages ; as we see his promise was to the Jews, to keep
their land when the males thrice a-year went up to the general assembly at
Jerusalem. But for three hundred years the churches wanted them, and
could not enjoy them, and they are adjudged therefore not necessary to the
government of the church, which yet, according to these principles, must
have been the most necessary of all the rest. Yea, and further else, thirdly,
there must be an injurious independency set up in a national synod ; for
when a man hath appealed from one court to another, and comes to this
national, that is the ultimate existent, and upon the sentence thereof comes
next to be banished out of a nation, to have his estate forfeited, to the ruin
of himself and posterity, then it is he most of all needs the relief of an
higher remedy, more efficacious than all those he hath gone through (if such
an one may be) ; yet then he is left remediless, and (according to those
principles) left more unsatisfied than ever ; because, thinks he, there is by
God's appointment a court that hath more of God and of Christ in it than
all these, to judge of the truth and right, and lo it is not, nor can ever be
expected.
Let it be withal considered, that when God appointed a subordination of
standing courts, he withal designed out which should be the supreme, and
made it the ultimate ; and the supremacy and independency of it, in a set
and standing way, was his institution as much as the appointment of the
court itself, so that he was to be put to death that obeyed not the sentence
Chap. V.J the churches of christ. 253
of it, and all appeals were thereby cut off. Therefore if a national church
doth take upon it to be an independent church, upon the sentence thereof,
to have the extremest punishment executed (but that of death) that in a
nation men are capable of, it had need, for the quieting of all men's spirits,
that must submit to it, not only shew a warrant from God, to be an ecclesi-
astical judicatory, but also to be the supreme court, as the Sanhedrim was,
that appeals should be made unto.
Arg. 3. To that end, thirdly, let it be examined what set rules there is,
or may be supposed to be, of these subordinations, and their bounds, and
the ultimate independency in a national church, which should be fetched
from some standing considerations which the word warrants : God never
having constituted a church, but he gave the bounds thereof. All variation
of church power is from God. The alteration of the government of his
people, the Jews, from a family government (which had been under the law
of nature) to national in Moses his time, was by express appointment ; and
as himself made and constituted it a national church, so there was an ecclesi-
astical government framed by himself suited thereunto. And in the New
Testament there is a reed to measure the temple, Rev. xi. 1, a rule to set
out the limits of church power, as well as under the Old. And therefore the
argument is framed thus :
That church power which cannot shew a set and constant divine rule for
its variation and subordination, and ultimate independency, is not of God,
and so may not be. But this variation of church power into these subordi-
nations cannot shew any such steady constant rule for these things. There-
fore, &c.
The major is evident from what hath been said. The minor is made good
by a removal of all particulars that may be supposed to be the square of
framing these subordinations, &c.
1. Not that rule that the greater number or company of churches should
rule and govern the less, and that the whole should rule the part, is a suffi-
cient square by which to frame these subordinations.
For then, 1, there would be as many several subordinations as there can
be supposed variations of greater numbers, and that will arise to more than
these three only. Every new greater company would constitute a new synod.
2. Where is the promise of God, that he will be more with the greatest part
of them that profess Christianity, rather than with a few, so far as to con-
stitute a new power and government ? Yea, 3, the greater number of
churches professing religion are more corrupted, the pure churches are fewer.
It had been ill for Philadelphia, and the angel and elders thereof, if those
seven churches in Asia had been cast into such a subordinate association for
government, to be exercised by the angels and elders of all the other six
churches, with the rest in Asia. And the like may be said of the purer re-
formed churches in Germany ; if the gi-eater number of those that yet were
true churches should have ruled the lesser, then (Lutherans and Calvinists
being bound to this government) the Lutherans (being also true churches,
and yet the more in number) would by virtue of this law have soon corrupted
the purer. And what reason can be pretended (according to this rale and
the principles of this government) to leave any true churches out of an asso-
ciation ? 4. Suppose there should be as many elders and churches more
purely reformed in one province or shire as in the rest of a whole nation be-
sides (as instance might be given in some of the reformed churches that
there are), why should not God be thought to be as much with them as with
the national assembly ? And if all are to give themselves up to this law,
how will the greater, which is the worse, either corrupt the purer, or expel
254 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK V.
them? 5, 11 qua greaier, then the decrees of greater (viz., general councils)
in former ages should bind us more than national or provincial now, for they
should have had more of church in them (by this rule), and so more of
Christ ; and then take all general councils that set up popes and bishops, and
all other superstitions, if it be said we chose them not, yet still that is not
the ground makes their decrees less divine, or obliging to us, but it lies in
the authority of God's ordinance, that they were the greater and more gene-
ral councils. And, however, still if this be the rule, that .the greater number
of churches rule the less, then take the measure of this greatness and num-
ber of churches from time, stretching the line over all ages past, as well as
from the greater number of churches in such or such a place or nation in
the present times, and so look what general councils for most ages of the
world did establish, should (by virtue of this law) oblige the present times,
and have more force upon us, than the universal church in this present age,
much more than of any national assembly, if either be simply considered
under a mere ecclesiastical obligation, that is, qua greater, and more of
church. Time varies not the case so, but that all their acts, having been acts
of the church universal in all ages, should comparatively stand more in force ;
but, however, the acts of any of the last general councils will stand in force
until a general council of like extent repeal those acts, as the statutes of par-
hament of our ancestors do, if not repealed by like and equal authority.
2. It is not the notion, or the consideration of their being churches in
such or such a nation or province, that can be the rule of making this obli-
gation, or setting of these bounds. It must be considered that the question
is of a mere ecclesiastic obhgation, by virtue of church principles, such as
should have been a just rule and measure to the primitive churches, ere
princes turned Christian, to have reared up the like subordinations. Now
then the limits from hence must either rise, from being first one church in a
kingdom, under the same civil government ; or, secondly, one church in a
nation, that is, either from a national respect or political.
(1.) First, in general, from neither; for that instance in Acts xv., of the
council there, its rise, or the bounds of its authority, was founded upon
neither ; for if either national or political respects should have obliged them,
they should have sent to Syria or Cilicia, and not Jerusalem, who were both
under a differing government civil, and of another nation. But,
(2.) Secondly, more particularly.
[l.J Not qua church in one kingdom, for that is pe7- accidens to a church,
that it grows up to a kingdom, or that the whole nation is converted to Chris-
tianity, and therefore a set rule for all times cannot be fetched from thence.
This could not be the certain measure of the independency of church power
in the apostles' times. [2.] This makes the bounds of ecclesiastical indepen-
dency and jurisdiction uncertain, varying as the bounds of kingdoms do vary.
When the Roman empire had all kingdoms under it, all the churches must
then have been obliged to have had then general standing councils, suited to
the extent of the empire, to have been the next unto the provincial, for their
supreme judicatory, such as the national are now to the provincial, or else
before the empire turned Christian, there was this rule, even as many inde-
pendencies as churches. And then again, when this empire was broken into
ten kingdoms, yea, and many more, there arose, instead of the former, many
new independent boundaries of church power (of which only the question is,
and not of that power which a church doth come to have, and simply and
alone holds of the magistrate, which will be merely civil), and then, as king-
doms vary by conquest, the like alteration the bounds of church power must
receive. Among the Jews it did not, which when the church was broken
Chap. VI.] the churches of christ. 255
into two kingdoms, by God's appointment, yet the cliurch state, by God's
institution, varied not, but was still one church. Lastly, if this independency
ariseth from the magistrate, then there is no need of such subordinations,
which is proved by experience in reformed churches abroad, who are well
enough governed, without these subordinations. Geneva hath no appeals,
but is governed by one classical church ; and why may not all other churches,
as well without them, if the magistrate oversees them, and keep each to their
duties ? The churches in the low countries want national synods, and yet
are peaceably governed ; yea, some for a long time have been without pro-
vincial, and say, if they can, they will never have more ; and yet are peace-
ably and quietly governed. It is as the civil magistrate will terminate the
independency, and himself overlook it.
2. Secondly, If these bounds be fetched from national respects, then in
Germany, the Calvinists must be subject to the greater number of Lutherans ;
and, in this kingdom, all ministers must make up this association, and the
greater number will be the worse, and oppose the good. If because the Cal-
vinists, that profess a further reformation, are disobliged from associating with
the Lutherans, then those in any nation that profess a further reformation
than others, are free by the same law. Surely uniformity of principles is a
more intimate bond of such association than any such outward extrinsecal
respects. 2. If qua nation, then Wales must be independent. 3. If (7?^rt nation,
then, 1, if nation be taken for a people of the same tongue and kindred, all
the Christian Jews in the primitive times, when scattered into any nations,
were bound to have made one church distinct from all the churches they
cohabited with ; 2, if for a people dwelling in the same national bounds, then
the same Jews, being dispersed into several countries and nations, must have
made one church with the several nations where they lived ; whereas Peter
in his epistle, and James in his, and Paul to the Hebrews, wrote unto the
Jews apart, as churches in all nations.
CHAPTER VL
The fourth arrfument against subordination of synods, that it reqnireth repre-
sentation of spiritual power, arising from other representations.
Arcj. 4. That government which necessarily requireth and producoth repre-
sentations, arising out of other representations of spiritual power, having a
derived power therefrom, there is no warrant for. ]jut these subordinations
of synods, provincial, national, ecumenical, for the government of the church,
do so, &c.
The major shall be spoken to, after the minor proposition is both cleared
and proved, which is done by putting two things together: 1, that if there
be an authoritative subordination of all churches in the provinces to a
national assembly, and so of many nations to an ecumenical, binding unto
subjection ; that then all in the provinces must be interested in that national,
and all in the nation in that ecumenical ; so as it may be said, that they are
all involved and included, and so obliged, as it is in parliamentary power,
wherein the shires are involved. 2. That this interest in this subordination
cannot arise but either by immediate choice of those elders who shall repre-
sent them, by each church and congregation immediately (which is the case
of our parhament men, chosen immediately by those they represent), or else,
that the provincial elders sent by the congregations shall choose out of
themselves some few that shall represent the provinces ; and so likewise the
256 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK V.
national assemblies shall choose out some few that shall represent the whole
nation in a general council. Now, the first of these is not, nor can be : the
congregations meet not for any such immediate choice, but the elders of
them all choose out of themselves. So as the obligation of all the churches
to be subject to a national assembly (arising out of those other subordinations),
is not because they are a greater number of elders or divines ; for in a pro-
vincial synod there may be assembled as many as in the national ; but it
ariseth from hence, that some out of all do represent the rest; and other-
wise, when a national assembly sits in a great city, all other neighbour
ministers must come and vote with them, and outvote them who are the
representors of the whole.
Now such a representation, having a derived spiritual power from other
representations, is not in matters spiritual warrantable. Besides all argu-
ments against delegated power in matters spiritual, all ministers being imme-
diately Christi vicarii, and that all such representations grow weaker, as
reflections use to do ; elders represent the churches in classical and provincial
assemblies, as being immediately chosen by them ; but the elders in national
assemblies are the representations of elders in provinces, and so are a shadow
of that first shadow, whereas yet they have the most of power, even all that
can be supposed to belong to the whole substance. Besides such considera-
tions, it is argued thus :
1. If that these few out of nations should bind all those nations in matters
spiritual, and a few out of provinces, the nation, they must be supposed to
have the promise, and an assistance answerable. But where is either the
promise, or can gifts in a few be supposed to produce such an obligation ? It
is true, ' where two or three are gathered together,' his promise is to be in
the midst of them, and so suppose with more when more are met ; but that
his promise should be to be with a few out of a nation, as with the whole
nation, and those not chosen immediately by the nation, but the representers
of them, cannot be expected. It is granted, that each so met hath the gifts
and assistance of an elder ; and so the whole, as of so many elders met (as
we in this assembly are to be looked upon, and the judgment thereof accord-
ingly reverenced) ; but that as they are elders representative of hundreds
of other elders, who themselves are representers of churches, that any such
addition should arise to them, by virtue of this duplicated representation,
over and above what is in their single gifts and oflices, let either a warrant
be produced or a promise. Two things are allowed them, but a third
denied them : 1, it is granted, they may have assistance to judge as elders,
which is their ofiice ; 2, assistance to judge according to their personal
abilities, being thus called to give their advice ; but, 3, such a superadded
assistance as holds proportion to that spiritual bulk and body which they
represent (for suppose that always it falls out, that the best and choicest of
a nation are chosen, yet still not to hold proportion to a whole nation), there
must be a more than ordinary promise for it, and therefore had need be ex-
press and evident. That it is otherwise in commonwealths, is because the
representations, and also the power conveyed, being human creations, the
persons represented can set up a power which shall represent them ; but
this power we speak of is supernatural, and must be from God and his in-
stitution. The Sanhedrim of Jerusalem had a special assistance above all
courts else ; and therefore God appointed causes to be brought to it, which
special assistance is intimated twice in the institution of it, Deut. xvii., by
this, that they ' should go up to the place which God should choose,' ver. 8 :
and ' do according to the sentence which they of that place (which the Lord
shall choose) shall shew thee.' An emphasis is put upon the blessing, which
Chap. VII.] the churches of christ. 257
by God's choice and election did accompany that place wliicli God had
chosen to put his name, and promised to be in an eminent manner present
in, and to accept their sacrifices there oftered (which was a representative
worship of that nation), and not elsewhere. Now, as that was the repre-
sentative worship of the nation, so these governors were the representative
governors of the nation, and both sanctified in that place, as the gift was by
the altar, as that which God had chosen. If the like institution were found,
with the intimation of such a blessing from a peculiar choice of God's, of
national assemblies, all ought to subject to them in matters spiritual.
2. If there be such representations as these, in one or few persons of many
churches, they have each for that time, whilst in such an assembly, archi-
episcopal and episcopal power ; and their case is parallel (parallel then for
that time and occasion, and as met in a synod) with that of so many bishops,
when met in a council, whose episcopal power, as then and therein met, lies
in this, that they are so many churches representative ; especially this would
fall out if these synods should still consist of the same men, or if some few
should be always chosen to them. And why may there not be standing
persons, that are more skilful in such affairs through exercise, usually
chosen,, as well as standing assemblies themselves ? And then as touching
matters of jurisdiction in such an assembly, they are for the present the
same with so many bishops met in a coavocation.
3. If these representations, having the power of all the churches in the
nation, were warrantable, they must be a church. Besides that they are
nowhere so called (we leave the usurpation of that name to the popish
clergy), and if so, then a body to Christ ; for so every church is; and where
is Christ said to have a representative body of his body ? They are a
church, that is, a company of elders personally gathered ; but a represen-
tative church they are not, cannot be; and yet must be, or they have not the
power of all the churches in a nation in them, nor otherwise do their acts
oblige them to subjection,
CHAPTER VII.
Reasons against the allegation brought, of Acts xv., for the subordination of
synods, provincial, national, ecumenical. — And, reasom against the argument
drawn from the analogy o/"Mat. xviii.
Besides what hath been said against this example, alleged to prove presby-
terial acts of government, by the elders of the church of Jerusalem, in the
reasons formerly presented; proving, 1, that that one example cannot serve
to prove both the presbyterial government and synodical, but that if the
assembly will lean to the one, the other must be quitted ; 2, that the
assembly was not a formal synod, but only a reference by the particular
church of Antioch, of their differences among themselves, unto this particular
church of Jerusalem, and no other ; it is moreover added, that the example
of it is here further extended, to prove all sorts of synods and subordinations
thereof, both provincial, national, and ecumenical, and so it must suit all
these so great varieties, when it was not made tit for any one of them.
But if it had been a synod, yet, 1, neither provincial nor national, but
the contrary ; for Antioch consults not with the churches of her own nation,
but seeks to Jerusalem, a church of Judea, of another nation and another
province. 2. Neither is it the instance of a standing synod (which the word
subordination doth necessarily infer them to be standing courts, or else the
VOL. XI. K
258 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK V.
links of those chains will not hang together), but elective ; for they sent, out
of election and choice to them, but about this one question at this time,
without any obligation to refer all other matters to them in an ordinary way.
3. Nor is it the multiplication of synods, but only of one, in whose judgment
those of Antioch rested. 4. Much less is it the instance of rearing up of a
subordination and contignation of synods, superior and inferior, which is a
further thing ; for though, when offences are not healed, and one reference
to other churches is not sufficient to cure them, there should be a seeking
to others, yet the example obligeth the churches that are in difference, not
to take and choose the churches of that pro%ance, either as of that pro-
vince, or as the greater number to whom both those among whom the
■controversy is, and those to whom it was afore referred, must be subordi-
narily subject. Much less doth it hold forth, that the churches of that pro-
vince may judicially challenge a right of authority to decide it, and oblige
them, sub jni'iui, to their determination, and then the churches of that whole
■nation challenge the like over all. But still it runs in this way only, that
those who shall be judged meetest and ablest, and faithfuUest, to determine
and compose it, by those who are to refer it.
The argument is usually drawn from like reason, and let there be found
like reason, and it is granted ; and though itself is not the pattern of a formal
synod, yet it holds forth this rule of equity, that when offences arise among
churches, references ought to be made, from out of themselves, to churches
abroad, to heal them. But the question is, To what churches these references
are to be made ? And let the like reason, held forth in the example, be kept
unto, and decide it. Say we still to those churches, the churches offended
or divided shall choose, as fittest and ablest to determine it. This is clear
in the example : Antioch was not bound to refer it to the church of Jerusa-
lem, as greater, or &s a next neighbour, or of the same province, but as best
able to judge of the differences. And this way agrees with the law of nature
and of arbitration, so usual amongst men, which God hath there set up as
an ordinance and pattern of proceeding in such cases. But this subordination
of synods intended holds so differing a course from this, as, 1, instead of
elective synods and occasional, it sets up standing, and so set to be the judge
of the churches under them for ever; 2, not in one case (as Antioch to
Jerusalem), but in all cases whatever shall fall out; 3, not in a way of
multiplication or diversification, as need shall be, but of subordination and
settled superiority ; and the grounds of this to be, because the gi'eatest must
rule the less, and that they are neighbour churches, in the same province or
nation. And this the like reason, in Acts xv., is so far from countenancing,
that in all things it is unlike, and so there is a differing constitution, and
rise of those synods thus subordinate, from what the reason drawn from Acts
XV. will warrant ; and therefore doth make a differing formal reason in the
government ; and human prudence added will not rectify it, when the rea-
son of the institution is so much varied from. For instance, if the funda-
mental law for remedy of wrongs, and deciding controversies, in any king-
dom, were by arbitration elective, to take them their judges whom the parties
in difference judge aptest every way for the present controversy, and that
the precedents and ruled cases hold forth no more ; and if that the govern-
ment of another kingdom were, that the greater should rule and determine
the causes of the less, and according to the proportion thereof, to have subor-
dinate standing courts erected, to which (by appeal from the one to the
other) all causes should be brought ; whether were not these two such dif-
fering frames of government, so as that he that would mould the first to the
second might not be challenged to set up a new government, differing from
Chap, VII.] the churches of Christ. 259
the fundamental law of that kingdom ? and whether the one is not at
liberty to withstand the second, if it were vouchsafed to any kingdom (and
that is the case here) ? is humbly submitted. And the bounds of such
assemblies elective needed no set or standing rule, because they rise from
occasional electiveness, in case of controversy and offence, and the extent
thereof. And so the condition and nature of the things themselves do pre-
scribe their own limits, and hold forth their own rise, like as the bounds of
particular congregations, to be of such as live so as conveniently to meet in
one place, ariseth from the nature of the thing itself, and the necessary
requisites thereunto.
I shall now consider the argument drawn from the analog}' of Mat. sviii.
1. The strength of the argument runs, that because there should be this
remedy, that therefore there is such a remedy.
2. It is granted there is a remedy, which is a going forth to other churches,
which Acts XV. holds forth ; but that excommunication (which is the remedy
held forth in Mat. xviii.) of the offending church or churches, should be the
remedy, is not there held forth, as hath been shewn. There is a remedy of
co-ordination, such as between two nations, and as between jjams (as churches
are) proceeding in a way suitable to their condition, but not this of subordi-
nation, that the greater number of churches should become standing courts,
and have power to excommunicate the lesser ; but that all churches have a
power to declare the offence, and withdraw communion from those churches.
And, in reason, how is it possible for a national church to excommunicate
all the churches of a province ? And how ineffectual would that be ? Or
for a general council to excommunicate a nation ? And if they cannot use
this remedy, to what end is this subordination of synods, having this autho-
rity, pleaded for ?
And whereas it is said, that there must be the same remedy that is in a
congregation for an offending brother, or else where the disease is strongest
the remedy is weakest, it is answered,
1. That where the disease is strongest, there this, which is called the
strongest remedy, cannot be applied, or with an apparent efficaciousness ;
for when the churches in a province err, or a national, here the disease is
strongest, and yet it would be in vain to interdict them communion among
themselves or deliver them unto Satan. Yea, when it comes to the highest,
and where the disease is greatest and strongest, there is not only no remedy,
but the highest and greatest power to do hurt upon all under them, as when
the generality of the clergy were Ai'ians ; and if they err, the error is worse
than of a pope's erring or of a bishop's. He is but one, and may be deposed;
and in the greater bodies of the clergy the greater part are and have been
still the worser and more corrupt, as is apparent in this kingdom at present,
in which (by virtue of the presbyterial principles) all ministers must be taken
in ; and if you will put them out, where will others be had in their room ?
Convert men we cannot ; and if not converted, ministers of all others are the
worst and greatest opposites to religion ; and if a national assembly be
chosen by these, the greater number are like to be of the worst, and such as
may alter all that you now have done. And if it be said that this would
hold against great politic bodies as well, who may undo the commonwealth,
the answer is, that the common and equal interest of all, and the common
principles of preserving the rights and liberties of a state, and seeking the
common good, is natural to the generality of men ; but the truth of the
gospel and purity of religion, and the power thereof, is contrary to the prin-
ciples of all natural men, and in all ages the most of the clergy have been
aptest to cprrupt the cue and oppose the other. And in those ages when
260 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK V.
such councils began to bo standing, and in most credit, after the first three
hundred years, then was it that the mystery of popery did work most power-
fully, and those superstitious and corrupt opinions grew up which made way
for the man of sin, and that body of popish doctrine that hath overspread
the world. And if there should be no danger of corrupting the truth, yet
the churches (though reformed) coming all out of popery, and not being
fully enlightened in all things, and the first notion of anything further in
matters of theology usually falling into the hearts and spirits but of a few,
we shall have no further truth taught, but suppressed, till a whole nation is
enlightened in it.
2. The efficacy of all remedies doth depend first upon Christ's blessing
on them, which depends upon his institution of them, and iiar ratio, or, like
reason, will never set up an ordinance, unless Christ hath himself appointed
it; and in the example. Acts xv., there is not this way of proceeding held
forth. Secondly, it hes in suitableness to the condition of those that are to
be dealt with. Now, when many churches deal with an erring church, the
churches in a province with many erring churches, or of a nation with a
province, they must be in reason dealt with, suitably to the condition of
churches, and of a multitude, and surely a brotherly way of admonition and
withdi'awing communion is more suitable unto such ; as in the civil govern-
ment, if a province rebelleth, or a great multitude of subjects, should the
state presently hang up all in that province ? although unto particular per-
sons rebelling this is efficacious to suppress rebellion. Thirdly, Christ hath
suited his remedies unto all times and unto all conditions, and how national
and provincial assemblies could be during the first three hundred years, when
yet the churches were all governed, is submitted.
3. And lastly. If the analogy of this 18th of Matthew be argued, then
first let the analogy be kept, and then when a church hath ofi'ended other
churches, they are not to bring them to a set court of judicatory at first; for
Christ's rule is otherwise in dealing with an ofiending brother, electively to
take two or three churches and admonish them, which is suited to that way
fore-mentioned, Acts xv. But as for the proceedings against a brother in a
congregation, there is not a set appointed number of two or three standing
persons to be the admonishers of all, ere it comes to the church, nor have
they power to excommunicate ; and thus by this proportion, instead of these
set and standing provincial assemblies to whom causes are next brought, and
these armed with power of excommunication, there should only be two or
three or more neighbour churches to admonish the ofi"ending church, and
not a stated court to bring it unto. Secondly, let it be shewn where a stand-
ing synod of elders is called the church, and how then can the analogy hold
when it holds not in this, the main, 'Tell the church'? Lastly, the hke
reason holds not, unless these particular congregations have the powder of
excommunication ; for otherwise, if these greater assemblies' power be argued
from the analogy of the lesser, and the same remedy, excommunication, and
the particular congregations have not that allowed them, then, by the prin-
ciples of this analogy, it is nowhere to be found ; but as the congregational
churches have a power only to admonish and to suspend the sacraments, that
so the greater assemblies should have no more also. And though the church
universal is called a church, and one body to Christ, yet as materially con-
sidered, and not as a politic body in respect to government, which was never
yet asserted by this assembly. ••'
* The assembly of divines at Westminster,
Chap. VIII.] the churches of christ. 2G1
CHAPTER VIII.
Of the intercourse or communion which 2^arlicular churches are to hold one with
another. — That there is a twofold communion of saints, the one arising from
the relation which they all hear to one another as members of Christ's mystical
body ; the other, ivhich jnoceeds from their being formed into particular
churches by Christ's institution. — That the duties of catholic communion,
which one believer owes to another, by virtue of their all being members of
the same mystical body of Christ, those duties one or many churches may
and ought to perform to another church.
Having proved that neither the church universal, nor a church as national,
or in a kingdom, nor a church classical of manj^ congregations associated, are
the subjects and seats of political power for juridical censures, as excommuni-
cation, &c., but a congregational church only, there yet remaineth to be con-
sidered ^Yhat intercourse, communion, and correspondency we assert to be
between each church and their elders, by virtue of any or all those considera-
tions and respects. We acknowledge that by virtue of the consideration of
the church universal, whereof each congregation is a part, and by virtue of
churches being in a nation of the same language, under the same civil govern-
ment, or living in the same neighbourhood, and being of the same judgment,
there is to be a great and near communion to be entertained between all such
churches, and according to such respects. This communion is to be observed
with some more nearly and strictly; and such is the nature of this communion,
as it will oblige all churches one to another in a multitude of mutual duties,
which, if observed, may help to preserve churches from running into confu-
sion, may rectify miscarriages, preserve them from errors, and may salve all
those inconveniences which use to be objected against this assertion, of
placing only political power in congregational bodies.
We lay this for a general rule, that there is a twofold church and church-
relation which the New Testament holds forth ; and answerably, a twofold way
of communion. There is, first, a church mystical ; and secondly, there is a
church political, or a politic body, which is the seat of government by institu-
tion. We said at first, that communion of saints and churches do both run
along together in a parallel proportion, communion of saints being the foun-
dation of uniting all into that body of the church ; and as we said there is
a twofold communion of saints, one fixed, for communion in pubHc ordinances,
the other occasional, so there is a double constitution of church.
1. There is first a church mystical, and a communion answerable, whether
we take it for the invisible company of the elect, or for the visible company
of the professors of Christianity, that do walk as saints throughout the
world. The invisible church is acknowledged by all sorts to be a mystical
body ; but it is not only called a mystical body, as it is opposed to the church
visible, but as it is opposed to a church by institution, that is, a politic body.
The visible catholic church is not a body by institution, as in heaven it shall
not be. We acknowledge that the visible saints in a kingdom, or in a city,
may be called the church, as bearing the respect, or consideration, or notion
of the mystical universal church ; as every part of water bears the name of
the whole, so as it is not only the church universal that hath the considera-
tion of a mystical body put upon it, but the same consideration may be put
upon any company of saints, whether smaller or greater, in a kingdom, or
in a city, or in a province. And so we believe, that oftentimes in the New
262 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK V.
Testament, the saints in such a place are spoken of and called the church ;
they are called so, sub consideratione viystica, under that mystical considera-
tion, and not as considered as a politic hody ; as when it is said that Saul
persecuted the church, 1 Cor. xv. 9, it was not the church universal that he
persecuted, it was not a church under a political consideration, hut it was
the saints in every place where he came. So when it is said that prayers
were made by the church for Peter, Acts xii. 5, it is not spoken of them as
a chm-ch congregated for worship, or a church political, but the meaning is,
that the saints generally in Jerusalem, and about in Judea, prayed for him,
the saints being there called a church under that mystical consideration that
the church universal is called.
Now answerably unto these two several considerations and notions of
church, whether applied to the church universal or to any parcel of saints,
there is a twofold communion, and the duties are twofold which the saints
owe one to another : the one in respect of mystical and general relation,
us occasionally they meet or are cast together; and the other is as they are
formed up into several bodies by Christ's institution. This may be exempli-
fied by the like among mankind. Take all mankind as they are made of
one blood, under the general notion and consideration of being men ; by virtue
hereof there is a communion that one man may have with another, and
there are duties that thence do arise ; and as it is the law of nature, singly
and apart considered, which obligeth them, as they are men, so answerably
there is a communion, and there is a duty which every man oweth to every
man as a man, and a duty which one man oweth to many men, considered
as many, or to a greater number of mankind; and therefore we say, there
is the law of nature, which holds all the world over, and laws of nature that
are fundamental to men as men. And if you cast men into several nations,
there is the law of nations, common to all nations as they are nations, which
binds them to duties one toward another. But there is another communion
that mankind hath as they are formed up, and when they are formed up, into
several commonwealths, which, though it be a mutual communion of those
commonwealths one with another, yet it ariseth not to government and
authority over one another, but is but suitable and answerable to that com-
munion which men have one with another as men. Thus, in the matter of
communion of saints as saints, there is a communion which is carried through
all saints, as it were by the law of nature, and that is carried between these
saints as formed up into several bodies or churches. The same kind of
communion holdeth between church and church, elders and elders, that
would hold between mankind as formed into several commonwealths ; and
there are duties which they are obliged unto mutually, for mutual help, for
mutual strength, &c. There are associations and leagues made to several
purposes; and there are defiances and renunciations, when the laws of nations
and nature common to kingdoms are broken. Amongst the saints, there is
a communion betwixt the saints cast into the same family, and there are
duties answerable and suitable ; and then there is a communion which the
saints have, consisting of many famihes united into one church, and there
are duties agreeable. And there is a communion and duties which are to
pass between these saints, as they are members of a nation, and as they are
churches in the same nation, and upon many such respects, yea, and also
as they are parts of the church universal. Only in this, here lies the ditier-
ence between us and our brethren, that they would make the communion
which is between all the saints and all the churches in the world to be as
truly political, the lesser being subject to the greater, in the church uni-
versal, or in a nation, as it is in a particular congregation, as we would; or
Chap. VIII. J the churches of christ. 263
as it is in a church classical, according to their opinion, or as it is in a par-
ticular congregation, as we assert it.
Now that there is such a differing kind of communion, the one by way of
authority and jurisdiction, and the other according to the common law of
nature (as we may so express it), is evident by the principles of either side.
For the presbyterian divines, who hold national churches, in a political
consideration (when churches come up to that number as to make a nation,
and so several nations, several national churches), yet hold that there is a
communion to be held between these, and an obligation to a multitude of
duties ;* yea, and an uniformity that is to be between these, when yet they
will not say, that the one hath, authority or power of jurisdiction over the
other. As for instance, if you take the national church of Scotland and the
national church of England, or if you suppose that there were but two
churches in the world, there would be a great deal of communion held between
the one and the other, and ought to be, when yet the one could not assume
a power over the other, but each retains a power of jurisdiction entire within
themselves. This different kind of communion appears likewise by this,
that there are duties which one saint oweth to another upon mere moral
grounds, as that a man should pray with, and pray for a saint, and build
him up in his holy faith, and admonish him, and not let sin lie upon him,
or withdraw from him, if he do not repent, &c. So that if there were but
two saints in the world, which could not make a politic church, they
would owe all these duties one to another ; but not upon a ground of insti-
tution, as a duty of the second commandment, but as of a duty of the second
table, which bindeth us to love our neighbour as ourselves. And so if there
were no congregations or churches in the world, the saints would upon such
a consideration owe to one another abundance of duties. Yea, indeed, there
is almost no duty that is practised in a congregation, by way of institution,
but a duty of a like kind upon another ground is required occasionally of
saints one to another. Men that have preaching gifts, might exercise them
occasionally to the edification of others in a natural way, where there was
iiot a church nor officers of a church ; and yet God hath took up preaching
into an office, made a caUing on purpose for it by way of institution. So,
to avoid any man that walk inordinately, to instruct him, to reprove him,
are duties which one saint oweth to another, and one saint to many saints,
and many saints to any saint ; which kind of discipline the saints did practise
one toward another, in the bishops' times, and had a warrant so to do in
the word of God ; but all this did run, as it were, by the law of nature in a
moral way, by virtue of the second table and the duties of it. But as Jesus
Christ hath by institution formed up his saints into several churches (so that
such bodies are by institution), he hath stamped all such duties as are
amongst Christians by this general law of nature, with an institution over
and above that former mere natural or moral consideration. He hath here
appointed one brother to admonish another, in order to bring him up to that
church he belongs unto, to a censure ; and he hath ordained public persons
that should be by way of office admonishers in public, and that should
admonish with authority, and with such an authority put upon that admoni-
tion, as thus performed, as is not to be found in all the saints in the world,
if they should admonish a man. There is not only a withdrawing (which one
saint may do from another, though there was no way of church-fellowship),
but there is superadded an institution of casting out ; and not only so, but
a delivering unto Satan, which all these saints in the world cannot do; for
what power had they, unless it be from a promise annexed to an institution,
* See the Scotch Reasons for Uniformity.
264 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK V.
to deliver a man to the devil, for him to seize upon a man's conscience when
he is thrown out.
Hence, therefore, the saints formed up into congregations, with their
elders, heing to us the only ecclesiastical body by institiition, an instituted
authority and power of jurisdiction is found only answerably in them, and all
other relations of saints and churches one to another fall only under a
mystical consideration, and therefore their communion and their power is
answerable. The one runneth in a way of special institution ; the other
modo myslico^ in a way of mystical communion. To the one, the ordinance
of excommunication is therefore only proper and peculiar ; to the other, a
withdrawing or a non-communion appertains.
1. Hence, therefore, in the first place, we do grant and acknowledge, that
many of the same duties and actions, which performed in a particular church
do rise up to jurisdiction, are and may be performed by a greater number of
churches to another church ; but only modo jnijfitico, in a way of mystical
communion, because the relation is such, and yet the duties may be the
same, and the actions the same. A greater number of churches may admonish
another church, they may cast out another church from their communion
and association, but all this will not arise to a juridical power of excommu-
nication. They may declare men to be perverters of the faith, to be heretics,
so as to fulfil the apostle's rule, not to eat with them, or bid them God
speed, 2 John 10, 11, and yet in all this it doth not arise to assuming juris-
diction.
2. "We acknowledge, in the second place, that in such actions of many
churches toward one church, there is an impress of authority, taking it in
a larger sense, for that which hath a persuasiveness and an inducement in
it ; but it will not arise to an authority juridical, such as Jesus Christ hath
placed in them, as they are a political body. But for that power which is
placed by Christ, by virtue of an institution, there is a superadded authority
of Jesus Christ beyond the force of moral or rational inducements, and the
conscience is to be subject to the power and authority therein, as unto the
power of Christ, for his will and institution's sake. If we take the elders of
one congregation, besides all the considerations that are common to them
with all other elders and saints in the world, there is an authority stamped
by Christ upon them, by virtue of their relation and oflice, so as the members
of that congregation are to be subject to them, not only upon moral grounds,
but on account of that authority with which Christ hath invested them ; and
in the acts that they do (admonitions, casting men out, excommunication,
and the like) there is an efficacy to be expected, w^hich is in no other order
of men in the world, if they would undertake the like. The difierence of
these two powers may appear by abstracting all rational or moral induce-
ments. 1. This authority of the elders is more than authority by way of
reason, or by one's alleging an express rule out of the word, which a man's
conscience may apprehend by faith from the mouth of him that doth direct
him, or lay it before him. Another man's wife or servant may subject her-
self to the guidance of a reason, or of a scripture, that is brought by another
man, who yet hath not authority added to it, such as her husband hath
when he addeth a command thereunto besides. A child is said to lead one
new converted, Isa. xi. 6 ; but in this case it is merely the authority of the
word or reason alleged that the conscience subjects itself to, without any
further respect to anything in the propounder. 2. The authority of juris-
diction, which is in a particular church, is more than the authority of reve-
rence or respect to the grace or judgment of another, founded upon whatever
considerations, besides the institutions of Christ. There are many considera-
Chap. VIII.] the churches of cheist. 265
tions that may breed reverence to another, as their grace and their holiness,
and the power of their gifts ; as Herod reverenced John Baptist, and feared
him, because he was an holy man. Thus a man's wife may be induced to
obey the command of one that is a minister, though not her minister, she
knowing him to be a judicious man, and a man of much holiness ; but \et
still this doth not arise to a power given from Christ juridically, by way of
institution, over and above such respects. It is not such a power as her
own minister hath over her, and for which she is to respect and regard him ;
neither is it such as her own husband hath over her. The judgment of many
ministers assembled hath an authority of reverence in it, because they are
wise ; yea, and because they are the ministers of Christ, by whose judgments
Jesus Christ leadeth men into truth ; and as they are ministers of Christ,
they have a special blessing accompanying of them, and all such respects the
consciences of men are to take in to move them to yield to what they declare
aud determine. Yet still this doth not arise to the consideration of juridical
authority which they have from Christ, over those whom they would guide ;
but such a man's own elders have. 3. There are many considerations which
may make a man to subject himself to what another saith, which yet doth
not rise to juridical authority. A man, in the cases of scandal, and oflending
of a church or a brother, may forbear to do that which is in his liberty to
do, but the brother ofi'ended hath not authority juridical over the other ; for
it is but an accidental consideration.
3. In the third place, we acknowledge that, by virtue of this mystical
communion, the churches hold one with another in their mutual transactions
one with another ; they are to look on them as churches, and on the elders
as instituted by Christ, and not only as holy ; but yet still they are not to
regard them as having an instituted authority given them by Christ over this
or any other churches. Thus when Paul w^ould put a weight upon his com-
mendation of Titus, he put it upon this, that he was one whose praise was
in all the churches, and that he was chosen by the churches to carry the
alms. And therefore, of old, the letters that were wrote from one church to
another were superscribed as from the churches (as in Clement's epistle, the
style runs thus, ' The church of Rome to the church of Corinth'), and they
do deal with them as one church of Christ dealeth with another, and as
having the authority and spirit of a church with them, in their admonitions,
in their reproofs, in their directions, or the like ; but still it riseth not to
jurisdiction. As if one kingdom or state doth deal with another state, they
look on it as such, and accordingly respect it ; and their mediations, or
whatever other interpositions of theirs are directed to them, not only as a
company of men, but as they are a state ; and yet still it riseth not up to
any jurisdiction that one state hath over another. And so also in the trans-
actions of elders of other churches, unto any member of a church, or to tho
chm-ch itself, over which they are not elders, they yet are to be looked upon
as elders, and accordingly respected in their admonitions and in their judg-
ments ; but still it riseth not to jurisdiction. If a nobleman comes from one
kingdom to another, as the nobles of Scotland as commissioners into Eng-
land, they are to be respected and regarded as nobles, according to their
place and quality, by the law of nations, and the law of nature, and com-
munion of one state with another ; but still they are no way to be regarded
as having jurisdiction, or exercising the office of nobles where they come, as
the nobles of England do.
4. In the fourth place, we do grant that other churches may deal with
any church (as occasion is) as in the name of Christ, and admonish them,
reprove them, and the like ; but they deal in Christ's name, in this sense,
266 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK V.
that they entreat them by virtue of that name of Christ, which is called upon
by them, and which, in a common way, all do profess, and which would be
thus and thus dishonoured. But they deal not with them in the name of
Christ in this sense, as if they had a juridical power from Christ to deliver
them up to Satan, such as the church at Corinth had, when met together,
over the incestuous person, 1 Cor. v.
5. In the fifth place, it may arise to an authority of commanding, and
that in the name of Christ ; and answerably it ariseth to be the duty of that
church to be subject, and to obey them. In 1 Cor. xvi. 16, says the apostle,
' I beseech you, submit yourselves unto such,, and to every one that helpeth
with us, and laboureth.' He speaks of ministers, those that labour in the
gospel. It is the same word with that which is used of subjection to a man's
own elders in Heb. xiii. 17 ; and yet it is not snbjectio legaiis, a subjection
by law of authority (as Estius distinguisheth it), such as a man hath to his
own bishop (saith he), but nwralis, qiialem reverentes lyrcestamus virtute excel-
lentihus, but a moral subjection, such as we yield in reverence to those who
excel in virtue. So as all elders are to have in all churches the reverence
of elders, and yet but such as a church, considered as such, hath and is to
have from all other churches. It is reverenced as a church indeed, and as
a sister church, but not as having that authority over another church which
it hath over its own members ; and such an authority all the churches in the
world hath not over one church, as all the imperial cities of Germany have
it not over one city. So as the question is now, whether there be not an
obligation arising from the admonitions and judgments af many churches,
and the elders of them, and also a duty commanded from Christ, upon all
such considerations as have been mentioned ? Yet still so far, and no far-
ther, than such grounds will carry it, is this duty to be laid upon a church,
and a subjection called for, as Jesus Christ himself lays it upon them. They
are to be subject, not only because these churches do present to them, in
the name of Christ, what is their sin, or what is their duty, but fm-ther, they
are to take into their consideration their being churches, and churches in-
stituted by Christ, with whom the blessing of Christ is to lead them into
truth, and to regard the elders of churches as persons with whom he is iu a
more peculiar manner present. But yet still they are not bound in such a
subjection to them as to their own elders, who are by institution set over
them, and to whom they have a special relation. Acts xx. 28. If a pastor
of another congregation should come, and is admitted to preach for his
brother elder in any congregation, they are to hear him as an elder, but yet
not to hear him with that special peculiar subjection, which, by vii'tue of
Christ's institution, a congregation owes to their own pastor.
CHAPTER IX.
The several duties of communion uhich one church oices to another enumerated.
— That this communion doth not include in it, that one church may exercise
any act of jurisdiction over another.
Hence then all sort of duties that the law of love and brotherly union can
any way exact or extend to, and that are founded thereupon in the word of
God, of saints to saints, and church to church, we approve of, and judge
ought to be held by any church, to all churches in the world, which we take
to be the true meaning of that scripture in Eph. iv. 16, that the whole body
of the church being joined together, every part is to edify every part, and the
Chap. IX. j the churches of cheist. 2G7
whole, upon all occasions and in all ways possible ; but it is in ways of
brotherly love, it is not with a spiritual rod of coercive censure and jurisdic-
tion. The bonds and ties of law are acknowlegded, not rods and whips of
coercive censure and jurisdiction, sub ixena traditionis Satante, under the
penalty of delivering to Satan.
1. Thus, first, they are to afford part of their spiritual good things, as
occasion is, to all or any church ; so by virtue of that communion, the church
of Philippi was bound to cause to be read, as much as in them lay, that
epistle which was writ to them, in the church of Laodicea also, which, was
one of the Asian churches ; yet that their causing that epistle to be received
by the Laodiceans was not by any jurisdiction, but by communion of good
things.
2. There may be communion in whatever is matter of mere privilege in
any church, but not in jurisdiction. Yea, there may be associations and
leagues of friendship, as between two states, when yet not subjection ; thus
between kingdoms a mutual intercourse of trade. As he that was free
of Rome was free all the world over, and he might come and trade in any
other kingdom, so any that are members of such churches as profess,
both for receiving in of members and casting out of members, to go acccord-
ing to the rule of the word, may occasionally receive the sacrament in any
church truly constituted, and bring their children to be baptized, and may
partake of all the ordinances ; for this is only to partake of the common pri-
vileges ; but they are not to exercise any act of power or punishment, when
they come to those other churches : as if a minister were to be chosen, or a
member to be thrown out or suspended from the sacrament, they are not to
take upon them to have a voice in it. Between two families there may be
communion of good things, without exercising of acts of power and authority,
whenas one family doth not take upon them to exercise authority in the
other family, as not to chastise the children, to dispose of parties in marriage,
nor is there any communion in conjugal acts. So in commonwealths there
is a communion of things communicable, as to afford men, money, and
assistance, to give subsistence to any one that will live in, a stranger king-
dom ; but they are not admitted to choice of magistrates, to judge of causes,
to be of a jury, in any nation but their own.
3. Also, thirdly, there is that brotherly communion between churches,
that whom one church denies communion with, having cast him out by a just
censure, all the rest of the churches do reject him also ; which was an usual
practice in the primitive times, as often Cyprian writes to other churches^
saying, abstinuimus, we have abstained from such or such a man, that they
might have warning not to admit communion with him. And this seems to
be one great end of synods, as appears from the fifth canon in the Nicene
Council before cited.* And the reason is fetched from that principle which
both Mr Cartwright and Didoclaviusf assert, that we have communion with
the universal church by means of being joined to a particular church ; for
communion with the universal church we cannot have immediately ; and yet
by virtue of a particular church, we enjoy the same kind of ordinances as if
the whole universal church should meet together. Hence, therefore, as wq
have communion with the whole universal church by having communion
with a particular church, so we are cast out of all churches by virtue of being
cast out of one, the trust being committed by Christ to particular churches ;
and the law of ecclesiastical society and brotherly communion between
churches requires it, that if they be cast out by one they are rejected by all,
for there is that sympathy and concordance between all the members of this
* Book iii. chap. viii. of this discourso. t Altar. Daraaseen., cap. x. p. 853.
268 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK V.
body, as one body, and so between particular churches, as members of this
whole, that as when one member suffers all suffers, when one member re-
joiceth all rejoiceth, so whom one church casteth out all churches casteth out,
and whom one receives all receives by virtue of this communion. Or if,
when it is bound by a particular church, it is bound in heaven, then all the
earth over too, all churches being to reverence the act and judgment of a
particular church, with whom Christ hath betrusted the keys. So as all the
churches do not reject such an one by an act of jurisdiction, or of interest in
the jurisdiction, but by the law of communion ; and by the like law that
there is among kingdoms, where there is leagues offensive and defensive, to
be enemies to those that are enemies to any of them, and not to harbour
those whom they have thrown out, and to be friends to those that they are
friends to, and that are their allies.
4. There may be a communication, by sending out of elders from churches
to churches that want, yet without jurisdiction, or the choosing of elders for
them, or putting elders upon them. So anciently the bishops in cities did
instruct and educate young men, to fit them for the ministry', whom after-
ward they sent out to the villages that wanted (as young men in colleges
now under a master), but yet (as our divines against bishops have argued)
that did not prove a jurisdiction, as in colleges it doth not. So the church
in the Canticles, chap. viii. 8, 9, speaking of a sister church she had, w^hich
wanted breasts, by way of communication of good things, she afforded help,
but yet without jurisdiction, for she was her sister. For still those elders
which in that case they should send out and afford, and part withal from
themselves, or any other church, are to be received and chosen by that
church as elders to them, and no way by virtue of any jurisdiction in the
church that lends them.
6. So also in matter of advice, there is communion between the churches.
There is a double direction (as Bains* distinguisheth), one potestativa, antori-
tativa, the other socia, or social, as one servant, that hath more expei'ience
than another, may give advice to another upon occasion. An advice we
acknowledge in churches, by virtue of this communion, but then let it be
but advice, and where there is need. And so now in difficult cases, we
acknowledge they are bound to advise with other churches, and in case of
miscarriages, they are to be advised and admonished by other churches.
But when they do advise that such a man should be excommunicated for
such an. act done, they do not add authority to that church. Jesus Christ
hath furnished the church with sufficient authority in itself ; only they add
counsel, and direction, and countenance; moral strength or countenance they
add, but not political power or authorit3^ There is as much power in the
church itself, to deal with its own members alone of itself, as in all the
churches of the world put together ; but this advice is given but as alms is
given to a neighbour church. And again, that advice, as to the object of it,
is properly but only to give their judgment of the rule ; it is not a joint put-
ting forth the act of administration of an ordinance, in a way of application
of the censure to the persons. Neither is a congregation bound up by the in-
stitution of Chi-ist to advise, so as, if they do not advise with a neighbour
presbytery, the act is null and made void which they do, as, if by Christ's
institution it were so that they ought to advise, such their case would be.
In Babylon they had such elders as came to inquire, but not to judge, Ezek.
xiv. 1, and xx. 1. But all this obligation to advise in such cases, and the
help that the churches do give, ariseth (as our brethren themselves say, in
their answers to our reasonsf). Ex charitate, ex dehito mutuce societatis co-
* Diocesan Trial, p. 72. t Pao;e 49.
Chap. IX.] the churches of christ. 269
lendce, from charity, and the duty of maintaining mutual fellowship as is be-
tween friends and equals ; 7ion ex dehito mferioris conditionis ad prcestandum
ohsequium, not from any duty, obliging the inferior to obedience. And all
that they there say afterward, page 50, unto line 16, we acknowledge. And
since they say it is ex dehito societatis colendce only, and ex charitate, or as
others have expressed it, jure fraternitatis, by the right of brotherhood, and
that the communion between churches, accordiog to their own expressions,
is founded but upon that gi'ound, hence therefore it can never grow up to
jus jurisdidionis, a right of juiisdiction, for if the communion of these
churches be in a way of fraternity, then the acts it ariseth to will be but acts
of communion in a brotherly way ; but for the communion of friendship to
arise to acts of jurisdiction, exceedeth the sphere of it, as the acts of grace
exceed the acts of nature. And if it be said that all acts in a church are
acts of brotherly communion, it is answered, they are acts of brotherly com-
munion in distinction to magisterial power, or such power as a master hath
over his servants. It is not lordly power, but the power of spiritual juris-
diction is a middle thing, between that of mere brotherhood, which is be-
tween saint and saint, or church and church, and that which is lordly, for it
is a power ministerial, erected by Jesus Christ, and by institution, having
also a spiritual punishment put into their hands to execute it, with a promise
to accompany it.
6. One church is bound to communicate to another their temporal things,
to send alms, &c., and one man may be chosen by several churches, to carry
in their several alms to several churches; as, 2 Cor. vii. 19, it is said of Titus,
that he was chosen of the churches for that service, the contribution being to
be carried from many churches. But it is not to be said that all those
churches met when he was chosen ; but his office, being the office of an
evangehst, to travel up and down from church to church, he was by a tacit
consent chosen, first by one, then of another, and so of a third ; otherwise
the apostle would have said, he was chosen of the church of such a province,
if all the churches had been united into a synod, when it was done ; but in
that he saith churches, it implies, that they were apart when he was chosen.
But if it had been such a common meeting, yet it was not an act of jurisdic-
tion, it was by a common consent, to carry alms ; and such acts in synods
we acknowledge.
7. "We acknowledge that there are res communes, things in common, that
concern many churches alike in a brotherly way. There were between the
apostles themselves some things that were res communes, as that they should
confer to see how far they should agree in the same doctrine, and how far
God had revealed the same things to them, as Paul went up to that end to
confer with the apostles at Jerusalem, Gal. ii. ; and yet there was not an
authority that the greater number of the apostles had in matter of doctrine
over another apostle. We acknowledge that the setting up ministers over
particular churches is res communis, because the transactions of all businesses
between neighbour churches is ordinarily done by the elders thereof ; and
therefore the bringing in anew of ministers to such associations should
be with their privacy and knowledge. But that will not arise to this,
that the neighbour-ministers have the power of ordination, the power of
deposition, or that they have a negative vote, by way of jurisdiction, to which
the church must, by virtue of an institution, submit ; they may give the ri^ht
hand of fellowship ; and it may be a due, ex dehito fratemm chaiitatis, from
the duty of brotherly love, that a church, when it chooseth its elders, should
ask the right hand of fellowship from other churches ; but it must be remem-
bered that it is but giving the right hand of fellowship, it is not giving the
270 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK V.
right hand of authority to choose them their elders, or to lay hands on them.
Because that marriages are of a public concernment to a commonwealth, and
to families in a commonwealth, therefore states are to be acquainted with
marriages ; but the power and authoritj^ to guide them whom they should
marry lies in the parents, and in the persons that are to marry ; and they
may marry whom they will, only in the Lord. And such a respect to other
churches, it is no more an act of subjection to them, as having jurisdiction,
than, according to our brethren's principles, it is a subjection in the elders
not to excommunicate, if the people (who they say have no interest of autho-
rity, or of a negative voice at all) should be against the excommunicating of
a person.
As there are these ways of communion difiering from government, so there
are certain ties and bands,* some more general, some more special among
all churches, by which this communion is to be exercised, as appeareth by
Eph. iv.
There is, 1, that general tie and obligation of the church catholic, which
we acknowledge to be the chief fundamental relation or obligation (transcen-
dent above all others) of communion of churches ; the other particular, being
but several respects and relations that do knit more fastly by virtue of it.
2. We do acknowledge that every particular church is to be considered as
a member of the church catholic, as, 1 Cor. xii. 27, the apostle speaks of the
universal body in the words afore, and in the words after. But although it
be a part of the church universal, yet not of the church universal, considered
as a ministerial body that hath jurisdiction in it, but as being a mystical
body, and it is therefore obliged to perform to other churches, by virtue of
this catholic obligation, only all such duties of Christian communion, as pro-
ceedeth in a mystical way, as hath been shewn ; so as we profess ourselves
wronged, to have this put upon us, that in gathering of churches, we make
separate churches from all the world, but do acknowledge as many and as
great duties in a way of communion, to lie between us and all other churches,
as according to their assertion there are duties of exercising jurisdiction and
subjection respectively among themselves.
3. They are to look also to the other churches' elders, as elders, and accord-
ingly to reverence them ; but yet not as elders they carry jurisdiction over
all churches about with them. It will be bard to shew wherein ministers
have power of jurisdiction over persons that belong not to their own churches.
If it be acknowledged that they are elders, and so to be looked upon by
other churches, yet still but bj' virtue, and in the way of a mystical com-
munion, as all things in the world are the saints' : 1 Cor. iii. 21, 22, ' There-
fore let no man glory in men, for all things are yours : whether Paul, or
Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or
things to come, all are yours.'
Again, there are two things to be considered in every elder. There is first
his separation unto the work of the ministiy, and unto Christ, that he is
dedicated and set apart to him ; and then, in the second place, there is his
relation of an elder to this or that particular church.
Now, his particular relation of an elder to this or that church may cease
by the church's ceasing, by the death of the members, or by his removal or
absence, when yet his separation to Christ, and the relation that is between
Christ and him, continueth. It is here as in the case of widows, as they
were dedicated to Christ as widows, and should have w'axed wanton against
Christ if they had married ; so he, if he should (unless upon an absolute
necessity) divert to another calling, he would offend against Christ. And if
* Vide Zanch. in Epb. iv., in torn. vi. oper.
Chap. IX.] the churches of christ. 271
his relation to a charch should thus cease, yet the blessing of Christ, in
respect of his dedication to him, might follow him in his preaching unto
those who yet perhaps would not acknowledge him to be their elder, in respect
of relation to them. And the power of jurisdiction that he hath together
with other elders, is (for the exercise of it) in respect of his fixed relation to
that particular church to whom he is an elder ; and therefore, although in
many ministerial acts he may have the blessing of an elder secretly accom-
panying of him from Christ, yet he cannot claim the power of an elder in
respect of jurisdiction. The apostles themselves had the blessing of apostles
and the ministers of Christ, in their preaching to them that were without :
and yet they had not a jurisdiction ecclesiastical over them that were with-
out : ' What have I to do to judge them that are without ?' saith Paul, 1 Cor.
V. 12.
Again, our divines have distinguished that there is potestas ordiim, and
potestas jurisdictionis, in ministers and elders, power of order and power of
jurisdiction ; and that there are acts which are acts of mere power of order
of his office as an elder, which he may perform alone, as to preach, and the
like, and that power he may carry along with him wherever he goes, because
he performs it personally in respect of his dedication to God and Christ ; but
the power of jurisdiction is a farther thing, which therefore he exerciseth with
other elders, and with other elders not materially considered, but as formed
up into the relation of presbytery, to a church which is to be the seat of it.
Power of jurisdiction is an external power, and therefore dependeth upon an
external relation to men ; but the blessing and power that accompanieth his
ministerial acts, to preach, and the like, that depends principally upon his
being dedicated unto God, and is internal, and hath a more special relation
to God, according to which relation men, wherever he cometh, reverence
him and receive him, and the blessing of God may accompany him ; and
therefore this power of jurisdiction with others is not to be extended beyond
the seat, the church, to which he hath relation. As is the case also of
magistrates, if you could suppose, that besides the relation of a king to his
people, in respect of which he hath a jurisdiction as a king over them, that
there were such a dedication and separation of him to this office, that wher-
ever he came, he were a king in respect of some acts, had a kingly spirit,
kingly wisdom, to give counsel in any diet or assembly of kings and princes
in the world ; he might be received in all such, to perform such acts, when
yet he could not perform an act of jurisdiction, because that is founded upon
that special relation he hath to his own people.
And it is in respect of the communion of churches, and other elders, as it
is in respect of churches, and the brethren of other churches. If the brethren
of other churches, few or more, occasionally come to a particular church in
a city, where a mart of men coming from many cities is kept, if they receive
them to all the mere previleges of that church, by virtue of their church
communion, yet they would not receive them so as to sit and vote with
them in the choice of officers, or the like, because that is an act that pro-
perly concerns that particular church whereof he is to be an officer. So
answerably, a particular church may receive the elders of other churches,
and receive them as elders in respect of some acts, as preaching and the like,
but not in respect of acts of jurisdiction, which we believe our brethren
themselves would deny to the elders of other churches. As, for example, if
upon an occasion the elders of other churches, belonging to other presby-
teries, should be present at some one classical presbytery, although they
would receive them as elders, and reverence them as such, yet they would
not have them to sit with them, and vote, so as that the vote of those
272 THE GOVEBNMENT OP [BoOK V.
strange elders, which yet they acknowledge elders, should over-rule, or cast
the acts of their presbytery. They would perhaps hear their advice, and
their judgment as elders, but not admit them to acts of jurisdiction and
ecclesiastical authority ; because that that dependeth upon relation to such
a seat or corporation of several churches, according to their principles, but
to the seat of a particular congregational church, according to ours.
CHAPTER X.
Tliat though it ivere granted that the elders of one church might exercise acts of
authority and jurisdiction in another occasionally, and when called to do
so by that church, yet from this cannot he concluded that authority over
particular congregations which our presbyterian brethren challenge.
But if the elders of other churches were capable to exercise the acts of
jurisdiction occasionally in some cases over churches which they have not
a constant relation of eldership unto, by virtue of the catholic communion
of churches, yet the seat in which, and the bounds of extent over which
this jurisdiction should be exercised, must still be a particular congregation.
And the call by which this jurisdiction is to be exercised, should be occasion-
ally from that congregation, in case of want or need ; which therefore should,
in such cases, stand instead of a fixed and a constant relation that elders do
bear to that church, the call being occasional and from themselves, in case
of need, as the jurisdiction they exercise is but merely occasional, and for
that time. And so by this means, still as the right bounds, that Christ hath
instituted for the seat of jurisdiction, is kept unto and not exceeded, so the
power of the congregation itself is hereby also preserved. But it is another
thing, which by virtue of the catholic communion of churches, and the elders
thereof, that the presbyterian divines do challenge, and would erect accord-
ing to their principles. They do challenge an association to be an insti-
tution of Christ, by virtue of which the greater company of elders of other
churches may assume and challenge a power over any congregation in that
association, and so erect a constant and an ordinary consistory, whereby not
only the bounds and limits set by Christ for the seat of jurisdiction are trans-
gressed and exceeded, but an unlawful power is erected and set over the
churches, not only in respect of the constancy of it, but in respect also of
the want of that relation of being elders to them, which is the foundation of
the constant exercise of jurisdiction.
So as the question will not be, whether by virtue of this catholic com-
munion a particular congregation may make use of the elders of another
congregation to ordain, to assist them in excommunication, &c., and so they
may come to have power in a particular church, by their special and peculiar
call, for such an act at such a time (though this will not be acknowledged by
us) ; but the question is, whether by Christ's institution they may erect a
judicatory and challenge a subjection from all the churches. In the other
way, the congregations do not subject themselves nor their liberty, but make
use of that ministry of an elder which Christ hath put upon them ; even as
in arbitrations, or in references unto other churches, they do not subject
themselves to other churches, it being done occasionally and by their con-
sent whom they would single out to be the arbitrators. So as it is one
thing, that there may occasionally be an exercising of an elder's power in
another's congregation, and it is another thing that it should be assumed
and challenged (which is the thing that remains further to be proved by the
Chap. X.] the churches of christ. 273
presbytei-ial divines), as it is one thing for a child under age, though he
should not govern himself, to have liberty to choose a guardian for the time ;
but it is another thing that a compaoy of men should assume to be his
guardians for ever. It would be one thing for a corporation to send to
another corporation for their recorder, a man skilful in the law, to perform
the office of a recorder, with a jury at their sessions, they now wanting one,
or there falling out a case of difficulty wherein their own doth need assist-
ance ; but it would be another thing for the recorders of several corporations
in a country, to go and challenge, by virtue of association, and the common
law of communion in the kingdom, a constant power of jurisdiction to be ex-
ercised over them.
And in this case, the communion of churches in respect of members qua
members, and of elders qua elders, answer one another according to our
principles. For as the members of another church, if they come to a par-
ticular church, and are received by their consent by them (and so for that
time become as one body with them, by virtue whereof they receive the
sacrament amongst them, as being for this act incorporated, and as one
bread with them occasionally), in this they do not receive merely and
simply as members of another church, distinctly and apart considered,
although by virtue of their being members of another church, but they are
thereby for that time occasionally received into that church, ad tantum, so
far, as to enjoy such and such a privilege. So as the sacrament in this is
not said to be given to the members of two churches apart considered, but
to one church, as thus making one, though upon a different respect. And so
it is also in their receiving elders (if we may make that supposition) to per-
form acts of eldership occasionally, they do it not in this single and apart
consideration, that they are simply elders of other churches, as if, considered
only as such, they may make a consistory mat out of this church to be over
this church, and so excommunicate ; but they come to and are present in
and with that church, being called by them and received as elders for that
act, and for that time as one with them ; so as the acts which they do per-
form are acts as of that church or of elders in that church, and are not to be
considered as acts of other ciders that have ijower over that church.
Though ministers thus should be supposed to have, in respect of their
dedication to God and to Christ, a passive capacity to be used for any
ministerial act in any church, by virtue of the communion of churches, yet
it would be electively and upon the call of that church ; but that they should
have an active power, so as to come unto congregations, and say. We ought
to have this power amongst you, by virtue of Christ's institution, and you
ought to associate with us, for all acts of government are common ; and thus
to challenge, as elders, a power upon occasion in any or all churches in the
world, this is that which was properly the prerogative of an apostle. The
greatest thing in the apostles for their extent of power lay in this, not only
that when they came to a church they were capable of being called to join
with a sister presbytery and eldership, when they wanted ministers and
elders ; but it lay in this, that whenever they came to any church they
could challenge this, as having an universal call as apostles from Jesus
Christ, and so they had authority active which they might assume. And if
it were granted by us, that ordinary ministers succeed the apostles, so far as
to have a passive capacity and power to be called to exercise their ministry
in all or any church, yet to assume the other were to step into the apostles'
throne. The power of authority of jurisdiction is an active thing, not a
passive ; it is not as a dead instrument, that may be used ; it is not simply
VOL. XI. S
274 THE GOVERNMENT OP [BoOK V.
to have the gift and ability to judge, but it is to have the power and autho-
rity to judge, which, if the church should not call them unto they might call
upon the church, regarding it to be their duty to exercise it for them ; as
the power of government or jurisdiction of a king is not a mere passive
capacity, but it is a power to command them that are under him, which he
is to perform and exercise among them ; it is the authority that gives the
calling.
And in this respect, the arguments that our brethi'en use to bring, that
elders may exercise some acts of elders in others' churches, as that they may
preach, &c., and are to be received as elders in other churches, by virtue of
the catholic communion of churches, are no way sufficient to prove and estab-
lish that jurisdiction in their way. For,
1. It doth not follow, because they may do one act of ministry, as of
preaching or administering the sacrament, that therefore they may do all ;
no more than it would follow, that because a man may preach alone, baptize
alone of himself, that therefore of himself alone he may exercise jurisdiction.
Unto acts of jurisdiction there is a formality, and the formality doth lie in
their relation to such or such a seat or subject over whom the jurisdiction is
exercised, and so and so bounded, and that by special institution.
2. It will not follow, that if they may exercise as elders one act of ministry,
therefore all of jurisdiction, because there may be some acts of ministry
which are properly belonging to the church universal, as universal, and such
acts we judge preaching and baptizing to be ; and therefore we read that
baptism was done both out of a church relation, and without the presence of
a church, as the baptizing of the eunuch by Phihp. But so ordination is
not, so the Lord's supper is not ; baptism we rather take to be an ordinance
of the church universal : ' One faith, one Lord, one baptism,' Eph. iv. 6.
But the Lord's supper is an ordinance of a particular church, making one
body and one bread, and consisteth in a communion. One apostle and one
man could not receive the supper of the Lord together, because they could
not make one church, for this is made essential to it, 1 Cor. x., ' We being
many, are one bread ;' therefore it is called, ' the communion of the body of
Christ.' But one apostle may baptize one man when alone, and so we think
one minister may do it at this day, if he had converted him.
8. If the elders of other churches should have power to judge and deter-
mine things in a doctrinal way, to give the rule upon occasion ; it will not
follow, that they have the power of juridical application of excommunication
according to that rule. The apostles might deliver the doctrine of faith, as
apostles to them that were without, when yet they could not juridically judge
them that were without. The pharisees, by their doctrine, did bind burdens
upon men's consciences, and that in their sermons, when they sat in Moses
his chair, when yet they did not bind by way of censure ; yea, every minister
may doctrinally deliver the rule, when yet alone, and that as a minister, he
cannot exercise an act of jurisdiction. We see this in civil power in king-
doms : the judges of the kingdom altogether met cannot condemn a man
without a jury, though they may deliver what is law, and say what is the
rule ; yea, though the house of commons in parliament, in an extraordinary
way, by way of bill, may adjudge a man to death, yet in an ordinary course
they are not witnesses to the fact ; and although they have power of making
all the laws of the kingdom, they do not give an oath as the house of peers
doth. The assembly that now sitteth,* they are betrusted with power in a
doctrinal way, to give their judgments what shall reform the kingdom ; and
* The assembly of divines at Westminster.
Ch.VP. X.] THE CHURCHES OF CHRIST. 275
their judgment herein is to be looked upon as the judgment of so many
elders of several churches ; but they have not power to administer a censure.
4. Because they may come to have as elders authority in any church, in
the way fore- mentioned, occasionally, electively (the power of the church
being seen, in calling them upon such an occasion together to assist them,
and to be present with them, they exercising that power but in that church,
and jointly with that church, and as an entire act of that church, whereto
for the present they perform the office of elders), it will not follow, that
therefore they may in all churches usurp a power over them, and call upon
them, and challenge it from them. This will not follow from the other,
because, as was said, the privilege of government is given unto the church
as the seat of it, and is therefore to be drawn down to it, exercised in it, and
not to be claimed out of it.
The one therefore running thus in a natural moral way, the other by a
special institution, forming up a body on purpose, and arming it with a power,
over and above what the natural law of communion and non-communion
reacheth to, which is to deliver unto Satan, and to perform all acts of admoni-
tion and censure in order thereunto ; hence, therefore,
1. This communion with other churches is not in a fixed set way, but
occasional. The Sanhedrim was a set and a fixed court, and therefore by
institution ; but this communion is but as the communion of saints one with
another in a general way. Hence,
2. It being in a moral way to other churches, and the elders thereof,
therefore the obligation for matters of ending of controversies is answerable
and suitable. They are not bound to go to the next neighbour church, but
to any other whom they do most reverence, or who are most fit and proper
to end the controversy ; therefore Antioch sent to Jerusalem. If it were by
institution, it would take in the neighbour churches, as in the case of murder
the next city was to make an atonement. When James doth bid us confess
our sins one to another, in case a man be so troubled with lust, so that he
is called to confess it to another, the obligation doth not require him neces-
sarily to confess it to his minister, or to the next saint or brother he meeteth ;
for it is not laid upon him in a way of institution, but upon a moral ground ;
and answerably he is morally to consider who is the fittest man to confess
this sin unto, and will be faithful and secret, and is able to ease him ; so
that it runs not in a way of institution of set persons.
3. Hence, therefore, that neighbour churches should have a ground and
a warrant to call a neighbour church in question, or to an account, is not by
way of power and authority, as, if it ran in a way of institution, it should
be ; but it is by way of ofience, and therefore they are to do it, when they
are olfended with their proceedings and with their miscarriages. So then,
as the subjection of a man or a brother in the case of ofience, to forbear such
a practice which is otherwise indifierent to him, is not by virtue of any autho-
rity his brother hath over him, but it is in a moral way; so it is in this case.
4. Whereas the analogy of Mat. xviii. is urged to be as well between a
church ofiending and other churches, as between a brother and a congrega-
tion ; that when they are oftended, they are to tell it to a greater number of
churches ; we shall not be against this analogy for the like way of proceed-
ing, only we are against the like authority of proceeding. If other churches
will deal with a sister church in the way of moral communion specified, let
them observe the same analogy, and we shall submit to it ; but if they will
erect from that analogy the like authority and power of jurisdiction, unto
that we deny the analogy to reach, because that in the church universal, and
the communion thereof as such, Christ hath placed no such jurisdiction.
276 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK V.
CHAPTER XL
That churches in the same nation are ohlir/ed to maintain a nearer communion,
one with another, than what all churches, thouffh sejmrated by distinct king-
doms, are bound to hij virtue of their catholic obligation.
As there is the general bond of which I have discoursed, that knits all
churches together, which, like to that which the apostle speaks of charity, is
above all, and runs through all, and gives strength to all other, so there are
more special relations and bonds which knit some churches to a more near
communion than others ; even as in a congregational church, although there
is a common bond and tie which knits all the members together, yet there
are special bonds and ties besides, by which that fellowship is improved more
between some of the members than others, as the relation of man and wife,
servant and master, friend and friend, all which are occasions of more con-
verse, and so of edifying one another more.
And herein we give and acknowledge much to those national relations of
being under one common civil government, if considered as a bond or tie,
which makes the communion more near, and occasioneth more obligation of
duty. As also there is a closer communion between churches that are more
near, neighbouring in the same city and the same vicinity, because they have
a more special occasion of converse and of knowing each other's affairs.
But yet still all those bonds and ties, by which churches are thus knit to-
gether, doth not give neighbour churches, or a national church, power of
jurisdiction ; for it runs in a way of that mystical communion of the church
universal, only there is a ground and occasion of exercising that communion
more nearly. Thus, in the churches of a nation, many advantages do arise
(we acknowledge) unto churches thereby, as that they have the benefit of
the common laws to protect them under the Christian magistrate, who is to
be a nursing father and a nursing mother to them, and so to unite them to-
gether, and make that mystical communion more entire. But the power of
the magistrate cannot set up or form them into any other ecclesiastical
power and government than Jesus Christ hath instituted. What communion
Christ would have to be amongst churches, the magistrate may exact of them
and keep them to it, but he cannot raise up a new kind of communion,
though their having one language, their having one government, makes a
greater nearness of it. The apostles write therefore unto the churches of
Asia, as in one nation, or in one province. Thus Paul, writing to the
church of Corinth, writes to the saints of Achaia ; and many churches in
Achaia may be called Achaia, for so it is in the apostle's style : * Achaia was
ready a year ago,' saithhe, 2 Cor. ix. 2, meaning many churches in Achaia.
So we may say Eiifjland for the churches of Kni/land, and the name may be
given from the nation ; but the name, with the word church, is never put to-
gether as being a national church, cast into one body, in respect of ecclesi-
astical government and jurisdiction, as the kingdom is for civil government.
The apostle, therefore, when be writes to churches of a nation, calling them
churches, and not church, doth argue that the common relation between
them was by way of communion, each reserving their jurisdiction as several
churches, but not as cast under one jurisdiction, as being one church. Yea,
perhaps the name church may be given unto a nation in a mystical respect ;
that which is given to the whole being given to any part or number of saints.
The strangers that were scattered all over lesser Asia, 1 Peter i. 1, are
called ' a flock,' 1 Peter v. 2. And so our Saviour Christ saith he had
Chap. XI.] the churches of christ. 277
sheep that were not of that fold ; i. e. that were not of that nation, but that
were Gentiles, and yet they are both called one church in the general ; for
he would make them (both Jew and Gentile) one fold ; but they are so called
in respect of their mystical relation, as under him their shepherd, not in
respect of government.' Peter calls the Jews that were scattered a flock in the
general, distinct from the Gentiles, because they could not perhaps under-
stand the tongues of the Gentiles, and therefore kept together, as Jews
distinct.
So then we shall grant very far to national communion of churches kept
in a mystical way. As,
1. We gi-ant that God under the gospel hath made a covenant with, and
a promise unto, nations (in respect of the gospel) as well as unto families.*
Paul, when some in Achaia had received the gospel, calls them the first
fruits of Achaia, Eom. xvi. 5. He calls them the first fruits, as a sign that
more would come of the same nation ; but he would not baptize men of the
same nation upon it, or upon a bare outward profession, as the apostles did
not therefore baptize all the nation of the Jews because some received the
gospel as the first fruits. Abraham's covenant, indeed, goes to nations as
well as to families : Isa. Hi. 15, ' He shall sprinkle many nations.' ^ And
God removes the light of the gospel fi-om nations as well as from particular
churches. The gospel itself becomes a national blessing ; and we see that
one nation hath more light in one age than another ; as the Grecians and
those in Asia once had, and now we Europeans in the northern parts have.
That part of Britain which is now called Wales had it more than the rest of
the nation when Austin the monk came into this island, those that opposed
him being only found there, whereas now the whole kingdom hath had it
since, and the gospel becometh a national blessing ; and when the prac-
tices and privileges of it are established by the law, it cometh to be a national
right. And when the civil magisti-ate by law doth countenance religion, God
doth bless the nation, and bless the magistrate for it, as he did the house of
Obed-edom for the ark's resting there, 2 Sam. vi. 11, 12.
2. There are national duties, which the churches in a nation, as they are
a nation, owe unto God in a joint way, as to keep solemn fasts, and days
of thanksgiving for national blessings, or for threatened judgments, as
Nineveh did.
3. In case that the churches of a nation are corrupted, they may have
assemblies and conferences, where mutually it may be seen what light these
churches can hold forth ; so to make a reformation, and to become a new
lump, they may have such assemblies to direct them to do it. In Babylon,
the Jews had elders to come one to another, Ezek. xiv. 1, xx. 1 ; but they
had not the power of a Sanhedrim, which was instituted by God ; that was
only proper to them while they were in the land, and the promise was to it,
as being in the place that God should choose. They came to inquire, but
not to judge ; and the prophet was with them, who yet had not the power of
jurisdiction as a prophet. Or otherwise, at other times, we acknowledge that
national assemblies may be chosen out by parliament for national respects
to advise them.
4. And by virtue of oneness of language, and of affinity, churches in one
nation are able (by virtue of this bond as a band and tie to knit together) to
edify one another more than other churches, as by writing books in the same
language, speaking the same tongue, &c. Yea, and as they are churches in
* Yet we understand this in the same sense as Rev. v. 9 interprets it of the re-
deemed out of all nations, so that all the people in nations will never grow up to be
members of churches, espcciall}' not till the cull of the Jews.
278 THE GOVEKNMENT OF [BoOK V.
a nation, as they walk more exactly, God will give such a nation more light
than he doth another nation. These, and many more such advantages as
these are, in ways of communion, we do acknowledge belong to them as
a nation ; and the same also by reason of neighbourhood to neighbour
churches.
But to cast all these churches into such a national government ecclesiasti-
cal, and such subordinations as presbyterian government casts them into
(such as, being a nation in respect of civil government, they are cast into),
and that they should be obliged, in respect of a national bond, to an uni-
formity, or obliged, for uniformity's sake, to the same pitch and model, that
one particular church should not practise further than another, or hold forth
more light in matters of doctrine than another ; but that there must be one
standard for all, and that they should be obliged to this by virtue of a
national constitution ; such an uniformity as this, we thiuk, is prejudicial to
the churches, the apostle's rule holding in this, that so far as we have
attained, we should walk by the same rule. So the churches in a nation
may meet to see how far they have attained, and to convince one another,
and so establish by common consent a common rule amongst them so far ;
but so as that, if any be otherwise minded, they should wait in this till God
reveal it in his time ; for otherwise, the purer churches, which will still be
the fewer, must be kept and conformed to the light of the impurer, which
would soon corrupt them. And the greater compass is taken to make the
uniformity, still it will be the worse, because the greater part is still more
corrupt.
And therefore for mere uniformity's sake, to make a general rule that
should bind weak and strong alike, when that general rule also is made in
favour of the weak only (as to prescribe forms of prayer, because many, or
the most of ministers, cannot pray conceived prayer, or to make one and
the same form of government for all churches, because many or most
churches have not ministers or a people fit to govern ; or to give prudential
rules for worship which should bind all, because some elders of churches, as
now constituted, have not wisdom to direct themselves, and yet are sutl'ered
still to be elders), thus to bind up both weak and strong under the same rule,
and to restrain the one for the sake of the other, we think is contrary to the
apostolical rule. As men in a personal walking are to be left to a more or
less purity, so churches too ; and there is no reason that those that have a
further light should be retarded by those that have not.
And that which we say of the churches of a nation may, in their several
respects (so far as the bond of tie will hold), be said of the churches in a city,
or in any neighbourhood. Yet so as we conceive, that always neighbourhood is
not so near a bond to induce churches to associate as correspondency of prin-
ciples and practices. As in Germany, where there are churches that are
Lutheran churches, others that are of the Calvinists, the neighbourhood is
not so near a tie or bond as agreement in principles to associate themselves.
Though this principle is to be held sacred by virtue of the universal catholic
communion, that so far forth as churches have anything that is good in them,
so far forth (whether in respect of doctrine or worship, or the like) there is
to be a communion held with them (when in practice there cannot, yet in
iudcment there ought to be) to acknowledge them the churches of Christ
and the ministers of Christ, and approve whatever is good in them ; and if
in one practice we cannot join, yet in others we may. This we do acknow-
ledge to be the universal law of communion between church and church
throughout the world.
And we do acknowledge that it is possible that a congregational govern-
Chap. XII.J the chueohes of cheist. 279
ment may be adequate with the nation ; for if it were a nation of all visible
saints according to the rules of the word (as the nation of the Jews when
called perhaps shall be, Rom, xi. 28), then the nation and the church would
be adequate. But a few in nations come to be saints, and then the govern-
ment must be suited to them ; and if you would make a rule for a whole
nation where there is but a few saints, though the whole profess Christian
religion, then the rules whereby Jesus Christ would have his churches
governed, as by the people's choosing the officers, and the people's having an
interest in censures, would not universally be applicable, and such a govern-
ment would not suit to a whole nation in a congregational way ; but the fault
is not in the government, but it lies in the persons. Castellus Bononiensis
would say that the old government of churches would not be available, nisi
ecclesia quoque statiwi antiquum obtineant. The rules whereby Jesus Christ
would have his church governed will not suit churches unless they have that
state and constitution for members which in the apostles' times they had,
which in the common profession of Christianity in a nation and parishes, as
now more generally they are constituted in respect of members, cannot be.
CHAPTER XII.
'That though no church or churches have the j)ower to excommunicate any other
churches, yet they have authority of declaring non-communion with them
upon occasion of just offence.
The upshot of the difference between us and our brethren lies in this prin-
ciple, that all church government consisting in a spiritual instituted punish-
ment, or being in order to it, which is properly called a censure and an
£>r/7-/,a/a, a punishment, by the apostle, 2 Cor. ii. 6 (for that is properly
government which hath a power of inflicting punishment as such), since
excommunication is properly a spiritual punishment in a strict sense so taken ;
hence therefore, where that only is placed, there is a government placed in
a strict sense ; and that which makes excommunication, lis it differs from
non-communion, to be a punishment, lies in this :
1. That it is a delivering up to Satan, which because it superaddeth to the
severing of a person or persons from external communion, which is common
to it with that which we call non-communion, therefore it must be a special
institution, and cannot be founded upon a natural ground ; for who hath
power to give up a person to Satan, when any church hath thrown him out,
but only Christ ? And hence other churches, after a particular church hath
excommunicated a man, cannot excommunicate him further ; they cannot give
him up to Satan again, for that act is already done if he be rightly excom-
municated, and all their act can be but a pronouncing non-comuiunion.
2. Excommunication and non-communion differ thus, that in excommuni-
cation the person is to look upon himself as cast out of communion with
Christ, and he hath his sins judicially bound upon his conscience, not only
in a doctrinal way (for so his sins are bound when a brother reproveth him),
but as by such an ordinance, wherein Jesus Christ doth, as a judge from
heaven, bind his sin upon his conscience, having promised to do so upon
the church's binding sin upon him ; but declaring non-communion, they do
not anew judicially bind his sin.
3. In non-communion there is not so much an authoritative act over other?,
as an endeavour to keep themselves pure. It is indeed an authoritative act
over others in this sense, or the church that doth keep another church-, or
280 qjHE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK V.
the persons of another church, from communion with them, exercise authority
in this sense, that they having authority from Christ positively to partake in
such and such ordinances, and to receive men thereunto, they receive only
such and such memhers (although of other churches), and refuse others.
Both these acts ai'e comparatively (take both positive and negative together)
acts of authority, for they proceed by way of consequence from the authority
they have to administer ordinances amongst themselves ; yet the keeping out
of that person is not an act of jurisdiction over that person, as the keeping
out of an heathen is not an act of jurisdiction over him.
4. Look what diSerence is between suspension from the sacrament and
excommunication within a particular church ; the same may serve to express
the difference of excommunication and non-communion by other churches.
The act of suspension from the sacrament is but by virtue of the mystical
communion that is between all saints, but excommunication is by virtue of
the communion which the members of a particular church have one with
another.
If it be said that they differ thus, that suspension is but for a time, but
excommunication is a final sentence, the answer is, that even suspension is for
over, unless the man repents, as well as excommunication ; but they differ
only in this, that the one is a withdrawing from a brother to keep themselves
and the ordinances pure, but the other is an authoritative giving him up to
Satan in the name of the Lord Jesus. Suspension therefore is after the sin,
till they try whether he will repent or no, but excommunication is when they
have tried, and they see he doth not repent.
Of non-communion there may be two grounds.
1. The one is when the church urgeth, suppose in some one ordinance (as
kneeling at the Lord's supper), that practice upon a person which to him is
sin, although in all other respects that church to him is as pure a church as
any is in the world. In this case he is forced to a non-communion, that is, to
a forbearing communion with them in that practice, and in that ordinance
wherein especially public communion with the saints lies ; and this is done
without any censuring of that church, but only professing his not being able
to see that light and ground upon which he should have communion with
them in it. Therefore those that leave other churches upon such grounds do
not pronounce a sentence of non-communion with those churches, but do it
merely and only to keep themselves pure and undefiled.
2. Another ground, or perhaps a second kind of non-communion, is this :
whereas a church or churches do judge another church or churches to be
corrupt in their doctrine, or in their countenancing such gross sins for which
men should be excommunicated, and so are offended at those churches which
being admonished do not repent, but continue obstinate. Now, such a kind
of non-communion in these cases is materially for such kind of sins, and
ought to be for such, as for which in a particular church excommunication is
to be denounced against a member or members, and so both the one and the
other do agree.
(1.) In the object matter of offence for which men proceed to the one or
the other.
(2.) They may agree in this, that for the external act they are the same, and
for the consequences of it too, so far as lies in their practice one toward
another externally. For the outward substance of the act, they are both a
denying outward communion in ordinances, and also from the consequent act,
they are both of them a denying communion in ordinary converse.
Then (3) they agree in the analogy of their proceedings, that as in a par-
ticular church, in admonitions tending to excommunication upon impenitency
Chap. XII.] the churches of christ. 281
(upon which excommunication follows) there are these degrees of proceed-
ings : first, to take two or three privatel.y, then to give two or three admoni-
tions in a public way ere they proceed to excommunication. So should
other churches deal with a sister church offending, ere they proceed to non-
communion.
If the question be asked. What institution there is for non-communion?
we answer,
1. There needs no institution for it, since it ariseth from all the former
principles, and is not an act of censure by way of institution, but according
to the law of nature ; and as the saints are taught of God to love one
another, so they are taught of God to withdraw, and also any church _ to
withdraw from those that live inordinately. As the mystical communion
runs in a natural way, by reason of the law of love that is in the hearts of
all the saints, so doth the law of non-communion.
2. It cannot be said that there is no warrant : for, 1. The same precept
that warrants suspension warrants this, namely, the withdrawing Ironi a
brother that walks inordinately, as to what is in their power to give or refuse
him fellowship in ; and it is in the power of one church to give or refuse
fellowship to other churches in their ordinances. So that it cannot be
alleged that there is not a command for it, but only that there is not an
institution for it; it is a duty, though not an act of authority. 2. That
which warrants any Christian not to bid an heretic good speed, which yet is
not an act of jurisdiction, nor to receive them into their houses, warrants
also this. 8. That which warranted Timothy, being a minister to guide and
direct the churches, to • turn away from those who had only a form of godli-
ness, denying the power of it,' 2 Tim. iii. 5, warrants also this non-com-
munion of which we are discoursing. It was written to him by way of
prophecy, and so to all ministers and churches in the latter age, when the
profession of Christianity should grow as common, and be carried by the
same grounds of common education and imperial laws, as the pagan rehgion
before had been. When he foresaw (all, in a general implicit way, thus pro-
fessing Christianity) the churches might be in danger of being defiled by
holding communion indifferently with all, since the case is such, that many
should have a form of godliness, and deny the power of it, although profess-
ing religion ; therefore, saith the apostle, ' from such turn away.' 4. What
one apostle did to another in case of offence, the same one church may do to
another, upon the same grounds. One apostle had not power to excom-
municate another in a way of censure; neither had Paul power to excom-
municate Peter, or admonish him in an authoritative way ; but to admonish
him by way of that mystical communion which all saints owe one to another,
and so was due from one apostle to another : Paul accordingly did admonish
Peter, and withstand him to his face. And when in that contention between
Paul and Barnabas, Barnabas was in the wrong (for he went upon a carnal
groimd, because Mark was his sister's son, and so therefore he would have
him along with him, though formerly he deserted the service, for which Paul
would not take him into fellowship with them), they, upon this occasion,
part fellowship one from another, and Paul did justly do it from Barnabas,
though he could not excommunicate him.
If the question be, why Jesus Christ should put this ordinance of excom-
munication and delivering up to Satan in a particular church rather than in
a multitude of other churches ; I answer. Although the reason of institutions
is only the will of Christ, yet all his constitutions are consonant to spiritual
reasons, and the consonancy of this particular instance to spiritual reasons
may appear in this ; —
282 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK V.
1. Because iu the proceeding of other churches with another church
offending, they can but have half that power as present to concur in it,
which the ordinance of Christ hath settled excommuncation upon ; for there
cannot both elders and people meet in synods ordinarily; and yet in a con-
gregation both elders and people must concur to excommunication, as a
judge and a jury use to do. Now, to suppose that the power of this ordinance
should be transferred to those that have but half the interest, to a company
of elders only, where the concurrence of the people as present is wanting ;
to suppose that in a congregation both these should concur, and that in a
synod, which hath the greater power, but one of these should concur, would
not be uniform to this ordinance. Dealings with other churches must be
transacted by commissions, and by way of representation ; and the power of
excommunication is not given to a representative company. And for these
to have power to take upon them to excommunicate not only persons but
churches, when yet to excommunicate persons in a church, both people and
elders concur, is yet less imaginable.
2. Again, this honour God hath given to his church of saints, that if the
formal authority of Jesus Christ be not placed in them, yet virtually it should
be exercised as amongst them, so as the unanimous concurrence of their spirits,
as well as of the ministers, should have an influence unto this ordinance, or
should be concomitant to this ordinance; and that therefore the power of
Jesus Christ should be put forth : 1 Cor. v. 4, ' When you are gathered to-
gether,' both elders and people. As the virtue of the loadstone is then put
forth when it is set in steel, and as the authoritative power of an act of the
king and state is exerted when both houses of parliament are met and in
their presence, without which it would not be an act of authority to ratif}''
and establish laws, so is [it] here ; the power of the Lord Jesus Christ to deliver
a man up to Satan must be in the presence of the people ; and as though
the eye alone sees, yet as seated in such a body, so 'suppose all the power
should be in the elders, by which a man is delivered up to Satan, yet in the
elders as seated in this church. And therefore, to take a company of elders
abstracted from their people, Jesus Christ hath not given this power unto
them, as the laws of this kingdom hath not thought fit to give the power of
condemning any man to the judges alone, but as concurring with the jury.
3. The enjoyment of a constant communion, as in a congregation formed
up into a fixed body for worship, is only proper to a particular congregation,
and the members thereof; therefore the throwing out of such an enjoyment,
out of such a body (having this punishment annexed to it, to be given up to
Satan when he is thrown out), is most proper to it rather than to any other
body, where a man comes but to meet occasionally ; and as it only is the
seat of fixed worship, so it only is the seat of throwing one out of the seat
of worshippers, and of delivering him up to Satan. And the nature of the
ordinance is such, as that it could be placed but in one seat, and therefore
that seat which hath it first should only have it; for a man can be delivered
to Satan but once.
Now, the next question will be, how far this law of communion of churches
will draw on a subjection of one church to another, and will tend to order
churches ? and what proceeding, by virtue hereof, one church may have to-
ward another ? and what one church, or many churches, is to give to any
church ?
We lay this for a general ground, that as there are particular duties, and
in a manner for the external part all the same kind of duties, which are to
pass between a particular church and the members thereof; therefore, by
analogy, there may be the same proceedings used and courses taken for the
Chap. XII.] the churches of christ. 283
discharge of these duties between church and church occasionally, as is
amongst the others. As,
1. There is an obligation of one church over another, by virtue of this
communion, to inquire in case of jealousy or common fame, and report how
it fares with them. And therefore there may be an association of churches,
whereby, in the meetings of their elders or others deputed, there may be in-
quiries of miscarriages, which may be eqivalent to those of annual visitations
which have been amongst us.
2. If that persons wronged do complain, and their complaints do arise to
that height and appearance of injustice, as that there is a just offence occa-
sioned, in such cases, or in whatever other cases of miscarriages, one
chm-ch or many churches are bound to give an account ; and in cases doubt-
ful, to give oaths to clear things, and to swear witnesses to help to find out
the truth.
3. For the judging part, they may declare against churches, by way of
declaration doctrinally, that they have thus and thus transgressed the rule ;
they may condemn them, as having sinned against light, as perverters of the
faith ; they may admonish them and threaten them in the name of Christ, — ■
that is, for his name (his name is put for his honour), and so for his honour's
sake that is called upon them ; his name is put also for power ; — they may
declai-e that they are offended as a church, and that it is a church act as
from them, and so deal with them as a church offended with a church de-
linquent ; but still they act not by a power over them given by institution
from Christ; they do not act from a power of delivering up to Satan, but
only with the power of Christ's word, and threatenings laid afore the offend-
ing church.
4. When by way of sentence they profess to hold no communion with them,
that sentence yet is not that of excommunication, for therein, though they
exercise chm-ch power over their own selves in relation to themselves, binding
themselves as a church not to have communion with them, yet it is not an
act of authority over them, as a lord of a manor meddles not with another's
mill when he interdicts his tenants to grind there, for it is not an act of
jurisdiction over the other, but only over his own tenants.
If the question be, What fruit and effect there may be from regulating
churches in this way ? we answer,
1. That the efficacy of all means Hes in the blessing of Christ. Now,
there being two ways of church proceedings, one by way of communion of
churches and the law of nature, the other by institution, there is to either,
in then- kind, a promise of Christ. The admonition of one saint to another,
though not in church fellowship, as it proceedeth by virtue of the com-
munion that is among saints, and as a duty of one saint to another, so it
hath a promise of blessing answerable. The exhortation of one saint to
another hath a blessing often to convert, though preaching by oflicers be the
only instituted means, and so is it here ; therefore such proceedings, by way
of admonition and by way of non-communion, have the promise of the
blessing of Christ, as well as that of excommunication in a particular
church.
2. In a moral way there is a great deal of efiicacy in these means to work
upon men, 1, a convincing of a church offending of their sin, and of the error
of their way; 2, there is a testimony given against them; 3, there is a shaming
of them, for the design of such withdrawing is (as the apostle saith, 2 Thes.
iii. 14), that they may be ashamed. There is, 4, a depriving them of the pri-
vileges of communion with all other churches.
3. In an external way, this is like to work as much as excommunication
284 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK V.
itself, especially being backed by the civil magistrate, as excommunication
useth to be.
4. It is more suitable for churches to deal with another church, or with
multitudes, with provinces, with churches in this way, than to assume a
power of delivering them up to Satan.
If it be said that excommunication, being the highest supreme means, if
this means should not be used there is the most efficacious means wanting,
I answer, that God doth not always establish that means that is most effica-
cious for one sort or kind of persons, or in all cases, that he doth in some
and unto some ; neither is it necessary, therefore, that what is in itself to
be supposed the most efficacious means should be applied to churches from
a greater number of churches, as the argument would hold forth, for accord-
ing to this reason, God should have appointed apostles always infallibly to
have governed churches, because that v/as the most efficacious means, and
was once extant in the world. And it may as well be said and objected, as
it is by the papists, that unless there be an apostolical seat assisted with
infallibility, there is not an efficacious remedy for all controversies, and that
God hath not provided for his church in our age as he did for his church in
the first age. But it suited his wisdom to leave the churches in after ages
to have recourse, in respect of government, to a means less efficacious. The
like he did with the church of the Jews, to whom he stirred up prophets in
all ages till after the captivity, but then left them to the ordinary guidance.
Book VI. Chap. I.] the churches of christ. 285
BOOK VI
Of the constitutiGn of a particular congregational church. — The rise, institu-
tion, and definition of it. — A comparison between it and the church uni-
versal. — That Christ hath given to his saints a right and liberty of gathering
into such holy societies. — That in doing so they are not guilty of sinful
separation or schism. — Of the divers kind of officers in a church. — That
there is an institution for each sort. — That the pastor and teacher are equal
in authority and poicer. — Of the exercise of the communion of saints^ which
the members of a diurch ought to have, one with another.
CHAPTER I.
The reasons why God and Christ would have a church, as a seat of divine
worship, wherein they might be adored and praised. — What a church is.
— That saints or persons regenerated, and holy are the proper matter of it. —
The church is either the uni'versal mystical church, or a particular congrega-
tion. — 21ie grounds of this distinction shewed from Scripture.
It is the practice of all societies and corporations at first embodying there -
selves, to read over their charter. Thus at the assizes the commission is
first read, and in parliaments the writ by which they are summoned is
opened.
It is then requisite, when any number of saints do by mutual consent join
into so holy a fellowship as a church is, to shew what charter and commis-
sion they have for it from Jesus Christ. The question otherwise may be
put to us (which was put to Christ, Mat. xxi. 23), * By what authority we
do these things' ; which authority, if we are not able to produce, we incur
that premunire. Acts xix. 40, 'We are in danger to be questioned' by God,
by men, ' if there be no cause whereby we may give an account of this
meeting.' The word is sKxXriffiag, whence the name of sKxlKrisia is given to
such a fellowship of saints.
AH inferior civil societies do embody themselves by a liberty granted and
derived from the head of the commonwealth they "live in, especially when
they take on them to exercise any judicial acts ; therefore this holy divine
fellowship must much more be authorised by Christ, the head of the church
universal ; since those joined in it take upon them the authority to judge them
within it, as occasion is, 1 Cor. v. 12. As all meetings in civil aftairs are
said to be in the king's name, so we must prove this to be in Christ's name,
and for this we have that known place. Mat. xviii. 20, * where two or three
are gathered together in my name,' &c. Where he speaks not of every
assembly of saints, but of such an assembly as doth make and constitute a
church, for (verse 17) those two or three to whom this promise is made are
called the church ; and by name is, among other things, chiefly meant the
power and authority of Christ, and is usually so taken in Scripture. So,
286 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK VI.
Acts iv. 7, the pharisecs take it, asking the apostles ' By what name or
power have you done this ?' and in that sense the apostles make answer :
ver. 10, ' Know that by the name of Christ this man stands whole before
you.'
That there is and ought to be a church, is the confession of all the pro-
fessors of the name of Christ. Papists and protestants agree in this asser-
tion, it being a principle of the gospel, universally assented to by all to whom
the sound of the gospel is come ; as that there is a God is owned by all
to whom the sound or preaching of the works of God is come. As that
notion of a God was preserved in the ruins of the fall, so the notion that
there is a church hath been preserved, notwithstanding the apostasy and
falling away of nations to antichrist, and accordingly hath been trans-
mitted to us. And as that notion that there is a God was the occasion
of an idolatry and false worship through darkness, and of worshipping a
false God, not knowing the true, so this notion that there is a church on
earth hath, through the like darkness, been the main occasion of all errors
about ecclesiastical government, men not discerning what was the church
which Christ intended.
And indeed, that God should have a church is exceeding natural and
requisite.
1. The divine nature in God desires it. As it desires communication of
itself to the creatures, that they might glorify him, so it designed a com-
munication of itself to many, and to many together united, mutually to praise
him. The Godhead itself is naturally communicated to three persons, who
mutually rejoice each in the other, and together in the union and participa-
tion of such glorious attributes, Prov. viii. 80. There is a blessed fellow-
ship between those three persons, and God would also have creatures taken
up into the same fellowship, not only each apart with himself, but mutually
together to glorify him, which is the nature of a church. Those three persons,
that were three in one, would have a church of creatures also ; and resolved,
that many should become one, as they are one, John xvii. 21, 23. The
gospel is called ' the fellowship of the mystery,' Eph. iii. 9. Wisdom also
loves to open and cry her precious wares in place of concourse, Prov. i. 21,
Ps. xxii. 22, Ps. xl. 9, 10. Christ, who was this wisdom of his Father,
says, he had declared his faithfulness not to his brethren only apart, but
together in the great congregation (Ps. xxxv. 18), because thereby glory and
praises, being joint and mutual, are so much the more increased ; for glory
manifested results out of the apprehensions and encomiums of many joined :
therefore God, ere he would so fully communicate himself, desires a meeting,
and an assembly of the people. So Exod. xxv. 8, ' Let them make me a
sanctuary, that I may dwell among them ;' and Exod. xxix. 42-44, ' There
I will meet with you,' that is, when they are all met there. And therefore
it is called in the original, the meeting-place ; so that if there be a God, he
will have a church to worship and praise him.
2. Jesus Christ desires it also, who was to be made glorious ; and there-
fore was to have a church, that is, many united in one, whereof he might be
the head. So Eph. i. 22, God gave him to be head to the church. It was
a privilege to him to have a church, she is therefore given him ; and as this
was his desire too, his Father in answer bestows her on him : ' Ask and I
will give thee,' Ps. ii. 8. As he was to be a head, so to have a body ; in
whom, as in a head, they might be gathered together in one, ver. 10. He
was to have many brethren; and his desire was, that they might be gathered
tof'ether about him. Thus he declares, Ps. xxii. 22, and thus he promises
to them when assembled on earth, Mat. xviii., and thus he prays, John
Chap. I.] the churches of christ, 287
xvii. 24, * That lie and they may be together.' So as if there be a Christ,
there is to be a church also.
3. The divine nature in us (2 Peter i. 4) breathes after such a fellowship.
As reason and understanding desires communion with men, since man is by
nature (as he that had but nature said) animal 'jroXiTr/.ov, sociahile, a sociable
creature, so a saint is too. As it was not good for Adam, the new creature of
the first world, to be alone, so nor for the new creature of Christ's world.
It was that one thing of David's desires, that is, the top, the chief of them :
Ps. xxvii. 4, ' One thing have I desired, to dwell in the house of the Lord.'
The church, as they have a relation to Christ, so likewise one to another ;
for they are not an ' holy seed' only, but an ' holy nation, a royal kindred ;'
who, out of an instinct, desire fellowship one with another. ' They are
taught of God' (saj's the apostle, 1 Thes. iv. 9) ; and, therefore, as natural
instincts shew themselves in creatures, who, when new fallen from the dam,
gather in a company about it, so a spiritual instinct shews itself in those,
who, being new born, associate together. So in Philip, i. 6, Paul gives
thanks for their ' fellowship in the gospel from the first day ;' as if, when
they were not an hour's standing, they desire it. And therefore, in the
Acts, to be converted to the church and to the Lord are used promis-
cuously ; they breathing after a church fellowship with the saints as well as
with God.
But our business further, is to inquire what manner of church it is, which
Christ would have erected, and unto which his promise is made that he will
be in the midst of them.
We shall come the better to know what this church in particular is to be,
if we inquire what the church in general is.
A church in general is an assembly of saints, of believers, of men called.
1. It is a company or assembly united. If there had been but one angel,
or one man saved, he had not made a church. It is a body that hath many
members : 1 Cor. i. 15, and Rom. xii. 6, ' We being many, are one body.' It
is a nation, 1 Peter ii. 9 ; a flock, an household, a kingdom, a common-
wealth, Eph. ii. 12. The same men that, considered apart, are called saints,
collectively taken, are called the church.
2. A church is a company united in one, for without union they are not a
church, but a confused multitude; therefore it is called one body, Eph. iv. 4,
as there is one God, and one Spirit, &c., 1 Cor. xii. 12, 13 ; and Eph.
iv. 16, it is said to be knit together.
8. A church is a company of saints united in one. It is a society of
believers who are called ; as it is a nation for multitude and order, so it is a holy
nation, 1 Peter ii. 9 ; as it is an household, so of faith ; as it is a common-
wealth, so of Israel, Eph. ii. 12 ; as it is a temple, so an holy temple, ver. 21.
' Holiness becomes thine house,' Ps. xciii. 5. It is a congregation, but of
saints, Ps. Ixxxix. 5 : 1 Cor. i. 2, ' To the church of God at Corinth ;' ' to
them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, and called to be saints,' not by
invitation only, as if all to whom ever the gospel is preached might have
that name ; for so the West Indians, if but preached unto, should be called.
But they are called saints by qualification, that is, they are sanctified. * They
that were not my people shall be called my people,' Rom. ix. 25; 'called
saints,' that is, that are saints ; for God calls things as they are. They are
* called with an holy calling,' 2 Tim. i. 9. To all callings a qualification is
required. If a man is to be of the privy council, the place requires that he
should be wise ; if he is to be of a company to trade, it is requisite that he
be brought up to it ; if he is a minister, that he be gifted ; and so, if he be
of a chui-ch, that he be holy.
288 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK VI,
4. It is a company joined to have fellowship with Christ, 1 Cor. i. 9. It
is called therefore Christ, 1 Cor. xii. 12, and complementum Chn^li, the ful-
ness of Christ, Eph. i. 23.
The kingdom is spiritual, so are the subjects ; for Christ is, in relation to
his church, a King of saints, Kev. xv. 3. To be in a church is to be fel-
low-citizens with saints, Eph. ii. 19, and with Christ, 1 Cor. i. 9. And
as reason only fits us to have fellowship with men, so grace only qualifies
us to have communion with saints and Christ. A fellowship is of those
who are alike in nature and disposition. Thus God would not have Adam
joined in fellowship with beasts, and therefore made a woman for him, as a
meet companion ; much less will God admit his second Adam, Christ, and
his members, to be joined with swine. ' What fellowship is there between
righteousness and unrighteousness ?' 2 Cor. vi. 14-17. They are a temple
to God, and the stones which frame it are hewn before they are laid in the
material building, 1 Kings xvii. 18; and therefore they are to be lively
stones, not dead, as Peter alludes, 1 Peter ii. 5. They are a body, and the
bodv of Christ, and therefore the members are to be similar to the head.
Hence hath arisen that distinction of a church mystical and of a church insti-
tuted, which suppose the same matter, the same men, and which are but
several adjuncts of the same matter or relations, whereof the one may be
superadded to the other. As in Holland, the same man that is a member
of the society of the states-general is also, and may be also, of the states of
a particular town, but yet still he must be a Dutchman ; or, as in London,
every man of a particular company may also be a member of the common
council of the whole city, but yet he must be a Londoner, and free of the city ;
so here in this case, if a person is a member of the church mystical, or of
an instituted church, he ought to be a saint. As a church in general is a
company and assembly of saints united, so the church mystical is the general
assembly of all saints on earth united in Christ to him, and one to another.
And the church instituted is a particular assembly of saints on earth, united
in Christ by a special covenant. The members of both the one and the
other are to be saints united into a company and assembly, that so there
may be a communion.
1. I will shew the ground for this distinction of church in Scripture.
(1.) There one church is called ' the general assembly, and the church of
the first-born,' Heb. xii. 23. An assembly it is, and a general assembly ;
and that part of the distinction argues there is another to be found, from
which, by that word, it is distinguished ; and therefore there are particular
assemblies, which also must be called a church. Members of this general
assembly these Hebrews were ; for he saith, ver. 22, ' Ye are come to this
general assembly,' as being made a part of it. And that these Hebrews
were also members of particular assemblies, though dispersed through all
countries, and that they had a relation unto them, is expressly mentioned,
Heb. X. 3, 25, ' Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together.' And
they were so to assemble, as in a special relation joined, to consider and
exhort one another.
Yea, more expressly we find this mentioned, 1 Cor. xii. 27, where, having
discoursed of the whole body in the former verses, he (in ver. 27) draws
down all he had said in the general of the whole church to that particular
church at Corinth, to whom he writes, chap. i. 2, ' Now ye are the body of
Christ' (says the apostle), ' and members in particular ;' where the phrase,
in particular, hath reference both to body as well as to members. So as
the meaning is this, that they in particular made a body of Christ, and were
members one of another, also in particular ; and, therefore, all that he had
Chap. 1,1 the churches of christ. 289
discoursed of the nature of the body, and the members, and the offices, and
duties in general, he brings home as particularly true of them, as making a
special body apart, so the word is sk lAoouc. They were a body apart in
relation to other churches, and more particularly members one of another,
and that in such a particular manner, as they were not so of any church else.
The like w-e have as express, Eph. ii., where, having discoursed of the body
mystical, as made up both of Jews and Gentiles, as appears by ver. 16, he
shews (ver. 19) their relation thereunto : ' Ye are no more strangers, but
fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God' (namely, that
great household of heaven and earth, as he calls it, chap. iii. 15), ' and are
built,' &c. ; ver. 20, ' with all saints into an holy temple.' And then he
farther adds, ver. 22, ' and you also are builded together for an habitation
of God, through the Spirit.' Where, 1, he means some one more special
farther temple than to be members of the mystical general building ; for he
had said before, ver, 19, 20, Ye are built up with, the whole church into such
a temple, and it needed not so emphatically be repeated again. But in that
he says you also, -/.ai, &c., he affirms some further thing of them than what
he had said of them before. He means something more than that whereas
the whole body is built into a temple, they are built with them as a part of
that temple. For that he had said afore (ver. 19) they being part of that
whole temple, of which he says all is built, &c., ver. 20-22-, he makes them
a distinct temple from the former, and plainly intends, that as with the whole
they grew up into a temple, so they in particular were built up as an habi-
tation besides the other. You Ephesiaus, and you as together considered
(says he), a-jvoizoboijTsiaSi, ' are built up together.' So as- he speaks it not of
that personal relation and conjunction which they had with all the rest of
the saints in the world, and which every one had privately and personally to
the mystical church (for that was as common to the Galatians as to them),
but he means that which they had together in a more peculiar manner in
joint relation each to other. If he had designed only their common rela-
tion, he would rather have said, You, together with all saints, are thus built
up ; but this he had said afore. But now (says he) you Ephesians, together
one with another, are built up into a more special house, or private oratory
(as I may allude to private chapels in great cathedrals), or little sanctuary
(as the prophet speaks, Ezek. xi. IG), private by themselves. I might prove
the same out of Eph. iv., where, having first at large discoursed of the whole
body on earth (ver. 12), he then passeth (ver. 16) to the use, and end, and
benefit of a particular congregation, which he also calls a whole body fitly
joined together, so as to supply nourishment, and to edify each other.
Which of all the saints on earth, making up a mystical body, cannot be said ;
for how is every one so dispersed able to edify each other in love ?
'And because there is the same reason every way of the body mystical, and
of the body instituted, therefore the same privileges every way which apper-
tain to the whole body mystical do belong al?o as fully to every such par-
ticular church, so as indeed they are one ; that is, there is iDiica et eadem
ratio, one and the same consideration of the one and the other, as there is
the same nature of a drop that is of the ocean, since both are water, the one
as well as the other. Therefore the apostles do so promiscuously speak the
same things of the one and the other, and in their discourses pass, without
much distinction, from the one to the other. As he that reads an anatomy
of the body of man in general may be said to read it of every man in parti-
cular, so what is said of the invisible church may be said and applied to the
visible. As the one is called the body of Christ, so is the other. Yea, as
VOL. XI. T
290 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK VI.
the one is called the whole body of Christ, so is the other. So of the church
of the Corinths he says, ' when the whole church is come together in one
place.' For the church of Christ is totmn homof/eneinn, an homogeneal whole,
whose parts are of the same nature with itself ; and so what is said of the
whole is said of every part.
CHAPTEK 11.
The reasons why Christ hath instituted a congregational church.
I will now give reasons why Christ did institute such a particular ordi-
nance as a particular congregation of members joined, to grow up to be a
body, a temple apart unto Christ, and why he hath thus endowed them with
the privileges, name, and nature of the whole.
1. That there should be joint and public profession of the name of God,
and that God should be worshipped of his creatures, as assembled together,
is exceeding necessary, and indeed natural. Though the manner of divine
worship is instituted, yet that God should be worshipped by many (when
many are extant, that may worship him) is as natural as that he is to be
worshipped. Therefore all nations have ever had public assemblies in which
to worship their gods. And therefore in Genesis, no sooner did that com-
mon work of mankind spread into branches, but it is upon the genealogy
presently recorded, and put unto it, as the consequence of it : Gen. iv. 26,
' Then began men to call upon the name of the Lord,' that is, publicly and
together ; for privately^ they had done it afore : or if it be meant of idola-
trous worship (as some interpret it), that the men began profanely to call on
the name of the Lord, yet public it was. And however, that they thus fall
upon it, argues the voice of nature, as it is, Micah iv. 5, and is argued from
it. The people of God argue from it to provoke one another to public wor-
ship, of which he there speaks (ver. 1, 2), how in latter days, that is, under
the gospel, there should be flowing to the mountain of the Lord, and all
people should flow to it. ' And many nations shall say. Come, let us go up
and assemble,' &c. He speaks in the language of the Old Testament to
express the worship of the New. You know the temple stood upon a moun-
tain, to which the church of the Jews resorted for public worship, so as to
go up to the mountain of the Lord is to assemble together to worship. And
how do they provoke one another to this ? By the law of nature written in
all men's hearts, ver. 5, ' For all people will walk in the name of his God,'
that is, make a joint and public profession of him, and together call upon
him ; for to that he there exhorts, ver. 5. It is a natural instinct in the
new creature, therefore they breathe after it.
2. As to have assemblies wherein to worship God is natural, so now, under
the gospel, particular assemblies are necessary. When, indeed, the church
was contracted in Judea, so as all the nation might at once meet, for greater
solemnity God ordained three solemn meetings every year, and therefore
they were a national church. But now, when the gospel was preached all
the world over, and saints were to be gathered from over all the world, it was
necessary that church assemblies should be instituted and set up everywhere.
Thus Paul gives directions for public ordinances, that as now they might
pray for all men, which the Jews might not do, so that God now would have
all saved, 1 Tim. ii. 4-G, and therefore he was the apostle of the Gentiles ;
viii. 7, ' I will therefore' (it is an inference therefrom) ' that men pray every-
where,' he speaks of pubhc assemblies, and the ordering them, as in the
whole epistle. Therefore Judea itself, which was before a church national,
Chap. II.] the churches of christ. 291
(jnd tliey were to come to the temple to worship, now had many churches in
it, Gal. i. 2 ; and therefore the prophets, speaking of the latter days, and
prophesying of the church assemblies, then call them not an assembly only
(as that of the Jews was called the great congregation), but assemblies. So
Isa. iv. 5, he says, ' He will create upon every dwelling place of mount Sion,
assemblies,' &c., not assembly, which yet should be all on mount Sion, and
have the same privilege and promise that mount Sion had. So we have it
expressed in Mai. i. 11, 'Incense shall be offered up everywhere;' and so
the temple was to be everywhere.
For, 3, it cannot be imagined that Christ should not be as good to his
chui-ch, in respect of dispensations of grace, under the gospel, as under the
Old Testament. Therefore all the privileges that the Jews met together in
the temple had, and all the ordinances wherein they jointly partook, and the
like helps, and more full of grace, instead of those other, were to succeed in
the New Testament; for his name, he says, should be as great among the
heathens as ever among the Jews. Therefore Christ sets up a temple, and
gives power to his church in all places to set up temples and habitations to
himself, and endows all those private churches with all the privileges and
endowments that the assembly of the Jews had ; and hence now, every such
assembly is called the Lord's mountain and his temple, and hence all the
encomiums mentioned of the Jews' church are now given to two or three poor
assembled. As he said of the temple, ' I will put my name there ' (Deut-
xii. 11, 1 Kings viii. 29) ; so now Christ's word is (Mat. xviii. 19, 20), * I
say to you, that where two or three are gathered together, I will be in the
midst of them.' Which words, as Cameron notes, are not assertory only, but
institutive ; yea, I say further, look what privileges and what ordinances all
saints on earth, if assembled together, should partake of, the same as fully
and entirely hath Christ appointed two or three assembling in his name to
partake in, till they all meet together in heaven.
4. It was for Christ's honour that it should be thus, that such spiritual
regiments and commonwealths, and bodies of saints, should be erected, to
shew that Christ is king. For Christ is a king, and must rule amongst the
midst of his enemies, Ps. ex., Kev. xv. 3. He reigns over wicked men by
his providence ; but as he is peculiarly king of saints, Eev. xv. 3, so in and
over his saints peculiarly, and that not in their hearts only, but outwardly
and visibly, in an ordered instituted kingdom and body. He is king not only
in having saints, but in having saints ordered and embodied together in hoh'
societies: Col. ii. 2, * I rejoice to behold your order.' He is a king over the
bodies of his saints, as well as their souls, 1 Cor. vi. 20, for he redeemed
both. And, therefore, as his work is to guide their souls inwardly by his
Spirit, so their outward man by his officers and ordinances appointed. An
instituted church is called his kingdom, Mat. xxi. 43, for he says, that king-
dom shall be taken away ; he means ordinances, and the candlestick of the
church. And it is reason, that his kingly office should be extended as large
as his prophetical and priestly. His prophetical reacheth to outward things,
to baptism, and the Lord's supper, &c. His priestly office was performed
externally afore the world, and so he was to the Jews in outward things
* Jesus Christ, the same to-day that yesterday,' Heb. xiii. 8. The kingdom
then answerably is visible in an external administration. Christ was to have
an house under the New Testament, as under the Old, Heb. x. 21. We have
an high priest over the house of God, and thereupon he urgeth assembling
together, ver. 25, which makes Christ an house. Now if we arc not to for-
sake the assemblies, it is then our duty to begin to form them, and it is
remarkable that ho says assembling, not assemblies only.
292 ♦ THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK VI.
5. By the institution of these particular churches Christ sets up a king-
dom, and judgeth aforehand. He judgeth them within, by casting them out
if offenders, which shews that he will not bear with scandals ; and he judgeth
also those without, in denying to admit them, and so separates between the
precious and the vile, and makes a day of judgment aforehand. Therefore
we find it made, by the prophets, the fruit of these assemblies, that Christ
judgeth amongst the nations, Isa. ii. 3, 4, Micah v. 2, 3 ; and another fruit
is, that they are blessed, as means to convert souls. Acts ix. 31.
6. Saints have as much need now of assembling thus as then. Adam had
need of fellowship in innocency, and much more do we need it in a state of
corruption. Therefore the apostle exhorts upon that ground to these assem-
blies, Heb. X. 25. *
CHAPTER III.
A comparison between the church mystical, universal, and an instituted particular
church. — Wherein they hath agree, and in vihat respects there is a difference
between the one and the other. — The definition of a congregational church.
Since there is like reason for the universal mystical church, and particular
churches, and since every particular church hath the resemblance, name,
privileges, and attributes of the general, and all that it hath is modificated
by a special institution, let us therefore compare a little the one with the
other, by which we shall the more clearly see the true notion and nature of
an instituted church, by seeing both what is common to both, and wherein
the one is modificated and difl'ers from the other.
A church instituted is a company as well as the other, 1 Cor. x. 16, 17,
for the ordinances of it are a communion, ver. 16. * And we being many,
are one body, and partakers of that one bread,' ver. 17. There is only this
difierence, that an instituted church is but of as many as come together in
one place, 1 Cor. xiv. 23, ' When the whole church is come together in one
place ;' mark that, he calls that the whole church, which yet was but those
saints at Corinth, 1 Cor. xi. 20 ; when you come together in one, not with
one mind only, but in one place. But that other mystical church is the com-
pany of saints all the world over. And the reason why God did contract this
instituted church to such a number as could meet in one place, was because
the end of that institution and meeting was full communion and entire, such
as that they who meet should partake in all ordinances together with one
accord, as Acts ii. 46 ; and then nature doth teach that it can be but such
a company, and so many as can all hear and edify one another, &c., and who
may, from the same pastor, receive the Holy Ghost, and the same provoca-
tion of grace at the same time ; and who may ' glorify God with one mouth
and one mind,' Rom. xv. 6, and ' serve him with one shoulder,' Zech. iii. 6.
And therefore in that institution of a church. Mat. xviii., he mentions their
agreement. It is agreement as met together, which is essential to every
ordinance : ' If two shall agree,' saith our Saviour, Mat. xviii. 19. The word
is av/j!^(pcijr/jSuGi\i, that is, make up a consort, an harmony ; for ordinances and
prayer are so to God, Eph. v. 19. And therefore, 1 Cor. x. 16, though he
says many made that one body at Corinth, yet they were but so many as
could be partakers of that one bread, and receive the sacrament together, and
as many as might all learn, when they prophesied one by one, 1 Cor. xiv. 31.
And so at Ephesus (Acts xx. 28), the elders were to take care of all the flock ;
therefore such a flock is to be no more than such as a pastor can take the
Chap. III.] the ohukches of christ. 293
care of. And therefore, in those countries and regions where the saints did
multiply, their churches were multiplied also, as in Galatia there were the
churches of Galatia, 1 Cor. xvi. 1; and so in Asia too, Rev. i. 4, 20, Acts
xviii. 41. But the mystical church is the assembly of all saints, it is ' the
whole family both in heaven and earth,' Eph. iii. 15, which, like the sea, is
too vast in this world to be gathered into one place.
2. As the church mystical is a company of saints, so is the church insti-
tuted also to be. So was the church of Corinth : 1 Cor. i. 2, ' To the church
at Corinth, called to be saints.' And it is a company of such as are elect :
so 1 Pet. V. 13. The church which was at Babylon, is said to be ' elect
together with them ;' that particular church was such. Thus Paul testifies
of that instituted church at Philippi, Philip, i. 1, calling them the saints there,
with the bishops and deacons ; and inasmuch as he mentions officers, he
speaks of them as of an instituted church. And this he saj'-s, not speaking
of the better part, as giving the denomination to the whole, but as of every
one amongst them ; ver. G, ' being confident in this, that you have a good
work in you.' And he expresseth that it was meet to think so of them all,
ver. 7, else they all had not been meet to have been of the church. The
like is spoken of the Thessalonians, 1 Thes. i. 2, and 1 Thes. v. 5 ; and
there is a world of reason for it.
1. For to all callings there is to be a qualification.
2. Because these are to make up a body to Christ, as well as the mystical,
therefore they must be answerable to their head. It would be very unsuitable,
Humano capiti cervicem jungere equinam,
to join monstrous members to such a glorious head. They who are joined
to Christ must not be members of an harlot.
3. These are called to fellowship with Christ and his saints. And as
moral virtues fit persons to have communion with men, so grace only qualifies
men to have communion with Christ and saints.
4. Their fellowship, and meetings, and transactions, are to be with one
accord. Acts iv. 32, and with one heart. Now faith will give them that.
The believers met with one mind. Acts iv. 32 ; and they only can and will
do so. There is to be an agi-eement, an harmony, 6viJ.(poma, in a church,
and one false string makes a discord. There must be agreeing in principles
to fit men for church fellowship ; and as men that agree in the fundamental
laws of a kingdom, are only fit to be subjects in that kingdom, so those only
are fit to be subjects of this spiritual kingdom, that agree in acknowledgment
of the fundamental principles of godliness, which only true faith will enable
a man to do, Titus i. 1, Philem. 6. Therefore, those who deny the power of
godliness are not to be received, but we are to turn away from them, 2 Tim.
iii. 5. Nay, such a mixture will cause apparent variance, so Christ says.
Mat. X. 34, 35. For siich persons are contrary, and led by contrary prin-
ciples, and how then can they be joined in such fellowship, as is the most
near communion with Christ ?
5. The ends of church fellowship are the form of it (as I shall shew anon).
Now, therefore, such matter is only to be taken in, as may comply and be
serviceable to those ends. Christ, when he makes any institution to an end,
makes it such as may attain that end, or else it is in vain, and so not an
ordinance. Now wicked men are no more fit matter, nor no more capable
of the spiritual ends of a congregation, than the body of a beast is fit for a
reasonable soul to dwell in, and inform, and to use to actions reasonable.
For the ends of this body of a church, and of this holy society, and of every
member of it, is to edify one another, and every part is to supply grace to
291 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK VI.
it, Eph. iv. 16. And for that men must have received the Spirit, and some
spiritual gift. Therefore, those who have not the Spirit of Christ, and have
no spiritual gifts and graces, have but the spirit of this world, and are unfit,
and will be so far from edifying the church, that (as Solomon says, Eccles.
ix. 18) * One sinner will destroy much good.' And are such persons also fit
to reprove, to judge, and thereby to preserve the church pure ? Since they
are such whom Christ calls swine, they are so unfit to reprove, as they are
not fit to be reproved, Matt. vii. 6. And it is of such the apostle speaks,
1 Cor. ii. 14, that they cannot receive things spiritual, but they are foolish-
ness unto them, and therefore they are unfit to judge those within, for the
spiritual man only judgeth all things, and is judged of none, 1 Cor. ii. 14.
How many men are of Gallio's temper ; if it be a matter of right or wrong,
that is to be judged of in the commonwealth, they can do it ; but if the
matter is about the spiritualness of the law or gospel (which things are
within the proper cognisance of this church court), they care for no such
matter ; or if they judge, they will certainly cast out their brethren, Isa.
Ixvi. 5, and say, God be glorified, when they have done.
So then as well an instituted church as the mystical is to consist only of
saints, and saints are to be the matter of both ; only de facto, indeed, there
sometimes falls out this difi"erence.
1. That the mystical church being immediately called by God, consists of
those only, whom, as the apostle says, ' The Lord approves and judges such,'
2 Cor. X. 18, without the judgment of men coming between, who are Jews
inwardly, and whose religion is that of the heart, and whose praise is not of
men but of God, Eom. ii. 29. But this instituted church, though immediately
ordained to be of God and according to his laws, yet the gathering of it, and
assembhng of it, is an act of man's (namely, of saints), and therefore, Heb.
X. 25, it is called the assembling themselves together. And such is the
calling and appointing of ministers, whose calling, though it be of God's
institution, yet the designment, who should be a minister, is immediately by
men. And, therefore, so the apostle distinguisheth his immediate call from
that of other ministers. Gal. i. 1, that it was not by men but by Christ.
Hence, therefore, because what persons should be of this or that congrega-
tion, is determined by the judgment of a company of men that are spiritual,
whom in these things God hath left supreme judges on earth : 1 Cor. ii. 14,
' The spiritual man judgeth all things,' &c. And because they in judging
are, and may be often deceived, hence de facto it comes to pass, that in great
congregations there may be some found that prove hypocrites. Thus the
apostles tells them. Acts xx. 30, that in Ephesus, ' men of themselves should
arise, teaching perverse things,' though in the institution and choice of mem-
bers never so great care was had. But still, though these saints may be
deceived in the apphcation of the rule, yet they are to hold fast the rule
itself, that saints only are fit matter for a church, and that such only are to
be admitted, though they who have the power of receiving them are often
mistaken ; yea, though temporary believers may be found in the church
without a wedding garment, yet to them in the church they are as saints, and
justified as such,_being not known to be otherwise. So as though before God,
and as to his knowledge, others than saints may be in a church, yet none but
such as are to us and in our judgments saints and holy, and of whom (as
the apostle says, Philip, i. 6, 7) it is meet for us to think they have a work
wrought, knowing their election, 1 Thes. i. 5, are to be admitted by us into
church fellowship. By us there are none to be admitted, but such as to us
are saints. So then to us a church instituted is all holy, and justified, and
elected, and sanctified.
Ch.VP. III.j THE CHURCHES OF CHRIST, 295
2. And hence also this further difierence between the matter of the one
and the other ariseth, that those who are saints invisible to men, or inwardly
such, and who yet are visibly such to God's eye, are the matter of the mystical
church ; but such as are visible saints to men, not to wicked men (for they
are blind, and judge not of colours), but visible to them who are appointed
judges, which are the saints, who, as they only have a right to ordinances, so
to judge, 1. Cor. ii. 15, are the matter of the instituted church. So that as
true faith before God is the form of the members of the invisible church, so
a true profession of faith outwardly is essential to make fit matter capable
of being, framed into an instituted church. And as that is ordained to be an
external visible body, so a visible true faith is necessary in the members of it,
and therefore it is called the household of faith, Acts iv. 23. Kow it is not
he that saith he hath faith, James ii. 14, in a verbal profession, that is out-
wai-dly, a visible believer, but saith James, ' Shew me thy faith by thy works,'
ver. 18. Faith is called therefore, 2 Cor. is. 13, a professed subjection to
the gospel, but it must be a faith that is effectual to the acknowledging of
such truths as are after godliness, Titus i. 1, Philemon 6, and so effectual
as to prevail in others that are saints to acknowledge every good thing in
them, Philemon 6, and such as it may cause them that are saints to think
it meet so to judge of them, Philip, i. 16, and such as hath the obedience of
faith to attend to it, Rom. xv., and such as hath a professed subjection to
the gospel in the w^hole man, for it is to be such as is no he. Now to profess
in words and deny in deeds is the greatest lie that is, 1 John i. 6, and liars
are to be without, Ptev. xsii. 15.
3. As the chm-ch mystical is a^ company knit and united together into one
body to fellowship with Christ, and one with another by the Spirit, so also
is a church instituted to be.
(1.) It is to be a company knit and united together, for they, though many,
are called one body, 1 Cor. xiii. 20, and Ephes. iv. 16, joined together and
compacted, and, Ephes. ii. 22, they are builded together for an habitation
for God, a distinct habitation by themselves (those places speak all of an
instituted chm-ch) ; yea, and so in particular united, as to make a distinct
entu'e body unto Christ from all other churches, as those Ephesians, Ephes.
ii. 22, did, and the Corinthians, 1 Cor, xii. 27. Thus the apostle speaks
likewise, Rom. xii. 4, ' We being many are one body in Christ, and every
one members one of another.' And he speaks it in relation to an instituted
church, for, vers. 6-8, he reckons up the offices and organs of such a body
(' He that teacheth on teaching,' &c.), and therefore he intimates them to be
in such a particular manner members one to another as to none else ; and
to be joined, into such a body, as that they have power, by virtue of such a
conjunction, to judge one another that are within the body, 1 Cor. v. 12,
and to put out from among them, ver. 13 ; which power they have not over
other saints, or any saints in the world, but only over such as were by some
special means made of them and of their body, and therefore distinctly
formed as into a distinct commonwealth. And it is a body not confused
but ordered, according to several gifts, to several functions, 1 Cor. xii. So
the apostle saith of the Colossians, that he rejoiced beholding their order.
Col. ii. 5 ; so he tells the Ephesians, that they were a body,' not only joined
together, but fitly joined together, Ephes. iv. 16.
(2.) It is to be a company united by the Spirit. So the church of the
Ephesians was ' built together by the Sphit into an habitation,' Ephes. ii. 22,
and those other places are to be understood of both: Ephes. iv. 4, ' There is
one body, and one spirit, even as ye are called,' &c. ; that is, this is ex-
emplified in you, who by one Spirit have been called into one body, as into
296 THE GOVEENMENT OF . [BoOK VI.
an hope of calling; and, 1 Cor. xii. 12, 'by one Spirit we are all baptized into
one body, being made all to drink into one Spirit.'
(3.) It is a company joined to have fellowship with Christ. Such was the
church of the Corinthians, to whom he WTites as to a particular church,
1 Cor. i. 2, and who are said to be ' called to fellowship with Christ,' ver.
9 ; such were the Philippians, who were an instituted church, Philip, i. 1, 2,
and they are said to ' have fellowship in the gospel from the first day,'
ver. 5.
These things are common to both the church mystical and instituted ; but
there are these differences between the one and the other.
1. In their knitting together and union there is a diflference. The union
of the whole church mystical is internal, and simply by the communication
of the Spirit, and by the communion of the same faith and love, having the
same Spirit in them that dwells in Christ and all his members ; and having
the same faith ('hke precious faith,' 2 Peter i. 1), which is called the com-
munion of faith ; and being interested in the same benefits, in the same
« common salvation,' as Jude calls it, Jude 3, and in the same common
Lord, 1 Cor. i. 2, ' with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus
Christ our Lord.' But the union of an instituted church (though it contains
and supposeth all this in the matter of it), as it is more special, particular,
and distinct, so it is founded upon something more peculiar ; and as the
government of it is external, so the union of it is also. As, 1, is seen by
gathering together in one place, in the name of Christ : Acts ii. 44, ' Ail
that believed were together,' and Mat. xviii, 20, ' Where two or three are
gathered together,' &c. When the law was given, and that church of the
Jews was to he constituted, the people were all assembled to meet God.
Thus it is under the gospel, too ; ' when ye come together,' saith the apostle,
1 Cor. xiv. 2G. As coming together and cohabitation is necessary to a
married condition, so it is to this; though indeed it do not cease to be a
church if dispersed, or any member to be a member if severed a while ;
but their union being in relation to gathering together, it may continue, as
man and wife may be man and wife still though for a season they are
asunder, but yet their relation was ordained to be by coming together (1 Cor.
vii, 5) ; and therefore, if either voluntarily will depart the other part is free,
ver. 15. And because this church relation is ordained for coming together,
therefore if any forsake the assembling together, it doth unchurch them,
Heb. X. 25.,
And whereas their gathering is in the name of Christ, it is meant to be
either in the authority of Christ, as was said, or further also for the name of
Christ, for so sv too ono/Man is taken. This Christ says. Mat. xi. 6, 'Blessed
is he that is not ofiendcd in me;' that is, ' for me.' So we are said to exalt
the name of Christ in his ordinances, and every ordinance is Christ's name,
&c.^ This being gathered in Christ's name, is the end of this holy company,
which distinguisheth it from all societies else; for finis in morcdihus idem
quod forma in noluralihus, the end of moral things is the same as the form
in naturals. As a company of students meeting together at public acts, &c.,
makes a college, a company of men assembling to consult are called the
council ; so a company of saints met not to any other purpose, as to eat, &c.
(for then they make not a church, 1 Cor. xi. 20-22, ' Have you not houses
to eat in?' &c.), but in the name of Christ, and to call upon his name, are a
church ; for that end put upon the meeting must go to make a church.
They are to be united together, to a constant gathering together. It is
not every sudden meeting that makes a church, as to pray, fast, &c., for they
are to be compact together, Ephes. iv. 16 ; it is an united company of
Chap. III.] the churches of cheist.
207
brethren, that must ' dwell together in unity,' Ps. cxxxiii. 1. Jerusalem, the
type of our assemblies, was a city compact, Ps. cxxii. 31. The first church
(as it is called, Acts ii. 47) continued in the apostles' fellowship, and that
stedfast, Acts ii. 42, 46, for otherwise it could not make a distinct body
unto Christ, as the Ephesians did, Ephes. ii. 22. They were made an
habitation unto God, alluding to the temple, which was called the house of
God, and was a settled thing. And the word sig %ar()t%rirr,oiov is observable
to this purpose (as it is by Beza), for xaroizsTv and <na^oi%uv differ, as
hahitare and commorare, to dwell and to abide, natura domicilium nobis von
hahitandi sed commorandi dedit, as Tully says. A church is an abiding
place, not a tent for a night ; and in that he says they were not only an
habitation, but that they dwelt together, hg, &c., xaroixrjr^iov, to be an
habitation, the phrase implies constantly. And surely that which settleth
any commonwealth into a body must fix this sacred company. A company
meeting at several fairs or marts, never make a body or incorporation, because
they are fluid and part again ; but constant assembling and unity makes a
society, and inasmuch as it is a body compacted to edify itself, it implies
constancy. For if members should be disjointed, and some members make
up the body the one day, others another, there would be little supply of
nourishment, for the nourishment is from what every joint supplies.
And therefore, to fix them, it is meet and requisite they be joined by a
special covenant, which may make and express a more special relation. For
indeed, as the relation which faith internal works between us and Christ, is
the form of the church mystical, so the special relation to Christ and to one
another, to enjoy all Christ's ordinances, goes to make up the form of the
church instituted. This relation, a covenant formally and expressly works,
and constant meeting with such an intention really and virtually makes.
And therefore not saints scattered, though living and meeting in one place,
makes a church, Acts xix. 1 ; Apollos is said to find disciples at Corinth, but
not a church.
The tabernacle, the type of this gospel church, was knit together by taches,
Exod. xxvi. 6, which. Acts xv. 16, is made by James the type of building
up the church of Christ for worship under the New Testament. And if no
mention had been made of any such thing, yet the nature of the thing implies
it ; for a scattered people, that assemble not out of an obligation, cannot be
supposed to have power each over other. Hence, also, we find in Scripture,
that the apostles, writing to particular churches, speak of such as were
members in covenant with them in a phrase of propriety and special relation.
So says the apostle of Epaphras, Col. iv. 2,'' who is one of yon,' in special re-
lation. And there was a stipulated subjection to Christ, 2 Cor. is. 13, as
indeed all societies are knit by outward agreement.
2. As the saints are joined into one body, so, as occasion is, into a body
ordered, not confused. For God in the church is not the author of confu-
sion, but peace. It is to be a kingdom, a commonwealth of Israel, a body
politic, not civilly politic, but spiritually ; an army with banners, in which
are several stations, ranks, laws, and constitutions. Therefore, Col. ii. 5,
be rejoiceth, as in their faith as Christians, so in their order, by which things
were ordered in their church among them. Which order may note out,
(1.) An enjoyment of all ordinances instituted by Christ, according to
Christ's laws. So w^h-en the apostle had rectified their abuses, and brought
them to the primitive true institution of the sacrament (1 Cor. xi. 23, 'That
I received of the Lord I delivered to you '), he calls this a setting things in
order among them, ' the rest I will set in order when I come,' ver. 34. All
which ordinances, when rigbtly and duly administered, he calleth (ver. 2)
298 THE GOVEKNMENT OF [BoOK VI.
traditions or ordinances, as he delivered them. Whereof the one was the
right administration of the Lord's Supper, ver. 23. Which I think were
called traditions, not that they were unwritten, as the papists assert, but be-
cause they were new institutions, which came in the room of the Jewish
ordinances and form of government^ and which were merely institutions de
novo, received from Christ, and delivered only to them, as ver. 25 implies,
and not to be found formerly commanded in the writings of the prophets.
(2.) The order of a gospel church imports the ranking and ordering all their
members into such proper offices, according to theii* gifts, that all those ordi-
nances might be enjoyed, and all gifts among them, to the utmost, be im-
proved to the use of the whole. As therefore it is called a body, for the
identity of members in nature, which are made for substance of the same
flesh and nature (for all saints are flesh of Christ's flesh, and bone of his
bone, as we say of those that are alike and akin), and of the same graces,
so also it is a body joined (Eph. iv. 16) for union and unity, and not only
so, but fitly joined. It is not only rightly joined, but fitly placed and dis-
posed according to the gifts of every member. It is fitly joined, not for the
ornament and beauty only of the whole, but for the use and supplying true
nourishment to the whole ; w^hich we shall find to be that which, under the
similitude of a body, the apostle doth much insist on, Rom..xii. 4-6,
1 Cor. xii.
(3-.) In a body there are not only many members^ as was observed, and so in
a church ; but, 2, these members are of several sizes and measures of gifts
and graces, Eph. iv. 16. There is a proportion in every part, which, accord-
ing to its measure, supplies nourishment to the whole, which the apostle
calls, Rom. xii. 6, the proportion of faith received by each. And, 8, these
gifts are diverse,. 1 Cor. xii. 4 ; there are diversity of gifts, as are in the mem-
bers of the body. The hand is gifted and fitted to do something which the
eye is not, &c. : 1 Cor. xii. 15, ' The hand is not the foot,' &c., that is,
serves not for that use the hand doth. Which diversity of gifts, or fitness
for use to the whole, ariseth partly out of the several institutions and order-
ing of graces. All the members for substance consist of the same similar
parts, flesh, blood, veins, nerves, arteries, bones, which are alike in the hand
and foot, but being variously ordered and tempered (as the apostle's v/ord is,
ver. 24, suvixe^aai), in one there being more of nerves, in another more of
flesh; in some there being one grace more eminent, as love, pity, &c., in
others knowledge, &c. ; accordingly doth there arise a several gift out of the
various composition and temperament of the same graces. They also arise
from superadded habits infused by the Spirit, as in the primitive church the
extraordinaiy gifts wholly did, vers. 9, 10. And now these ordinary gifts
(that one should have his understanding furnished more for words of know-
ledge to teach churches, another for words of wisdom to apply them wisely,
ver. 8), are from a several infused habit, put in bjthe Spirit over and above
their grace.
(4.) As their gifts are diverse, so the offices, and administrations, and ordi-
nances in the church are diverse, and the one are suited to the other, there
being no gift but an office is appointed to exercise it ; and an ordinance also
is instituted, unto which both these gifts and ofiices serve. This we find in
liom.-.-xii. 4, that all members, as they have not the same gifts, so nor the
same office ; and in 1 Cor. xii. 4, 5, that as there are diversities of gifts, so
of administrations, that is, offices or ministries, as the word signifies, to ex-
ercise them in. And the operations of these ordinances, and success by
those ordinances, are answerable in the hearts of the rest. And all these
are fitted to all the needs in the church: ver. 21, ' The eye canuot say to
Chap. III.] the churches of cheist.
299
the foot, I have no need of you ;' not so much as a little finger can be
wanting.
(5.) As the whole church hath need of the right placing and disposing of
all these members to those several offices, for the enjoyiug all those ordi-
nances, so Christ hath appointed it. This is the order of the whole, and
makes it a body, when the hand stands not where the eye should, nor the
foot where the hand should ; which disposure the apostle (ver. 2i) called
setting diverse officers in the church, or fitly ordering them. And therefore to
this day, the putting or ordaining of any to the ministry is called giving and
taking orders.
In this doth this instituted body differ from that mystical ; that though,
when all the scattered members of that mystical body shall come all together
at latter day, there will be a differing measure of grace and glory (which, Eph.
iv. 1-1, the apostle calls the measure of the stature of every member), which,
put together, makes up Christ's fulness, and each person a perfect man in
his body mystical, all having their several yet full stature ; yet then, be-
cause there shall be a'perfect unity in faith and knowledge, as there shall be
no need of ordinances (God being all in all, and the Lamb the light of them,
and so no temple there. Rev. xxi. 23), so nor of variety of gifts and offices,
which in this instituted body are found, till we all come to the unity, &c.,
and no longer, ver. 13.
We may then take this for a sure rule, in reading the epistles of the
apostles, that where we find the body of Christ with members, and varieties
of gifts and offices, and executions of offices spoken of, there this instituted
body of Chi'ist is only and principally meant.
The chm-ch mystical, and the particular churches instituted, agree in this,
that both of them are ordained, that in them we might have a fellowship with
Christ, and one with another ; so, Philip, i. 5, it is called ' fellowship in
the gospel.' And in the instituted church there are the same ordinances
that are in the mystical, only there are some ordinances in this that are not
in the other, so as it diflers from it in some ways and means of fellowship.
In the mystical church the members have fellowship with Christ, by duties
of the first command, especially private prayer, &c., but in an instituted
church they have communion with him by duties of the second command,
that as the church itself is an ordinance, so the means of fellowship in it
are ordinances external also. Christ here communicates himself by public
gifts and dispensations, by the offices of teachers, pastors, elders, and by
sacraments, and by excommunication, &c., and so by these ways too the
members have fellowship one with another. By ordinances of the mystical
church, as the members have common faith, so in immediate fruits of it,
they have and may have a communion, as to love, and shew effects of it by
reUeving, reproving, &c. For if there be a communion of their persons, then
also of their graces, Philem. 6, Titus i. 4. If they have a communion as of
one Christian friend with another, then in offices of friendship too. Thus,
having the same Spirit of faith, they may build one another in faith by
speech : Ps. cxvi. 10, ' I believed, therefore speak.' They have the same
spix'it of prayer, and therefore may pray in the Holy Ghost, may say ' Our
Father,' and so likewise out of love may relieve one another. But in a
church instituted there is this difference :
1. Though that these things are all taken in, yet they are made constant
set duties, not to be omitted. To others they are but occasional, though by
a special obligation thus they are bound to do good to all, but especially to
the household of faith ; and so to love all, and to pray for all saints as occa-
sion is ; but these joined in church fellowship are especially, setly, and
300 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK VI.
ex officio, by office engaged in these duties : as to talk holily every day, but
setly on the Sabbath day. Therefore exhortation to these common duties
comes in after a church is supposed to be instituted; so Kom. xii. 9-11, Heb,
X. 23-25.
2. These common duties are taken in here as ordinances, and so have a
superadded relation put upon them, so as thej' have the nature of an ordi-
nance. Thus, Mat. xviii. 15, private admonition is made an ordinance,
and therefore comes in after and upon the institution of such a church fel-
lowship, Heb. X. 23-25.
3. In a church instituted, there are ordinances in which the mystical
church out of such a state cannot at all partake. There is the sacrament,
which is a ' communion of many made one body,' 1 Cor. x. 17 ; and there
is excommunication, which supposeth a body ; and a fellowship engaging
each other, and having power to judge them within itself. Thus likewise
there are offices in an instituted congregational church which are not in the
universal mystical church. The Jews had public feasts and ordinances, not
to be used out of the holy mountain, and a great assembly, Lev. iv. 4, Dent,
xii. 5, 6, 14, which was not to meet out of it, Ezek. xxxvii. 26, 27 ; and
this was a type of gospel assemblies, Heb. x. 25, Isa. ii. 2-4. As private
performances are not accepted until a man is a member of the mystical body,
so nor these till a man is joined in the instituted body. As ministers are
set in the church, 1 Cor. xii. 28, so are these ordinances too.
4. In an instituted congregational church, there is a further blessing on
all duties. We pray in private, but iti the temple more acceptably ; we re-
prove a brother, but in a church way more acceptably. There may be a
preaching out of season, but in the church it is in season ; as sermons on
week-days bless, but on the Sabbath give a special blessing, redoubled from
the consideration of the day and of the duty, so it is here in this case : Ps.
cxxxiii. 3, ' The Lord hath commanded a blessing.'
Thus, one end of a church is that a man therein may enjoy further fellowship,
and more ways of communion, than out of it. There is a threefold fellowship :
1. Personal, in secret duties ; so John in Patmos had fellowship with
Father, Son, &c., 1 John i. 3.
2. There is a mystical fellowship common to all saints.
3. There is a communion of saints in an instituted church, which takes in
all that is in the other, and some things besides. This was typified out in
the Jews, who had private communion in their synagogues, as they had a
public communion in their national worship.
Another end of communion of saints in a particular church is to edify one
another in faith and love, which is the end of all gifts, ordinances, and of the
institution of a church itself, Eph. iv. 16, and Col. ii. 19. The whole body
being thus fitly knit bj' what every joint, and calling, and member supplies
in every part, doth the whole in every part increase to the edifying of itself in
love. For this end also the several gifts and offices do serve, ver. 12, pastors,
teachers, &c., for the edifying of the body of Christ. It is not only "jg'/?
Karapr/c/xov, which we translate perfectiiifj, but it may signify the jointing in
of members, so as it includes conversion, and the bringing men into the
body which are scattered from it ; and the engrafting and jointing them into
the body of Christ, and the excellency of gifts is to be measured by it, 1 Cor.
xiv. 12, but also ' for edifying the saints.' Now, to have the church edified
is as much, and of as much moment and necessity, as to have the saints con-
verted at first ; for there is a fulness of stature appointed, and every member
must grow up unto it before it goes to heaven ; for when all meet, every
member must have a due proportion in the whole. And therefore Christ
Chap. III.] the churches of christ. 301
says, Mat. xviii. 3, 'Except ye be converted;' i.e. except ye be further
converted, ye disciples already converted, ye cannot be saved. Now, for
this edifying every part, doth this ordinance of a church and of the offices in
it serve. And the reason why among us the ministry serves to conversion
more than building up, and the gifts are more to work on wicked men than
to build up godly men, is that we want this ordinance of a right constitu-
tion of churches, and of the ordinances and officers thereof, whereas yet it is
of as much consequence as the other. For as by conversion the church is
increased extcnsivehj in persons, so in the other intensivehj in graces. And
to this end should all exercises in church assemblies, and other meetings of
particular members of it in private, tend : 1 Cor. xiv. 2G, ' Let all things be
done to edification;' ver. 31, 'That all may learn, and all maybe com-
forted.' And so in private^ meetings of the same body, they should provoke
to love and good works, Heb. x. 24, and to have the church edified.
And to conclude this, thus hath God ordained, that till the whole body
meet together, with every member grown up to its full stature (when they
shall grow no more, and need no more edifying, being come to its full
growth), these particular bodies should serve to increase them, and to fit
them for that general assembly against the time that they then meet, when
this imperfect church, and all the gifts and ordinances of it, shall be swal-
lowed up in that general church, as rivers are when they fall into the sea,
and then all this which is imperfect shall be done away.
This communion of saints in a particular chm-ch is further designed to the
glory of God through Christ, which is the end of all ; so gathering together
in his name may be understood. Which may mean for his name (as was
observed), so 2 Chron. xx. 8, ' Thou hast built a sanctuary for thy name.'
He would put his name there ; and his name was great, great there, Ps.
Ixxvi. 1 ; Eph. iii. 21, 'Unto him be glory in the church through Christ.'
And though all his works praise him, yet his saints bless him, Ps. cxlv. 10.
And they speak of the glory of his kingdom, and of the glory of his power,
ver. 11. And where but in the assembly of the saints ? ' Praise waiteth for thee
in Zion,' Ps. Ixv. 1 ; that is, in the church, where the sound of praises echo
again, and resound in every heart, and multiply, and is made more glorious ;
therefore, says he, Ps. xxxv. 18, 'I will give thanks in the great congrega-
tion : and I will praise thee in the presence of much people ; ' for that is the
most proper place of praise, and of making his name glorious.
This fellowship of saints in a church is all 'through the Spirit,' Eph.
ii. 22, 'built through the Spirit.' 1, It is the Spirit makes them saints, and
so fit matter for this building ; 2, it is the Spirit, and not man, that makes
them wiUing, and moves their hearts to join in this ordinance ; 3, it is the
Spirit that gives all the gifts that are in the members ; 4, it is the Spirit
that is that energy (as the word is, Eph. iv. 16) through which every part
supplies nourishment to others.
The definition of a true gospel church will result out of the recollection of
all these fore-mentioned parts together. It is a company of saints assem-
bling together in one place, built by a special covenant into one distinct body,
which, as occasion is, is to be fitly ordered to enjoy constant fellowship with
Christ in all his way and ordinances, to their own mutual edification, and
the glory of God through the Spirit. And the causes of it may severally and
apart be considered as included all in this definition.
1. The true, and only true matter of this church, is saints visibly obeying
Christ ; and a true profession of this is the only true adequate note of the
matter of it.
2. The special relation which they have to Christ, and one to another in
302 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK YI.
this way, and the fellowship with Christ and with one another, is the true
form of a church. The mutual agreement works that special relation, and
is the instrument of conjoining this matter and form.
3. The order and right administration of the ordinances and disposing of
members is the forma externa, the external form of this body ; the blessed
Spirit, that acts and breathes in all, is the forma asshtem, the assistant form ;
and their own edification and God's glory, through Christ their head, is the
final cause of this particular visible instituted church.
CHAPTER IV.
That Jesus Christ hath given liberty and power to his saints to embody them-
selves into congregational churches. — That in doing so, they are not guilty of
sinful separation or schism.
We have seen that a particular church is the institution of Christ, and
what this church is, and of whom to be made up, and how. There yet
remains to shew the rise, original of such churches, and to clear it out ; and
by whom any such churches are to be reared, erected, and begun, and set
up ; and in whom the power and authority lies to begin and build, and
gather together saints into such a church. Which we must consider, for
otherwise, though the thing done is lawful and warrantable, and is God's
ordinance, yet we may still be asked (as they asked Christ), By what autho-
rity do ye these things ?
For the building of the temple, it was not only necessary that a command
and institution could be produced that such an house was to be built, which
thouoh Moses gave express warrant for, but yet this was not warrant enough
for every one to begin to build it ; no, not for David, for though he was the
kinff of Israel, and so had the supreme power in the commonwealth, &c.,
committed to him, yet it was beyond his commission to attempt the building
it, till he should have a special commission from God to do it, as God tells
him, 2 Sam. vii. 5-9. He indeed pro-sdded materials, and gave the platform ;
but Solomon was only to build it, ver. 13. As therefore we are to look to a
word of institution, that it be done, and to a right pattern and model, how
it be done, and to right materials, of whom this house be built ; so as much
also to the true and lawful power, by which it is to be put in execution, and by
whom it may be built ; for as the apostle to the Hebrews tells us, Heb. iii. 4,
' Every house is built by some man,' so this house must have a lawful
builder.
All assemblies (as at first I intimated) must be convened by lawful autho-
rity, and so must this. Now, though it is warranted to be set up in Christ's
immediate institution, yet the setting of it up is done by men, whom Christ
authoriseth to do it. He reareth it not, as he doth our house in heaven,
without hands, 2 Cor, v. 1, but his temple here below, as that of Solomon's,
is made with hands, and the rearing of it runs thi'ough the hands of some as
the builders of it.
Now there are that pretend to have this power, as of governing, so only of
beginning and giving warrant to saints to make churches, who yet will be
found to prove in this such builders as the pharisees, who refused the head
stone, and neither build truly themselves, according to the pattern, nor will
suffer others ; and they are such magistrates and such church governors,
who would call in all church patents, not erected by themselves, with a quo
warranto.
Chap. IV.] the churches op christ, 303
This power must certainly lie somewhere, else it were an institution in
vain, which could never be produced into act. Now this is that which I am
about to demonstrate, that as the saints and members of Christ's mystical
are only fit matter for this church, so they have an immediate independent
power and authority from Jesus Christ, their immediate head and king, to
gather and combine themselves in such an assembly, without expecting war-
rant from any governors whatever on earth. I shall first explain, and then
prove it.
1. Ministers make not a church, nor are they or their power requisite to
the first gathering of it. The ministers or church governors, even those
that begat to Chiist, have not this power of casting us into churches, and
disposing us herein. So far as they had a hand in begetting us, so far they
may have a hand in it, that is, by directing us to it, and exhorting us unto
it ; but the power is in ourselves immediately. And there is this reason
why the power of gathering churches is not dependent on them, because they
are to be set in churches, 1 Cor. xii. 28, Acts xiv. 23. There were churches
gathered, ere elders were made in them. And then besides, if such a power
was resident in the ministers, then when they die, a congregation should
cease to be a church. We are not then to await the leave of church gover-
nors for the gathering of a church.
2. Two or three saints have an immediate power from Christ to begin this
fellowship.
(1.) It is so in Christ's institution. Mat. xviii. 20. The writ or commis-
sion for it runs immediately and singly in his name, not in the king's, nor in
the minister's, &c., because his power and authority is warrant enough.
Neither is it the meaning only, that when so gathered they should do all in
his name, but even to gather themselves into a church is in his name. For
if the very gathering together be an ordinance of itself, to frame a church
thereby, then there is the same reason of it that there is of all other ordinances.
And therefore as, when gathered, they have power in his name to excommuni-
cate in his name, 1 Cor. v. 4, and to baptize in his name, &c., so to gather
in his name too. And as a magistrate hath not power to forbid those ordi-
nances to be administered, so not to hinder this other. For if gatherinof
together itself be an ordinance, as it is, it therefore hath his name put to it,
as well as the rest ; and they have not power to intermeddle in it, nor is
their power to be required for the one more than for the other. And besides,
Christ's bidding saints to gather in his name, is as if the king should in a
commission say to such and such. When ye are gathered together in my
name, do thus, which implies, that he gives them power in his name to
meet.
(2.) As Christ did thus immediately in his name ordain it, so the apostles
taught the disciples to practise it as immediately from Christ, without expect-
ing leave from magistrates or any other ; and what they taught them to do,
we may do to the end of the world. And there is the same reason for doiDf
it under magistrates Christian as heathen ; for the power is but the same.
The apostles bade them not forsake assembling themselves, Heb. x. 25, He
speaks not only to particular persons not to leave the assemblies, but to the
whole churches of the Jews, not to forsake church assemblings, not to break
up their meetings, notwithstanding they were persecuted, ver. 33 ; and so,
for the same reason, we are not to forbear to assemble. And the true radi-
cal fundamental grounds of this are,
1, Because, as Jesus Christ is the king of saints, so he is an immediate
king unto them, Eph, i. 22. As God hath given him to be over all things,
so over all things a head to his church ; so as in this point of headship, no
304 ' THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK VI.
inferior power on earth doth come between. In all matters which imme-
diately do pass between, and which concern him and them in this relation,
he is an immediate governor to them, and hath put none of his power out of
his hands, to magistrates or the civil power. And therefore his ordinances
they are to exercise and enjoy, without any immediate commission from men.
2. As he is thus immediate king, so he hath reserved this power to him-
self; and you shall find that Christ mentions this his transcendent power to
this very purpose. He first sent his apostles out to preach, and make disciples :
Mat. xxviii. 19, 'All power is given to me in heaven and earth (says he).
Go ye therefore and make disciples (as the word is), and baptize them, and
teach them to do whatever I command ;' whereof this, as was shewn, was
one. And in this saying, I am not with you only, but those that believe on
me, to the end of the world (ver. 10), Christ mentions his supreme power,
and shews that he was able to command and make good this ; for he had
power over all. He commanded it,, and promised this ; and withal to see
the equity of it, consider that he who is over all, and hath derived much of
his power to kings and magistrates, his vicegerents on earth, hath subjected
the estates, lives, and persons of his saints as men, as well as the rest of
men to them ; yet that which concerns spiritual power between him and
them as their king, he referred to himself, as a so- exempt flower of his pre-
rogative. And it is as equal he should assume it and ordain it thus, as it
was that God should reserve to himself one day of seven, having given us
six. So doth Christ allow magistrates power in temporal things over men,
and all creatures here below; only his peculiar people, and royal nation, as
they are saints, and in things pertaining to him and his worship, he hath
exempted them. The magistrates are indeed to use their power, to see his
laws kept ; so that this liberty of ours is not to be maintained and practised
of us, as our liberty, but as Christ's prerogative, which we his courtiers are
not to suffer to be encroached upon, or diminished.
S. As he is thus a king immediate, and hath reserved this power to him-
self, so he hath given and imparted all to his saints, that might fully enable
them, and qualify them for it.
(1.) By giving them right, and such a right, as is natural to a saint, as a
saint, and therefore can no more be encroached on by them than natural
liberties of men, as men, may be invaded. The saints (as was said), by
reason of the divine nature, do breathe after a fellowship one with another,
even as every one, as a man, doth after fellowship with one of the same kind.
It is not good for man to be alone (as God said. Gen. ii. 18), and therefore
he created the woman, and besides instituted that ordinance of mai'riage in
paradise, for the comfort and propagation of mankind. The right unto which
fellowship, and the comforts of it, belongs unto a man or woman as such
naturally, as likewise there is a natural propension to it. So likewise to
satisfy this common desire in all saints, of having fellowship together, Christ,
the author of this new world and generation, ordained this ordinance of a
church, and ordinances to be enjoyed in it, for the building up of the new
creature, and the propagation of it to others. And likewise the right unto
this fellowship, and the ordinances of it, doth reside in a saint, as a saint ;
and so in all saints, wherever they be. So Christ says of children, Mark
X. 14, ' Suffer them to come to me, and forbid them not, for theirs is the
kingdom of heaven;' that is, they have right in me, as well as you, and in
some ordinances, as well as you. But more expressly the Holy Ghost
speaks, Rev. xxii. 14, ' Blessed are they that do the commandments, that
they may have right to the tree of hfe, and to enter into the city.' He
speaks of that glorious church afore the end of the world, which was that
Chap. IV.] the churches of christ. 305
city, and the tree of life is Christ, in the ordinances of that church ; for so
to Adam, the tree of hfe was a sacrament of the second commandment.
Which tree of hfe standing in the city, a man must first enter into, and be
admitted into the city, and then to the eating of that tree. So that,
1. He that doth the commandments, and is a godly man, hath a right as
such both to the sacraments and to a church fellowship, but to the sacraments
but remotely, and not till first admitted into the city ; so that a saint's imme-
diate right to the sacrament is founded in a church state, into which he must
first be admitted ; yet such a radical potential right he hath as he ought to be
admitted ; as every man, as a man, hath a right to marriage comforts, but yet
remotely, for he must be married fixst and entered into that fellowship, and
then he hath an actual right.
But, 2, he hath to a church fellowship a more immediate right, so as there
is nothing betwixt him and it, but only that others join with him in it, as in
a marriage fellowship it is.
3. Unto this fellowship and ordinances none other have a right : ver 23,
' Without are dogs, and that make a lie,' false pi'ofessors ; and Rev. xxi. 27,
' There shall in nowise enter into it anything that defileth,' &c.
2. As they thus have a right to this fellowship and ordinances (Christ
having ordained them, and them alone, as the children's bread, and not for
dogs), so Christ hath given them an immediate power from himself to enjoy
these ordinances, not deriving it from any other power whatever but his
own ; wherein it doth in part differ from^ that ordinance of marriage, to which,
though a man hath a right as a man, yet parents have power over their
children, 1 Cor. vii. 37, to enjoin them in this ordinance, that their consent
be asked and obtained ; but it is not so in this combination spiritual, unto
which a saint, as a saint, hath both a right and full power to cast themselves,
and join in such a way immediately, not only without asking magistrates'
consent, who as in marrying of the subjects they have no power in any com-
monwealth, nor are to have (it being an act of natural right, not civil, and
so out of his bounds), so much less have they power in this spiritual union,
it being a spiritual right, which is transcendently more out of the sphere of
their authority and power. Also, according to the law of nature, kings have
nothing to do with family government and order, to appoint whom I shall
admit, &c., because their power presupposeth family government fii'st; much
less have they power in God's family matters.
(1.) It is true indeed they have a power to permit it. So Cyi'us gave com-
mission to build the temple, and protected them in it ; and therefore Paul
bids them in their congregations to pray for kings, 1 Tim, ii. 2-4, ' That
they may lead peaceable lives in all godliness,' and so in all the ways and
ordinances of it. And that advantage the saints have when magistrates are
godly, &c.
(2.) They have power to exact the performance of Christ's laws. Magis-
trates have a power to punish saints that are their subjects, if they neglect
any ordinance, and so if they neglect among the rest this duty of casting
themselves into assembhes. And God's good hand may be with them in such
commands, as 2 Chron. xxx., when Hezekiah sent out commands to the people
to assemble to the passover, ver. 12, ' The hand of God was to give the people
one heart, to do the commandment of the king by the word of the Lord.'
(3.) They need not to expect their power or leave for their gathering unto a
church, as if without it such a combination were unlawful, nor to forbear out
of conscience of their prohibition. If indeed they used force or persecution
actual, they might forbear their assemblies, as the disciples, Acts viii. 1, and
VOL. XI. u
306 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK VI.
scatter themselves ; but not because of the command simply, but the perse-
cution, because God will have mercy, not sacrifice.
(4.) Christian magistrates have no more power herein than heathen magis-
trates, for his conversion increaseth not his power, but sanctifieth it ; and
therefore not as Christian magistrates are we to expect their leave if we have
immediate power from Christ.
3. Christ hath invested his saints with such a power by giving them power
to judge of and to call each other to come into such church fellowship : ' Let
us go to the mountain of the Lord,' Isa. ii. 3 ; for the spiritual man judgeth
all things, and is judged of none, and therefore is supreme judge in things
spiritual, as this merely is. As he is a judge of truths (so as he needs no
outward judge in doctrines), so also of persons ; and if they have power to
judge them within without the help of magistrates, then also to judge whom
to take in.
4. Christ invests them with this right by communicating his offices to them.
Even as Moses put some of his power upon the elders, so hath Christ on his
church. They are kings and priests, and made so by him ; and if so, then
in what they are kings, they are supreme and independent, Rev, i. 6 ; and
as he is to have an eternal government over them, so they are to have towards
one another in his church fellowship.
5. This kingdom is too transcendent for the sphere of any inferior power
to deal in, for theii'S is but of this world ; but ' my kingdom,' says Christ, ' is
not of this world,' John xviii. 86 ; and if they have nothing to do in things
natural, which men as men have a right and power to do, much less in that
which is spiritual, and which belongs to saints as saints.
6. It is a liberty that Christ hath purchased for his saints, which, whatever
it be, we are to stand fast in. Gal. v. 1. Now this is part of our liberty,
that in matters of worship, which are things of another world, we are not
subject to ordinances of men : Col. ii. 20, ' Why, as living in the world, are ye
subject to ordinances ?' In things of this world you may be so, but not in
things of another world, such as Christ's ordinances, whereof the funda-
mental one is this of church fellowship ; which liberty, though the defence of
it hath cost us our liberty in the way we once went in, and in the ordinances
then enjoyed, and so in some things, and especially in some times, may be a
snare, yet it is a royalty which, take all times and seasons that may run over
the church's head, is for our advantage, that by virtue of it in all times we
may enjoy the ordinances as freely from Christ in one time or age as in
another.
7. For that was the end why Christ ordained it thus ; for if Christ had
not given this immediate independent power to the saints as well as right,
then they might in some ages, yea, in most, never have enjoyed that which
they had a right unto, and so that right would have been in vain. But Christ
did not leave his saints so destitute, but that, as he gave them a fitness for a
church society, desires after it, a right to it, and ordinances to be enjoyed,
so he gave this power to enjoy them independently, let magistrates, &c., be
in all ages what they will.
Thus you see what power and liberty we have to begin a church ; but
then again the question and case will further be put, that we living under
Christian governors, and among churches and congregations allowed by them,
what warrant may we have for this apart, and clanculary practice of setting
up such a church as this ?
In answer to this, suppose them churches we will, as indeed I will not
dispute it ; (only to any of you that think them not, you have the fuller
warrant for that practice, warrant enough for that opinion, which I have not),
Chap. IV.] the churches of christ. 307
therefore I will go upon supposition, and such grounds as all may and will
agree upon.
1. Though they are churches, yet if you were never truly members of any,
you are free to begin where you will, and so to be of the best. This liberty
we under the gospel have, that the Jews had not ; for there being to them but
one church, and that was national under the high priest, they were in no case
to set up another, and but in case of idolatry to remove from communion with
it. But now under the gospel, churches may be erected everywhere by saints,
and it is free to them to join with whom they please. Now for us, whether
any of us may account ouraelves members of any of their churches, needs not
much examining. To give ourselves up to such a fellowship with those with
which we did partake the ordinances, was not our intention then, but we came
to receive Christ, as members of his mystical body, and so as such who had
a personal right to Christ, and that was all ; which acts, though God accepted,
winking at our ignorance, and for those times and occasions of receiving
sacraments, accepted them as church acts, yet not such as to oblige us to the
congregation we received in, we intending no more special communion with
the saints therein in one than in another.
2. Though they are churches before God, and so to be acknowledged by
us in our opinion of them, yet they are not such as necessarily we should be
tied to continue in, and not to remove from.
(1.) Because they are churches defective in ordinances, it is warrant to
remove to such a church where all may be enjoyed (which, do what we can,
could not be in them), and this by virtue of that liberty mentioned under the
gospel. So as it is not a removal from no church to a church, but from a
defective church to a church more complete in all ordinances of prophesying,
offices, excommunication, &c. ; and in such churches where the admission
useth not to be formal, the leave to depart needs not be formal.
(2.) Because they are defiled churches to our judgments, and so defiled as,
to continue in them, a man himself would become defiled also. In this case
a man may remove from them, and therefore much more he may choose
whether he will engage in them when he is fre&; for though they remain
churches to my judgment still (as a leprous man is a man), and that because
they are so in God's acceptation, yet to me tbey are the same as no church,
if I cannot enjoy the ordinances in them, or shall be defiled in the enjoying
them, so as they may be churches as to their state, when not in use to me.
As, 1. If to the free enjoying any ordinance anything sinful must be prac-
tised, as in receiving the sacrament, let that church be in itself and in my
judgment otherwise never so reformed, yet if this be imposed on me, or I
must not receive, it is no mother to me, for it denies to me, her child, the
bread which is due to me as a child's portion.
2. In other practices it is so defiled, as that I cannot constantly be a
member in it but I must also be defiled ; as in mixed receiving, in which,
since the wicked are made one body with the saints, there is a sin which lies
somewhere, 1 Cor. x. 17 ; and if that be not exercising this power which
is due to a congregation, and which they are not to forbear to exercise, in
casting out such is a sin of the whole, and it be a duty not to join with them,
then I am not to partake constantly with them (because then I should par-
take of their sin) in such a mixture, and should also sin in omitting the
ordinance of withdi-awing from them, 2 Tim. iii. 5. The command being,
Ezek. xliv. 24, that God's laws shall be kept in all the assemblies (especially
seeing, by the godly's presence, they become assemblies, and God vouch-
safes unto them that privilege), the}' again should see to execute his laws,
which from Christ independently they have transmitted to them. However,
308 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK VI.
if this practice and omission be made but doubtful unto me, it is to me a sin
to continue among them.
3. Though it should be granted that I might occasionally receive the
sacrament in them (as being churches pro hac vel ilia vice), yet it will not
follow that I should be a constant member to continue with them ; for in
such an occasional receiving I am not so made a member as to be called to
exercise any such judicial act of casting out the bad ; but it lies on them who
are constant members of it, who, by their approbation, make themselves one
body with them.
4. But in even such a receiving occasional, I am not to partake till I am
a settled member in some church ; for, as was said, this is a church ordi-
nance, which, as a mystical member of Christ, a Christian hath but a remote
right unto ; and therefore I must be in a church ere I partake of it anywhere.
And seeing we are not so in theirs original members, it is necessary we
be of a more pure church, ere we can be capable of receiving the Lord's
supper.
5. This church society, therefore, is not a separation from them as no
churches in themselves, but as no churches to us in use ; for separation is
so to part from them as to condemn them for no churches (as when the
saints came out of the world they are said to separate from it, as condemning
it as lying in wickedness and unregenerate), but so we separate not from
them ; not as from no churches to our judgments, but as none fit for us to
join with.
6. This our not separating, we may testify by holding such communion
with them wherein we may not be defiled ; and by virtue of this our church
fellowship, have this further improvement by their ordinances as to partake
with them in a new relation. And so it is not a separation, but a new
moulding of a new church more complete ; as when a man that pulls down
an old house, and builds with the same materials a new one more complete.
And herein we may do as the saints did in Jerusalem ; they were joined in
a church fellowship Christian, and yet went to the temple, and enjoyed the
ordinances there. Acts ii. 46 ; which Jewish church they rejected, not as no
church, though such as was to vanish afore the new.
7. It need not trouble us that this is not a visible church (that is, in the
exercise and profession of it) ; for though that would be more comfortable,
yet it is not of the essence of a church, it being but an adjunct. And it is
called visible, not in respect of a necessary visibility to others, but as to
themselves, and one to another. For so, in the primitive times, their con-
gregations were not things visible to wicked men, but in secret to themselves,
the church being fled into the wilderness.
8. No danger is to restrain us from doing our duty herein, as in the
primitive times it did not, when persecution was more hot than now, Heb.
X. 25, 33, 34. It is ti-ue, God will have mercy rather than sacrifice ; but
then, if the enjoying sacrifice be a greater mercy than the loss of what is
hazarded can be ; if both being put into the balance, sacrifice is the greater
benefit of the two, compared with what is hazarded, then we are to choose
sacrifice rather, even by virtue of that rule, that as ' the body is better than
raiment,' so the soul than merely liberty or estate. Though in case of life
it would alter, for then you take away the subject which should enjoy the
sacrifice itself. Therefore, when the persecution was but the spoihug their
goods, Heb. X. 33, 34, they forebore not to assemble ; but when it touched
life, they dispersed themselves, Acts viii. 1.
Chap. V.J the chubches of ohrist. 309
CHAPTER V.
That it is necessary there should be various kinds of officers in a church, and
that each should be settled by a divine institution.
I shewed before what the constitution of a church is ; that, as it was to
be a body of saints, so also an ordered body, as Col. ii. 5 is intimated, and
elsewhere ; which order, as I then said, noted out two things : 1. Enjoying
all ordinances ; so 1 Cor. xi., ver. 23 compared with ver. 24. The Lord's
supper is reckoned a part of the apostolical orders ; and ver. 1, the institu-
tions of the New Testament are called traditions, &c.
And, 2, that order consists in their ranking their members into such
offices, according to their gifts, as Christ hath appointed, that so all the
ordinances might be enjoyed.
I shall now shew the necessity of offiicers and ministers in a church.
It may abundantly convince us that Heb. vi. 2, imposition of hands, is
reckoned as one of those six points which are of the foundation and first
principles of religion, ver. 1, laid by those master builders, and by the sign
used at the ordination and calling of officers, the use and power of the
ministry and officers of a church is meant ; and placed here next, and con-
joined with the doctrine of the sacrament (baptism being here put for both,
as breaking bread is elsewhere put for the whole Lord's supper), because
the one is conjunct with the other. Answerable unto which in the reddition
is tasting the good word of God, which useth to be dispensed by those officers.
The partaking of the Holy Ghost is especially in baptism and the sacraments,
and he usually is poured forth more abundantly at the sacrament. This
establishment of officers in a church is not indeed necessary and fundamental
to the personal salvation of a Christian, yet unto the building of them up,
which is as necessary as conversion.
And therefore answerably, the course of the apostles was, first, to go
to plant and convert men to Christ, and then to knit them into church fel-
lowship, as Acts ii. 47 ; and then a while to leave them till men fit for offices
should be found amongst them, by trial of their gifts and soundness of their
conversion, and then to send evangelists, or themselves again to visit them,
both to confirm them in the faith, and also to settle officers and elders
amongst them, according to Christ's institution.
And thus in every church these officers were settled, so Acts xiv. 21-24.
Paul and Barnabas returned to Antioch, Iconium, Lystra, confirming the
disciples ; and when they had chosen elders in every church, with prayer
and fasting they departed, ver. 13.
And where themselves could not come they sent evangelists, as Titus to
Crete, Tit. i. 5, for this cause, to ordain elders in every city where churches
were planted ; so as the great care and work of the apostles and evangelists
was at first to gather churches, so then to set officers over them, and so to
commend them to their charge and God's grace. So in Ephesus, Acts
XX. 17, 28, 32, for then they made account they had provided for them as
much as in them lay, even as parents do when they see their children mar-
ried and well bestowed. The use and excellency and necessity of them to
the church might many ways be demonstrated unto us.
1. These officers and gifts are the joint and distinct work of all three per-
sons. They conspire and have a distinct hand in framing them for the
church, as well as in the great work of our salvation. Father, Son, and
Holy Ghost meet in the making and ordaining officers, and each person dis-
310 THE GOVEKNMENT OF [BoOK YI.
tinctly contributes something. As we gather the excellency of the creation
of man above all creatures, because the whole Trinity say, ' Let us make
man,' and so of redemption, that Father, Son, and Holy Ghost set their
hands to it and bear offices in it, so we may infer the greatness, necessity,
excellency of officers in a church and their holy communion, because all
three persons, not only as in other works, but distinctly and apart, concur
unto it. So we have it at once told us, and we need not have recourse to
several places for it, 1 Cor. xii. 4—6. Those three persons are the three
great officers in our salvation, and these officers in his church are the lesser;
Christ is the chief pastor, they the inferior under him, 1 Peter v., and so
are co-workers with the Trinity : shall all three persons concur to constitute
them, and shall we neglect to have them ?
2. They are the gifts bequeathed us by Christ at his departure ; and his
last gift must needs be a gi^eat one, and so to be esteemed by us, and made
use of accordingly. To have a gift given (which is ordained simply for use,
or else it is made vain and ineffectual), and to let it be unused, what a slight-
ing is it of any one's love ! If a garment be given as a legacy to wear, what
a contempt of the donor's gift would it be to sell it ! Now, officers are
Christ's legacy, and his last legacy, Eph. iv. 11 ; when he ascended, * he
gave gifts to men,' as Elias, at his ascending, obtained a resting of his spirit
on Elisha. And what were those gifts, ver, 11, save apostles, pastors, and
teachers, &c. ? And mark it, the gifts given, that make them to be pastors
and teachers, are not alone said to be the gifts, but the men endued with
those gifts and put into those offices, pastors, teachers. The ministers them-
selves are gifts, and so their gifts became of double and treble use when
officers to what before when private men. Thus in like manner. Num. xviii.,
of the Levites it is said, to you they are given as a gift from Jehovah, and as
to serve Jehovah, so them also. And Num. xviii. 7, Aaron's service is
termed a service of gift ; and next to God's Son and Spirit, these are the
greatest gifts, because conveyers of both to us. If a precious jewel were
given you, would you not place it in a ring, where it might shine and adorn
you ? If a loadstone, which of itself would draw, yet would you not set it
in steel, that it might draw more, and not let it lie unuseful ? Thus do
with the gifts of men among you, which in office will be more serviceable,
shine more, give a greater lusti*e.
And the rather do this, for thereby you give their gifts again to God, and
return them to him. So when the Levites were consecrated by the imposi-
tion of the people's hands, Num. viii. 9-11, they were offered as a wave
offering, says the Hebrew, to the Lord, and as a gift, says the Septuagint,
that they might execute the service of the Lord. Some services you cannot
do without them, and so God is a loser of worship, which is imperfect
without them.
And then, 3, God in recompence again will come, and will be more pre-
sent with you than before. For this compare but Ps. Ixviii. 8 with that
Eph. iv. 11, it being the place whence these words are taken, ' Thou hast
given gifts to men, to dwell among them.' When Christ ascended, he became
absent from his church ; therefore, when he ascended, he gave these gifts,
that by their ministry he might dwell in their hearts by faith more, and also
by his Spirit. By these officers he buildeth the house more and more, and
adds to it both intensive and extensive, more members and more graces,
Eph. iv. 12, for the perfecting the saints and building up the body of
Christ (as also 1 Cor. iii. 10, 16) ; and when he hath built them up, and the
more, the more he dwells among them, and the more he delights to do it
when the house is finished and furnished with all his officers. Yourselves
Chap. V.] the churches of cheist. 311
love not to dwell in an unfurnished house ; you would have all utensils and
servants of all sorts about you ; you will stay removing till a house is fur-
nished ; and as God brought man into the world not till it was finished, so
doth Christ, God would have his people first become a church, that he
might meet and dwell more among them than when the stones lie scattered
here and there; so Markxviii., his promise to invite us to be a church is, ' I
will be in the midst of you,' and Ezek. xlviii. 35, ' the name is, the Lord in
there,' and then when you have officers and ordinances dispensed by them,
then you have a further presence, he will come down oftener amongst you.
The more of ordinances, the more of Christ ; the more of officers, the more
of ordinances.
And 4. The effect of them, and God's dwelling will be growth in grace ;
so it follows, Eph, iv. 13, ' till they all come to the fulness of the stature
of Christ.' As in the body, after it is begotten, God hath appointed ordinances
of food, sleep, &c., for the growth of it; and if any of those ordinances are
wanting, there is a decay of strength or health, and a defect in growth ; so
if any ordinances be wanting to the new creature, you will find the defect of
it in your souls ; and for all such ordinances for growth officers are appointed,
and their ministry, so Acts xx. 32. After they had elders, he commits them
to their charge, and the word of his grace in them to build them up ; his
speech implies that they were all converted, else they had not been of a
church. They wanted now nothing till they came to heaven but bnilding
up; so it follows, ' to give you an inheritance with them that are sanctified.'
And there is that near connection between heaven and building up in grace,
because growth is as necessary to bring us to heaven as conversion. As there-
fore you would think the ministry necessary for the salvation of your chil-
dren to convert them ; so of your own souls for growth in grace, so as you
cannot be saved unless you grow to such a pitch, to that fulness of stature
which in Christ God hath appointed you. ' Except ye be converted,' says
Christ to his disciples, ' you cannot enter into heaven,' as well as except ye
be born again ; and though many have grown to that perfection without
ordinances, being ignorant of them, yet none that know and may enjoy them.
And therefore also of Timothy's ministry it is promised he should save him-
self, and them that heard him ; so as they are necessary to a man's salvation
that knows them to be ordinances, and ordinances appointed.
If you ask the reason of this connection and necessity, it is true it is not
absolute, as was not Christ's satisfaction, as Christ intimates when praying
the cup might pass. He says ' all things are possible,' but yet it was neces-
sary, because it was God's will so to have it. Thus God could save you,
build you up without ordinances, and so he hath many, but yet hath appointed
these, and having appointed them, to those that know it they become neces-
sary, though they are not such in themselves, yet because so it hath pleased
God. The reason of diversity of gifts and administrations, we find, 1 Cor.
xii. 18, ' God hath set the members in a body, as it hath pleased him ;' that
is all his reason ; and answerably that which he says, referring to this,
ver. 28, that God hath set some in the church, first apostles, prophets,
teachers, is for the same reason also ; it is as if you should seek a reason
why bread and wine of all creatures are typed out to be elements sacra-
mental. There is no reason but so it pleased ; so if you ask, Why these
ministries ? there is no reason but so it pleased him, and there was no rea-
son of necessity absolute, but only the will of God ; for he that governeth
the angels and the church above us immediately by his Spirit, and all the
creatures below us (who yet continue to this day according to his ordinances
in their course he set them, Ps. cxix. 91), in which course they are acted by
312 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK VI.
an invisible power of his immediately concurrent, could in like manner have
governed men, yet chose, as to have the world of men governed by magis-
trates, so his church also by officers of his own institution and appointment ;
and as of all other of God's appointments else, so of this, we may behold
and admire a glorious and wise harmony and conveniency and suitableness,
that so it should be.
What in particular is the conveniency and necessity of each office in par-
ticular, as suited to all particular necessities of a church, I will shew when
I speak of each particular office and their distinction. I omit also their use
and necessity in respect of them without, to convert and add men daily unto
the church, which is one great end of their office mentioned, Eph. iv. 12, cr^oj
7-01^ KaraoTisfMbv, which imports the jointing in members into the church, and
gathering in all the saints, and making their number perfect, as others
read it.
Now we chiefly speak of them in relation to a church instituted and their
edification, which is the other end there mentioned, where he also tells us
that these institutions, as also this ordinance of particular churches, shall
last but till that general meeting or concourse of all saints in their perfec-
tion, as the word /carair^ffw/Asi/ signifies, when there shall be but ' one fold,'
and one shepherd, John x. 16. But until then, he hath appointed the
ministry of apostles, &c., whose ministry we enjoy not in their persons but
writings ; and ordinary officers we enjoy in their personal employments. We
will but take the reasons which he doth there insinuate.
1. Because the church is under age (which he implies, ver 13), therefore
she is to have these officers over her, until she come to a perfect man, and
to the full stature. And children under age, now as well as then, are to be
under tutors and governors, Gal. iv. 2. And though we are not in such
bondage to beggarly elements, but comparatively are men grown, yet as we
are not perfect men, not come to that full stature we shall come to, so far
we are still left under the care and eye of tutors and governors, who yet are
not the heads but servants of the church. As great men's children are,
whilst at school, learning the elements and rudiments, under the ferula and
bondage of schoolmasters, from which being delivered, as being come to
more- ripeness, yet, especially if absent from the immediate eye of their
parent, and travelling in a strange country, their parents set governors to
have an inspection over them, to bring them up and instruct them, till they
all come home. Thus hath God done with his saints, not as men grown,
but whilst they are absent from him here, he hath betrusted them with the
government of tutors and instructors, to have an eye unto them, who yet are
but their servants ; which argues God's infinite love and tender care towards
them for their education ; yea, though there be but two or three of them in
a congregation, yet he will not let them travel here without a guide, as the
apostle calls their elders, Heb. xiii. 17. So his promise was of old, Jer. iii.
14, 15, 'I will take you one of a tribe, and one of a city, and give you pas-
tors (not pastor only) according to my own heart.' The education and
training up of his children, God accounteth of to be a matter of greater con-
cernment than you can possibly esteem of the education of yours, because,
according to their growth here, they are ranked and placed in that body of
Christ hereafter, where, if any member should not have its full growth, the dis-
proportion of a member would reflect upon the head, Christ, and cast a deformity
on the whole ; therefore every member is to grow up to that stature which Christ
hath appointed it ; and hence, answerably, God takes care for them, and thought
it requisite to make it the proper and sole business of men enabled with the
greatest gifts that ever were poured out upon men, to attend and look to the
Chap. V.] the churches of christ. 313
bringing up of his children, and thought it not enough for men to have gifts,
but for the improvement of them, to have men set apart to such offices as
might be separated (as Paul unto the gospel, Rom. i. 1, and so Gal. 1. 16).
The phrase is taken from the Levites, who, Num. viii. 14, are said to be
separated to do the service; or, as the Septuagint have it, to the work, which
word the apostle useth, Eph. iv. 12; for the work of the ministry is a busi-
ness of that weight, that they are to give themselves wholly to it, 1 Tim.
iv. 5. First, God tendered so much the instruction and proficiency of his
children in the knowledge of Christ, which is mentioned here, that he con-
tented not himself to have them enjoy such occasional means as the brethren
in communion were able to afford each other, as their callings and occasions
should permit, though we all were able to prophesy, but he would farther have
men of the best and eminentest gifts set apart usually unto it, by continual
labour to perfect themselves and his church. As in a school or college, be-
sides what pupils may get out of books, and mutual conferences daily with
others, parents provide tutors for them, and college officers, university pro-
fessors are set apart to study what to read unto them ; so God would shew
himself more careful for his, and he would not have his children rendered
too extemporary, he would have them fed with the finest fare, and therefore
would have men dedicated to his service; yea, further, he would have them
grow in knowledge and grace, and every age to exceed another, which is
tacitly intimated, as it seems to me, in the 12th and 15th verse ; he would
have, as every member, so the whole church grow till the day of judgment,
and one age to sow, and another to reap a more plentiful harvest. Now this
would not have been in an ordinary way and course, unless men were dedi-
cated to this work ; for every scribe instructed to the kingdom of God brings
forth out of his treasure things new and old. Mat. xiii. 52. If Timothy will
profit, and have his profiting appear to all, he must give himself wholly to
it, 1 Tim. iv. 15 ; he must be instructed, and he must have a treasure, and
that not of coin only of present current money, but he would have his chil-
dren enriched with importation of new commodities. And to be such a scribe
requires the whole man; such an one was Ezra, chap. vi. 6, 10. Ezra was
a ready scribe in the law of Moses, that is, versed in it and the meaning of
it, and the good hand of God was on him, ver. 9 ; for he had prepared his
heart, ver. 10, to seek the law, that is, to search out the meaning of it, and
to do it, and to teach in Israel. Yea, further, the apostle otherwise intimates,
that without men being set apart to it, there would have been no preserving
of knowledge, but the ordinary sort of believers would have been exposed to
the danger of being caiTied away by seducers ; so Eph. iv. 14, ' That we
henceforth be no more children,' &c. I take it, he makes it not so much an
inference from the former, by way of instruction of what we therefore should
be, but goes on to shew the ends of these offices; and the word ^jjxsr/, is
all one with alias, otherwise, &c. And indeed, otherwise, our running into
error could not have been prevented ; for ordinaiy sort of believers, being
children not fully grown up, would easily have been seduced, if they had not
had guides committed to them who had been able to convince gainsayers.
The apostle useth many metaphors to express their danger herein : as, first,
that they are children, and how easily are they deceived ; secondly, in dan-
ger to fluctuate as a reed in the water, this way and that way, and to have
been in doubt what to hold and stick unto; and, thirdly, to be exposed to
be carried about with every wind of doctrine, as ships in the water, if there be
no pilot nor mariners that know how to steer and guide them. And therefore
the words used by the apostle, 1 Cor. xii. 28, concerning ordinary officers,
is xvSs^v/iffiii, that is, governors of a ship ; cubosa being used in Cicero for
314 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK VI.
the greater kind of ships then used, built square ; and so it follows in Eph.
iv. 14. sv 7iu(3iTa dvd^ufTTuv in the ship of men, as Beza says it may be inter-
preted, wicked and naughty men, if learned, would have driven the ship
whither they had pleased. To prevent this he appointed them pilots, the
apostles, who left also behind them writings, and ordinary pastors and
teachers, who should be more than ordinarily skilled in their writing, and
be pilots unto others. And as in that part of growing in knowledge, so
likewise for their lives and manners, God would have them watched over, and
would not trust the care hereof to that which every brother would have one
of another ; but thought it worthy of some men's whole pains and care,
to whom he might commit the charge of men's souls to watch over them,
and of whom he might receive an account, as Heb. xiii. 5, 17. Even as in
colleges (besides private help of tutors), there are public lecturers and deans
to instruct and overlook the whole, so jealous is God of his church and
children, and careful of their education. And there was need of all this,
and all little enough ; and otherwise, if this business had been in common
left to the common care of every member watching over each other, there
would have been a defect.
2. As many officers are necessary for the growth, &c., of every member in
particular, so for the public managing of common affairs amongst them, for
every church is a body, a commonwealth, a city, &c., which, by virtue of
their combination, will, as all societies, have many businesses in common
that will concern the whole, every church will have their ra, 'tti^i u/xoov, as the
apostle speaks of the aflairs of the church of Philippi, Philip, ii. 20, church
businesses, as corporations have common town businesses ; and as he inti-
mates there, there had need be some to take care of them, to prepare them,
to contrive them, to study them, to manage them. These common businesses
are, admission of members, excommunications, and to examine witnesses in
case of scandal, to judge of the cause, to give a just weight to the sin ac-
cording to the balance of the sanctuary. It was an especial office of the
priests under the law, to teach the people to discern between the clean and
unclean, Ezek. xliv. 23. And in all these things, not only is it requisite,
simply for order's sake, that some do in the name of the rest propound,
discuss, &c., but also for the ease of the whole; and not only so, but for the
better managing and dispensing all things, when men shall make it their
business to study church afi'airs, as men in authority do those of their com-
monwealth ; and, lastly, it conduceth to the more faithful managing of them.
For otherwise, that which is every man's business is no man's ; and com-
mon businesses, if not committed to the especial care of some, are ordinarily
neglected, and miscarry, as we see in ordinary experience.
3. It is necessary that there should be many officers in every church, unto
whom the exercise of church power may be especially committed, though the
power itself be wholly in the church itself, whose servants and helpers they
are, 1 Cor. i. 24, and not lords over them ; and it is fit these officers should
be constantly the same, because the fellowship is to be constant (as was
shewed), and through long experience they will be better exercised in such
affairs as they give themselves wholly unto.
Lastly, it was for the great honour of Christ and of his church to have such
officers as servants to attend his royal spouse, and queen, and children.
Pricces, you see, have for every small business that belongs to them an officer
on purpose, because their persons are so great that no business might be
forgotten or neglected that concerns them. Now such provision hath Christ
made for his church, that as princes, children, and wives have their courts
apart and officers apart, so hath the church whilst here below ; yet she keeps
Chap. V,] the churches of christ. 315
a court, and hath servants to attend her. You may read, Esther ii. 2, 3, how
officers were appointed to gather fair virgins for the king out of all provinces,
and how Hege with others were to purify them for his bed. So did Christ
appoint his apostles and their successors his officers, as children of his bride-
chamber (as, Mat. ix. 11, he calls them), who should purify and adorn his
spouse for him ; and they are jealous over them with a great jealousy, to pre-
sent them as a pure virgin unto Christ, 2 Cor. xi. 2.
In like manner, in the type, for the honour of the temple, and the service of
it, were there so many sorts of officers and attendants to watch, &c, when there
was no need ; and so it is reckoned up amongst Christ's honours, Ps. xlv,
that as his queen stands at his right hand, so that there are honourable
women, king's daughters, that are hers and his servants, ver 9, to bring her
to him and her virgins, ver. 1-1. From the necessity of them to us, we will
descend to the institution of them by God, which dependeth only on God's will.
I shall now then discourse of the institution of these officers by God, which
depends only on God's will, which is our rule in this case. It is God that
hath set the members of the body as it pleased him ; and as of the members
of the body it is said that they are set down in his book, Ps. cxxxix. 16. It
is all one liere, for in like manner it is said, God hath set in his church some
apostles, some prophets, &c., as principal members of that his church, and
in his book we must find them all written too. Our parents, who yet are the
fathers of our bodies, cannot say how their children should be formed, what
members they would have added, nor do they contribute anything to the
ordering or placing of them ; but God's pencil secretly draws and limns them ;
nay, we ourselves cannot make a hair black or white, or add a cubit to our
stature, can much less add a member which God hath not written in his
book ; so wonderfully and fearfully are we made in the lower parts of the
earth ; and shall we think that any, though spiritual fathers, can dispose of
the members of the body of Christ, yea, of that body which, Eph. iv. 12, is
called Christ's ? And speaking of officers, 1 Cor. xii. 28, he says he hath set
apostles, &c. The word idiro is the same in both, and it implies, he hath
done wisely to an end, deliberately, and not at random, but in a wise and
orderly manner.
Authors of the gifts of the members in the church, all will confess they
are not. They are ^a^iG^xara, gifts ; and if that be not enough, xara rrjv
yo-oiv, according to grace, as the fountain of them ; and if that be not
enough, ^w^s/irai/ ri'Mv, given us, Rom. xii. 6. And authors of the success of
those gifts, and the operation of them, men will acknowledge they are
not. Paul may plant, and Apollos water, but God must give the increase,
1 Cor. iii. But yet men think they may appoint officers, how these gifts may
best be improved, according to their discretion and intention ; but what says
the apostle in the chapter afore cited, 1 Cor. xii. 4-G ? As he makes the same
Spirit author of all the diversities of gifts, ver. 4, and the same God author
of the several operations of these gifts, ver 6, in like manner the same Lord
Christ author of all the administrations or offices in the church, ver. 5, which
is set between both, as whereby those gifts should be successfully employed
in the chm*ch. And nothing is more ordinary than the word haxovia, used
there to signify the office or ministry, as htaxovia of the apostleship, Rom.
xi. 13, of evangelists, 2 Tim. iv. 5, &c. And as gifts are there united and
ordained to offices, and stand in a fitness for them, so both of them for opera-
tions through God's blessing, even as media and means suited to such an end.
Now it is the same power that appoints the end that must appoint also the
means, and here in this case especially, seeing the efiects always of these means
dependeth on God's blessing. If man therefore would undertake to appoint
316 THE GOVEENMENT OF [BoOK VI.
a new office, he must be able to give new gifts, and to give a success ; but so
he is not. As Moses then blessed the tabernacle, Exodus, xxxix. 43, when he
saw all made according to the pattern or will of God, so God will accompany
his own institution only with a blessing ; nor can any promise themselves a
blessing farther. And so as the apostle makes an enumeration of several
gifts as ordinary, ver. 8, and extraordinary, 9, 10, &c., so after an illustration
from the several offices of members in the body from ver. 12, he shews,
ver. 28, these several offices God hath set in the church both extraordinary
and ordinary ; and the reason of it is because,
1. The three persons, as was said, sharing the glory between them, to
make Christ to have a less hand in his share and allotment^ and proper
work, than the other two in the other, how dishonourable were it for him !
As it were sacrilege for any Simon Magus to think to bestow at his plea-
sure the gifts of the Holy Ghost, and dishonourable to the Spirit, so as dis-
honourable is it to Christ, to think at pleasure to appoint officers in the
church ; and as great sacrilege every way, especially seeing Christ challengeth
it as his own prerogative, and that as the lord, king, and ruler of his church,
he reserves the power of instituting and appointing what ministries shall be
in his church. Every king will challenge it as his prerogative to appoint
what officers shall have his power imparted to them, as the elders had from
Moses. Though the people chose the men, yet Moses made them rulers,
Deut. i. 13; and God gave them of Moses' spirit. Num. xi. 17, 1 Cor. ii. 13.
And allegiance is sworn to the king as supreme, or unto inferior governors
as sent by him, as having his power imparted to them ; thus supreme are
kings often. And shall not Christ the Lord be thus supreme ? And there is
as much reason for the one as the other, and more ; for as the businesses
of a kingdom are the king's matters, and so called, 2 Chron. xix. 11, so
the matters of the church are the Lord's matters, and so called there in that
place.
2. The second reason is, because every officer in the church hath the power
of Christ imparted to it, and he must communicate it. I have all power in
heaven and earth, says Christ, and he bids them go and teach; and this he
speaks to all that should teach to the end of the world. Mat. xxviii. 18.
Christ's power is a part of his image, and it is high treason in man to stamp
it upon any but by his authority. It is true that officers in civil things men
may appoint; which officers (and not their laws) as the coherence shews, are
therefore called, by way of distinction, avd^os'Trivri xt'ksk;, human creation or in-
stitution, thereby to distinguish them from divine institution, which officers
in the church are ; and every such officer is xtIois, a creature, and a power
must go to make it ; but it is such a creature as all the power of men and
angels cannot make, none but this Lord from heaven. ' A man can receive
nothing,' says John, speaking of power in things spiritual, and of Christ's
ministry, except it be given him from heaven, John iv. 27 ; and the like
Christ again intimates of John's ministry, Mat. xxi. 25. The baptism (says
he), that is, by a synecdoche, the whole ministry of John, v/as it from heaven
or from men ? whereby he expresseth it to be unlawful if from men. And
the like Paul says of his ministry and apostleship, Gal. i., that as he had
Christ's full call to it, it was not given of man, that is, it was not merely
human. And if it be said that these things are true of such extraordinary
callings, the answer is, that, Eph. iv. 11, 12, and 1 Cor. xii. 28, ordinary
and extraordinary are made alike in this respect, that Christ gives them;
and so 1 Cor. xii. 28, where he tells us that God sets them in the church,
•he reckons up both ordinary and extraordinary. No, Christ is the Lord,
and appoints his own administration here on earth ; he is Lord over his own
Chap. V,] the churches of cheist. 317
house, Heb. iii,, and fit it is he should appoint by what kind of officers his
house should be governed : Luke xii. 42, ' Who then is that faithful and wise
steward, whom his Lord shall make ruler over his household, to give them
their portion in due season?' Mark it, it is whom the Lord shall make.
Now, such great officers are ministers, 1 Cor. iv. 1 ; Moses and all the apostles
were but servants, as it is there, and did all by appointment. He built not
the house there, ver. 4, nor added anything of his own head. All officers
in that house, and their distinction then, was according to the pattern, but
Christ is Lord ; Timothy, an evangelist, he must take rules how to behave
himself in the house of God, 1 Tim. iii. 15, having mentioned officers to be
ordained in the verses before. So, then, Christ is to give orders for God's
house ; and as he is the Lord, the house is his own ; and he is a faithful
Lord, much more than Moses ; and he as a Lord built the house, ver. 2-4,
and so as faithfully, as a Lord, hath appointed all offices in it, and things per-
taining to it, as Moses, whose faithfulness lay in doing by pattern. It was
part of his last work mainly after his resurrection, Acts i. 2, 3. Then he
spake of things pertaining to his kingdom ; and it is observable that it is
placed at the beginning of that work called the Acts of the apostles, shewing
the scope and argument of what should follow to be, especially those things
which concerned his kingdom ; and that book contains not so much the doc-
trine as example of the apostles in ordering churches. But if it be said such
institutions as these are such petty matters of his kingdom, as he reserves
them not to himself, but leaves the disposing of them to men, the answer is,
he is Lord in respect of administration, and so, as Lord, hath reserved them to
himself. And, secondly, to appoint what officers are in a kingdom, is a main
appurtenance of it ; and if the Lord so ordained in all churches for the main-
tenance of these officers, 1 Cor. ix. 14, v. 4, then what the officers should be
much more. For men to appoint officers of the church, is to make Christ a
servant and themselves lords, and the institutions then would not be perpe-
tually binding ; but as they are from Christ, they are of eternal obligation.
For,
1. They proceed from Christ as a King and Lord, as that place shews. Mat.
xxviii. 19, where he mentions his kingly office as the foundation of sending
them apostles; and, Eph. iv. 11, the entrance into his kingly office, by his
ascension into heaven, is made the cause of giving gifts, when his priestly
office is subjected to his kingly, as afore his kingly was to his priestly. Now,
his other offices remain for ever, and the laws of them all are the same. In
his priesthood, Heb. x. 14, he consummated for ever, with one oblation, all
that are sanctified ; and his prophetical office gives rules of faith but once
for all, Jude 3, and why should not the institution of his kingly office also
be thus ? Heb. xii. 26, 27, ' Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but
heaven also. And this word, Yet once more, signifies the removing of these
things that are shaken, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.'
♦ And we have received a kingdom cannot be shaken,' and so the means of his
kingdom are unchangeable. He had spoken of the change of those who are
servants and officers under the law ; but the kingdom we have received, or
do receive (so that he speaks not of that state in heaven, but of that under
the gospel, which is called the kingdom, in which kingdom there should be
no more such change), the offices now are unchangeable, and so is the work.
And therefore in the closure of that epistle to Timothy, wherein he had dis-
coursed of the ordinary officers of the church, he sets an apostolical seal upon
it from him, and all his successors in him, which was never to be violated or
broken up : 1 Tim. vi. 13, 14, ' I charge thee to keep this command to the
day of Christ's appearing,' &c., that is, all the commands of this epistle, for
318 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK VI.
else he should not be blameless. And though here he says commandment,
in the singular, yet chap. v. 21, where he makes the like observation, he
says these, in the plural. His way of expression is observable, he says,
1. I charge, not counsel, as leaving to liberty.
2. It is a commandment, not a permission.
3. He mentions a living God, and our confessing Christ to our latest breath ;
they are such truths as we should be willing to lay down our lives for.
4. He tells us that they are to be kept without spot, not in the least part
neglected.
It is such an epiphonema as that Rev. xxii., *I testify to him that shall
hear the words of this book, that if he add or take from,' &c. And here, to
keep the commandment blameless is all one as not to add or detract, and it
is the same power to add as to detract; and man must do neither. And he
speaks this as to Timothy, so to all whose duty as Timothy's is spoken of
in this epistle. As also Mat. xxviii. 20, and elsewhere, he says of his
apostles, in the name of their successors, I am with you to the end of the
world.
It concerns us therefore to have a warrant for the officers we choose rightly
grounded on the word, and withal we may detest the sin of those who are
like Jeroboam, 1 Kings xii. 31, who appointed priests which were not of the
sons of Levi ; and yet his variation was not of the office so much as of a
qualification of the officer God appointed. And therefore since we live
amongst these that are guilty of that sin, let us do as these of Judah when
they were to fight against them, 2 Chron. xiii. 9-11. So God shall be with
us, and against them, as ver. 12. To add is as great a sin as to take
away ; so John, Rev. xxii., threateneth the same curse to both, for both
equally detract from the power and wisdom of God.
CHAPTER VI.
That particular congrer/ations are each of them, to have more elders than one set
over them for the public administration of their worship and government.
Not only the'synagogues among the Jews, to which congregational churches
bear a resemblance, had more elders than one in each of them, but the
churches constituted under the gospel had so too. So these churches. Acts
xiv. and Titus i. (which we have proved to be congregational churches), were
constituted ; for the apostles ordained elders to them in every church, &c.
It is expressed elders, not elder.
Ohj. The exception that some have made against this is, that this manner
of speech might be used though there were but one elder in each church ; as
in like phrase of speech, if it were said the king appointed mayors in every
incorporation, there would be no incongruity in such a speech, though but
one mayor were in each town.
Ans. To which we answer, 1, That it were somewhat an hard phrase of
speech to mean church in the singular number, and yet to say, Kar' syizXriaiav,
which is equivalent to Ka^' sKKXyiaiav, to every church ; and it is uncouth,
too, to say elders, in the plural, as respectively to every one of these churches,
and yet to mean but one elder in every of these churches.
But, 2, to follow the example given : if some of those towns in the suppo-
sition had more mayors at once than one in them, though some others of
them had each but one, then to speak uniformly of all alike in the plural
were not so distinct ; much more if the king should give direction (as Paul
Chap. VI.] the churches of christ. 319
doth here to Titus) in such a way of speech to appoint mayors in every in-
corporate town; and yet his meaninj^ be in some to have more than one, and
in others but one, how would this direction be understood if he speak in the
plural of each ? Now, so is the case here ; for that the apostle planted more
elders than one in some churches may be evidenced, and we suppose will not
be denied ; much less can it be affirmed that there should be a confinement
unto the number of one elder in each church, and so there was left a privi-
lege and liberty of having more. Yea, if there be two kinds of elders, teach-
ing and ruling, and of teaching two kinds also, pastors and teachers, there
may be three in each congregation. So as if we consider that elders in the
plural are mentioned, and that they are expressed to be in every church in
the singular, who will not conclude the Holy Ghost's intent to have been
that elders, and not an elder only, should be in each church ? Yea, surely
his meaning would be so understood of any that should read it, unless it can
be shewed by some other place that his appointment was to define that but
one elder should be in each church.
3. It is especially remarkable that he adds (Acts xiv. 23) duroTg to xar
sxxXrjalav, which imports that he chose and ordained elders in every church
to them. He satisfies not himself to have said in every church, but adds, to
them also, to shew that he meant not elders to many churches in a common
and indefinite phrase of speech, but proper to them in each church ; not in
one church one elder, and another in another, and so elders in every church,
speaking collectively, but by way of further appropriation, elders to each,
to them.
4. The comparing these phrases together, elders in every city, and elders
in every church, evidently argues the same thing. For when he says elders
in every city, Titus i. 5, he certainly means more elders than one in each
city ; yea, and a sufficiency of elders for number to rule and govern (or else
an episcopal government of one elder alone in each city must be asserted) ;
and therefore, why should not elders in every church have the same construc-
tion also ? That is, that there should not be only one elder in a church,
but more ; yea, and a company of elders sufficient to rule and govern that
church ?
5. We never read church and elder mentioned, but church and elders, either
when spoken of in the abstract indefinitely, or when mention is made of any
particular church ; so as either congregational churches are nowhere intended
when church and elders are mentioned, or they had more elders than one
over them in relation to them as their elders. Thus it is expressed, James
v. 14, ' Send for the elders of the church,' not elder, but elders ; and these
not elders of a presbj^terial church in common, but such which are properly
the elders of that congregational church, unto which the sick person does
belong, who are elders to him. For it cannot be supposed the duty of all
the elders that make up a presbytery over many congregations, to visit the
sick of all those congregations, and to be sent for, but the duty is incumbent
on the elders appropriated to that congregation. Also, when all sorts of
obedience to officers is called for, it is still in the plural, ' Obey them that
have the rule over you,' &c., Heb. xiii. 7 ; it is spoken in the plural, not
him only, in the singular. Also when the apostle writes to Philippi, he
writes to ' the bishops and deacons,' not to one bishop, Philip, i. 1. Peter
speaks answerably, 1 Peter v. 1, 2, ' I say to the elders that are among you,
Feed the flock,' &c. So at Ephesus, Acts xx. 17, Paul ' sent for the elders
of the church.'
6. As his own example was. Acts xiv, 22, that * he ordained elders in
every church,' so he enjoined Titus to do the like ; ' to ordain elders,' as he
320 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK VI.
had appointed him, Titus i. 4. This argues that he appointed it so to be,
and so hath left it unto us, and that it was made an institution.
7. In Colossus, there was two teaching ministers : Epaphras, of whom the
apostle saith, ' Epaphras, who is a faithful minister for you, who is one of
you ; ' and Archippus, of whom he saith, ' Say to Archippus, Take heed of
thy ministry,' &c.. Col. iv. 12, 17.
8. In Philippi, which was a church in the beginning of the gospel (so he
calls it, Philip, iv. 14), there were bishops and deacons, Philip, i. 4.
9. As the natural body consists of more sorts of members than one, that
are public organs for the use of the body (as the apostle reasons, Piom. xii.),
so a church organical should have more officers and elders than one, or of
one sort, as the apostle also doth there exemplify.
CHAPTER VII.
That the Lord Jesus Christ hath not only appointed many officers to be in
every particular church, but hath assigned offices of different kinds, which
^ they ought to discharge, Bom. xii. 3-8.
We have seen in general, 1, the necessity of officers ; and, 2, that they
are to be only such officers as God hath appointed, and no other. Now, 3,
let us inquire particularly what are these several officers Christ hath appointed
in his church. I will not much trouble you with the distinction of the extra-
ordinary and ordinary ; they are the ordinary which we here inquire after.
1. Who are the successors of the extraordinary; not in their office, in that
degree, and manner, and authority in the church ; yet in respect of the
essential things administered, they perform the same to the church now that
the extraordinary did of old : 2 Tim. ii. 2, ' The things thou hast heard of
me amongst many witnesses, the same commit to faithful men, that shall be
able to teach others also.' And so when he sent them out. Mat. xxviii., he
says, ' Lo, I am with you to the end of the world.' Even as when God first
blessed those creatures then existent, in those words, * Increase and multiply,'
he in them blessed all that were to grow up in their name for ever. Gen. i.
2. They are so sometimes put into the catalogue with the extraordinary
promiscuously, and the ends of both made one and the same ; because the
ministry is of the same use and necessity to the churches in these times, in
that way, as that of the extraordinary was in theirs, so Eph. iv. 11, 12, and
1 Cor. xii., xxviii. 8—10. And the best way to distinguish the one from the
other in such promiscuous enumerations, and to discern which are ordinary,
which are not, is to consider what gifts are still in the church, and what are
ordinary standing necessities of the church, and what not, and so we shall
discern them, as in the places cited. As in the church we find still gifts of
teaching in different ways poured out on men, and abilities with spiritual
discretion and authority to guide and govern others, more eminent in some
men ; and bowels and helpfulness in others to administer to the necessities
of poor saints ; but we find apostles' gifts of miracles and tongues ceased,
and so we may in those places mentioned distinguish the one from the other,
and may thereby know which of these officers here mentioned are to remain,
which not ; for God gives gifts in relation to administration. So as there
doth remain these ordinary sort of officers, God continuing no gifts in vain,
but fitting the one to the other, as 1 Cor. xii. 5, 6, and Rom. xii. 6-8, evi-
dently implies.
In this inquiry, we will consider, 1, how an officer differs in general from
Chap. VII.] the churches of christ. 321
an ordinary member ; then, 2, what these officers are, and how differing
among themselves. As to the first, he is a servant of the whole, separated
to some special work, with special authority in the name of the whole.
1. He is a servant of the whole, so Rom. xvi. 1, and 2 Cor. iv. 5 ; not
simply a member to serve one another occasionally, but more, he ceaseth to
be sui juris, as servants do. Of Epaphras he says, not only that he is ' one
of you,' Col. iv. 13, but, chap. i. 7, 'who is for you a faithful minister of
Christ.' All his strength, pains, and abilities are theirs, and to be laid out
for their service, to spend and to be spent: Philip, ii. ver, 17, * Yea, and if I
be offered up upon the sacrifice and service of their faith, I joy, and rejoice
with you all.'
2. Separated to some special work ; so the deacons, Acts vi. 3, * whom we
may appoint over this business.' As the apostles chose other ministers, to
* give themselves continually to the word and prayer,' ver. 4 ; so as though
a private member doth the same work, yet he but occasionally, the other
makes it his business, his calling, his employment. A brother, when he sees
bis brother want, is to distribute to his necessities, but a deacon's office is to
seek out who want, and in discretion to distribute the alms of the church ;
that as the Sabbath day differs from other days, that on other days ye are to'
perform holy duties occasionally, but the Sabbath is set apart for nothing
else, so do private members differ from an officer ; it is the value of the
day, it is the season of it, so in some special service it is work and em-
ployment. Ai'chippus must take heed to fulfil his ministry. Col. iv. 17 ;
every private member is to advance his brother, but it is an elder's work to
do it.
3. He is invested with special authority, and an authority of right, to do
that lawfully in some things which in others he could not. Let a man so
account of us as particularly privileged and authorised to be the ministers of
Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God, 1 Cor. iv. 1. Some things they
are so stewards of, that they are kept under lock and key, and without them
the church cannot come to them (as the sacraments are continued to be) ;
and other things they do administer which others may, which are yet ad-
ministered by them in a more special authoritative way, not simply out of
gifts, as when they teach or admonish, but out of a special authority of
Christ withal, as ambassadors, as if Christ did admonish and beseech, and
not a brother only, 1 Cor. ii. 5, ver. 20. And though, to admonish, others'
gifts might serve as well, yet, the dispensation is not from inherent gifts so
much as an interested power authorising, virtute officii, by virtue of office ;
thus a college seat cannot be set unless they have a governor (because an
exercise of power is necessary), though the fellows may have power to
choose and instal that governor. John, speaking of Christ's power to
baptize, says it was a special power from heaven given, John iii. 26, 27.
And in the name of Christ and the church, the act of an officer is as the act
of the whole in administering, &c. ; not so as to the acts of private members,
not so as to eveiy administration of a private brother.
Now, 2, more particularly to inquire into the offices themselves.
1. They are not only many, but diverse; so we find almost everywhere
where we find them spoken of : 1 Cor. xii. 4, 5, * There are diversities of
gifts and administrations;' so Rom. xii. 6, 'having gifts differing,' he says
not greater or lesser, but differing, &c. Which gifts and offices are not only
different in nature, but in the person also ; that is, that several persons have
several gifts and several offices, for so 1 Cor. xii. 8. ' To one is given the
word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge' ; and, 1 Cor. vii. 7, every
VOL. XI. X
322 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK VI.
one hath his proper gifts, one after this manner, another after that. And so
much as to the scope of this similitude, drawn from the hody, as he brings it;
for in the members all have not the same offices or action, ver. 4, so as his
meaning must be, that several gifts, and so offices, do belong to several per-
sons. And the preface the apostle makes, Kom. xii. 3, is, that every man
is to think soberly, or within his own compass, of that measure God hath
given him ; every man hath but his part, not all. The word translated
sobrieti/, 'Tcopsoi'i/v, signifies a sound mind. A sound member swells not, so as
all are to keep within the compass, neither thinking too highly of their gift
or office, nor stretching themselves to an higher or other caUing than is given
them ; for, says he, the members in the body have not the same office, &c.,
and then, vers. 7, 8, mentioning these offices, he doth it not simply by
naming several works, as teaching, exhorting, but as relating to several per-
sons designed to these works, he that teacheth, he that exhorteth. As if he
should say of the members of the body. Let that which heareth hear, that
member which seeth see, as having several functions, so as there are several
and distinct offices in several persons. And the reason why God hath many,
and those distributed offices severally, and a several part to be performed by
them, is because God would have no one do all, but keep all in sobriety
(seeing he hath but his measure), and in mutual ease and charity, that (as
1 Cor. xii.) one member should not say to another, What need have I of
thee ? that all might both partake and communicate ; as also, because the
several works in offices would be too much for one, those master builders
needed helps, Rom. xvi. 3. And it is for ornament unto the church too, which
ariseth out of such a variety. And another reason of it is, that so each work
might be the better and more thoroughly done, when every one should,
according to his gifts, have a several part given him, which he was wholly to
give himself unto. In arts, and sciences, and professions, none prove emi-
nent, neither are they advanced and promoted, but such as give themselves
wholly unto some one science ; and it is the wisdom of the Jesuits, in dis-
posing of their followers in several professions. And this wisdom and care
God hath taken for his church, as a great man, that would have his chil-
dren educated in several professions, sets over them not one, though some-
what seen into them all, but procures the most eminent in all kinds wherein
he would have them instructed, one to read philosophy, another tongues,
&c.
2. That therefore which is chiefly to be done is, as to inquire how many
there are, so also especially what the diversity or difference is; to seek out
the formal distinction between office and office, which is a matter every way
of exceeding great moment. That confusion in the offices, and the perform-
ance of them, should be avoided, which God hates, being the God of peace
and order, and also that God's own institution be rightly kept. We see how
strict God was in keeping the bounds of difierence between the priests and
Levites, they being distinct offices : Num. iii. 10, ' Thou shalt keep the
priest's office, and the stranger that comes nigh shall be put to death ; ' and
by siranfjer there he meant not only their brethren the people, but even the
Levites their fellow- officers. Num. xvi. 40. And God requires the choosers
that they take a right estimate of men's gifts and offices, and suit them
according to their proper difierence and distinction, that a man's gifts, like
waters, may have their natural current to run in, and so as they shall not
need to use art to force the streams another way, Philip, ii. 20, 1 Peter v. 2,
that so they may naturally take care to feed the flock, not in any the least
way of constraint, no, not in respect of their gifts, to which a violence is
ofiered when they are not rightly placed. And so their gifts are to the
Chap. VII. J the churches of christ. 823
utmost improved, and their work the better done, for the edifying of the
church. It is an error (as the author of the Trial of Wits in his preface com-
plaineth), and a great error, hke that which Solomon complains of, Eccles.
X. 6, 7, in disposing of dignities unsuitable, that in commonwealths there is
not a suiting of natural endowments and callings, to the great detriment of it ;
there being no man's natural parts, if rightly placed, but would prove emi-
nent ; and the like error, if committed in churches, is much greater, by how
much the gifts and callings therein are more precious.
Let us therefore inquire into what these are, and wherein their diversity
consists, which is eminently the pi'oper scope of Rom. xii. That epistle is,
of all epistles, written in a system and form of wholesome words methodically
composed, as might be shewn. Gredenda, or matters of faith, he had handled
in the eleven first chapters ; and then faciciula, or matters of practice, from
the 12th to the 16th chapter (which he spends in salutations). The instruc-
tions concerning their practice are as methodical as the other, and are either
their duties as members of the church, in chap, xii., or as members of the
commonwealth, chap, xiii., and both in a like method: 1, what the duties
of members and officers are in that church, to ver. 9 ; 2, what the duties of
them as saints towards their brethren, and also all saints, in the following
verses of chap. xii. As the like, chap. xiii. : first, their duty unto officers in
the commonwealth, from the 1st verse to the 8th; then towards all men, from
the 8th verse to the end; and then chaps, xiv., xv., how to behave themselves
in the special controversy of those times about the ceremonies, &c. 1. In
that chap, xii., wherein he sets rules to them in their church and saint rela-
tion, and doth it most completely, I begin, 1, with their service and worship
they offi3r up in public ; and he exhorts that it be holy and spiritual, and XoyrAri
}MTgiia, that is, word-service, squared wholly by the rules of the word : for
60 the word is used, 1 Pet. ii. 2, Xoyixh aboXov ydXa, ' the sincere milk of
the word,' opposed to the fatal corruption of worship lying in addition and
carnal rites and ceremonies. Or Xoymn may signif}^ spiritual worship in the
mind, opposed to bodily service. As the best preservative of their worship
spiritual, and prevention of formality and human addition, he exhorts them
not to be conformed to the world, &c. The Holy Ghost foresaw that the
worship and service in the church, and that espesially of Rome, would be
corrupted by the conforming of it to the rites and ordinances of the world,
heathenish and Jewish ; and the government of the church shaped and con-
figured to that of the empire, in all their officers and members, as many have
excellently shewn in all particulars, and was foretold. Rev. xiii. 15. The
Holy Ghost foresaw that the pope should set up the image of the first beast,
that is, of Rome heathenish, a religion like theirs, and a government like
theirs. Item, the apostle exhorts them negatively also, not to conform them-
selves to the world: /ji^ri avs^rj/Murl^ih, ne vos confiijuratc, ' do not shape your-
selves,' as noting an outward conforming, shaping themselves to their external
worship, &c., to that external form in worship or government, as thinking it
to be but used among the heathens and Jews in externals, in which they
might take a liberty. And because the spiritual government of a church, and
the spiritual worship of it, requires as much as any other truths whatever
a spiritual heart, which they are most suitable unto ; and that carnal mind or
wisdom which is in all men is most opposite thereto, and would frame it its
own way ; therefore he exhorts them to be transformed by the renewing of
their minds, /jAra/j.o^f)ovaOs, &c. As the other word notes out an external con-
figuration, which he forbade, so this an internal formation in the mind or
judgment (for that is the difference between forma s.nd fu/ura), which might
square with the word and suit with it, having their minds cast in the mould
324 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK VI.
of doctrine, as Eom. vi. 17, that so they might approve and discern that will,
7-0 ^sXrjfia TO ayafryj, that is, good in this particular, with an emphasis, which,
is not only good in itself to you, as the only means to build you up, and only
acceptable unto God, but so perfect in itself, as it hath been committed to
you, that it needs not much wisdom at all to add anything unto it, neither in
ceremonies nor offices.
Then he comes to the particular duties : 1, of governors and officers, ver.
3; 2, of every believer in common, ver. 9, &c. 1. To the officers, who had
received gifts and functions for the edification of the whole, and who were the
principal members of the body, and more eminently unto them, his exhorta-
tion, ver. 3, is principally directed, as appears by the instances brought, ver.
6, 7, where he applies and brings home that rule in particular unto all and
every one ; and though the words might seem to be general to every one in
that church, ver. 3, 'I say to every man,' &c., yet the phrase there used, ovn
kv vfxTv, existenti, points at those eminenter, and in place amongst you. He
says not simply tivi vf^cov, but ovri h u/ubTv ; that is, to those eminent amongst
you in place and authority ; who, because they were somebody, were apt to
think too highly of themselves. And now, when he comes to give officers
their charge, observe his preface : ' I say, through the grace given to me.'
He speaks modestly, yet lays a command from his apostolical authority, which
he averreth and allegeth ; for so grace is used by him to express his aposto-
lical office, Eom. i. 5, and makes it sanctione apostoUcd, but to put the more
weight upon the exhortation, and also to own and warrant their institutions
and rules about church government to be apostolical and perpetual. Now,
the rule itself which he gives in general, and then appoints and brings home
to all the officers of the church in particular, is, as we translate it, * Not to
think more highly of himself than he ought to think, but to think soberly,
according as God hath dealt to every man a measure of faith ;' which of all
rules else, in the latitude of its meaning that could be given, is to church
officers the most pertinent and fit, the most full and comprehensive, both
tying them to the diligent performance of their several duties, and confirming
them within the proper bounds of their function. And it is the best preven-
tion of all confusion, innovation, or addition, and exorbitancy in church offices,
and likeliest preservative of that primitive purity which was established, and
wherein also the Holy Ghost (as in the former about worship) strikes at the
root of that corruption of pride and ambition, and stretching themselves
beyond their line and authority, which was that true main reason of all
transcendent usurpation which, in future times, officers of the Roman church
especially took upon them, and after their example all other churches. So
as both this rule, and that exact platform and enumeration of all offices, with
their bounds and distinction, was the most seasonable and necessary for this
church (which was foreseen to be the mother of abominations) of any other,
which is the reason (happily) why the apostle is more distinct in it than in
any other epistle. We have first the rule, ver. 3 ; and then, 2, an illustra-
tion and demonstration of the equity of it, by a similitude between a natural
body and the members thereof, and a spiritual body and the members thereof;
and, 3, application of that rule and form of that similitude to all church offi-
cers in particular, which, to that end, we on purpose mention, with their
distinction and diversity.
We will, first, inquire into the true and proper scope and meaning of the
rule, which we shall find to fall full and close with the particular duties of
church officers. It hath two parts we see: 1. Forbidding vice, that we
should not think too highly above what we ought.
2. Commanding of a virtue, but to rule ourselves with sobriety in such
Chap. VII.] the churches of chkist. " 325
thoughts. The word is ip^ovsTv, which we translate here, to * think of a man's
self;' upon the opening of which word, which is used thrice in composition,
in this short sentence, doth the whole depend. It is of a larger extension than
any one word either in Latin or English is able to express, and that which is
translated is the least thing intended.
1. It hath relation to knowledge, and sapere, not to be wise above what is
meet, which is a most pertinent direction to the chiefest of church officers,
not to aflect curiosities of knowledge, falsely so called, above what is written,
as those. Col. ii. 18, that intruded into things they had not seen, or
above the reach of their own gifts, but to keep both to the measure of their
own faith and knowledge, and also to the analogy of that faith once dehvered
to the saints ; and the hke also is required in those that rule, in whom, as
godly wisdom is as requisite as any other grace, so affected wisdom, and to
shew themselves more wise, to control and meddle in everything, is as un-
suitable.
But I think it hath not mainly a relation, ta knowledge, for he says not,
Be wise not above what licet, is lawful, as having relation to unlawful objects
forbidden to be known ; but not above what oportet, is meet for his place, or
becomes a man's place and gifts.
Therefore, 2, <^^onh signifies also curare, carefully and heedfully to mind
and regard what belongs to him ; whence (p^ovrri^'^- cur a, and is all one with
that phrase of ours, he minds his business ; it signifies intention, and what the
mind is taken up about. So Rom. viii. 5, we translate it, * those that are after
the flesh do mind the things of the flesh.' The word is the same ; so as it hath
special relation to what is a man's duty and place, which is given him to mind
and to regard. And then the first part of the exhortation is, /a?5 uts^^^ovsTv,
not to mind or take upon him what is above him ; or, as David speaks, not
to exercise a man's self in things too high for him (as Ps. cxxxi, 1), for his
place, calling, function, gifts; or, as Paul saith (2 Cor. x, 1), not to stretch a
man's self beyond his own measure, not into another man's line, nor to thrust
his sickle into another man's harvest.
And then, 2, that other particular commanding a virtue, which we have
here translated, to ' think of himself soberly,' should be translated, soberly
to keep himself and his intention too within his calling, and function, and
duty, as he ought, ^a^' 6 dli (p^ovsTv, is to do what is his proper duty in his
place, and to keep to it, and to spend all his intention thereupon, and not
dXy.oT^is'Tiffx.o'nrj, not meddle with other men's or ofiicers' matters, as the
apostle elsewhere forbids, 1 Peter iv. 15. He therefore is overwise above
what he ought, that exceeds the measure of his place ; and to be wise to
sobriety, is to keep within a man's compass. So that it is not a mere repe-
tition, but implies that as he ought not to exceed, so also that he ought to
mind his own place and duty. And then the word sh rh ecti^^omv is an ex-
hortation to both ; it is to have a sound mind, a comparison taken from the
body, which is then said to be sound, and a member sound, when it is kept
in its natural equal and due temper, and every part performs its own office,
swells not above its compass, exceeds not in heat and humours, nor is defec-
tive in what belongs to it. So when a member of the church swells not above
his rank and place, but executes what belongs to him, then he is said to be
sober, and of a right temper in his place. And so, then, that which follows,
' according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith,' directs and
shews men what it was every man was to put forth in his place, viz., that
measure of spiritual gifts which God had parted diversely among men, which
gifts are to be suited to offices, as we shall see anon. For by faith here, he
* Qu. (p^ovTi; ? — En.
326 THE GOArERNMENT OF [BoOK YI.
mefins not primarily justifying faith, but spiritual gifts for the good of the
church, superadded to faith, which yet he calls faith, because they are not
natural, but had some work of faith as their foundation, whether saving or
temporary, as 1 Cor. xii. 12. This the apostle plainly intimates, when he
shews that those spiritual gifts they had not among them, till they were con-
verted to the faith, but then were endued with them. When you were led
after dumb idols, you had none of these gifts, but you had them by a work
of the Holy Ghost, enabling you to say and assert, and believe that Jesus
was the Lord; which assertion was the foundation of all those spiritual gifts
that follows, and so here called faith ; as also because that, in the exercise of
them, faith should be the director of them to the good of others.
And then, 3, the words may withal be interpreted as they are translated,
as aimed against pride and overvaluing a man's gifts, which the apostle also
aims and strives at, as the root of all that ambition and affectation of pre-
eminence in church officers ; and so v'7ti^(pDonTv will also bear that sense.
And so, to be wise to sobriety, is for a man to give a due estimate to his
gifts, and put them forth accordingly ; and hence humility is fully defined
(as here), a sobriety or moderation of spirit, which only keeps a man within
his compass, and the contrary swells him to matters above a man's call-
ing and compass ; and therefore David joins them both together : Ps. cxxxi.,
' My heart is not haughty, neither did I exercise myself in things too high
for me.' And the drift of the reason implied in the following words, argue
this to be his scope.
1. It is God that guides those gifts, and that of grace, ver. 3 and 6; and
why should thou boast of what is received ?
^ 2. Thou hast not all the gifts, kfii^iss, he doth part them ; we have gifts
difiering.
3. Of that very gift which thou hast received, thou hast but a measure,
a portion, nor that in the fulness of it,
4. Others have gifts as well as thou ; yea, every member hath gifts. God
bath dealt to every man, so as thou cannot say thou hast no need of others.
So as his scope is at once to beat down pride and ambition, as the cause and
affection of pre-eminence, the sin of Abiram, Dathan, and of Korah, who,
being children, affected the priesthood ; and also he meant to keep every
man to his own calhng and place, diligently to execute it to the good of
others, wherein, how did the Holy Ghost (in writing to the church of Rome)
strike at the very sin which he saw then working in that chur<;h, which cor-
rupted and perverted all the officers in the churches of Christ, even as he
foresaw superstition would corrupt the worship, as was observed in the
former verses.
The root of that mystery of iniquity, and foundation of it, was laid in
church officers' asserting of pre-eminence, the lower officers assuming what
belonged to the higher, as the deacons did ; and then the higher taking upon
them all the power of the inferior ; yea, and of the whole church itself, as
to admit members, to excommunicate, to ordain, to rule and govern, and so
to thrust out deacons and ruling elders as unnecessary, and those it left
continuing to make them shadows ; and then these greateued officers pre-
sumed further to extend their power over other congregations besides
their own.
The bishops of Rome began from thence to challenge universal power over
all churches, and from being an ordinary officer, to cballenge that extraordi-
nary power of apostles themselves, and to sit in the temple of God as gods ;
and not to be content with spiritual power neither, but to challenge temporal
also, to dispose of crowns, curb, restrain, and cut short the spirit of princes ;
Chap. VII. J the churches of christ. 327
and his bishops also began, and have continued, to intermeddle in affairs of
state. That ever of so small an egg as a poor pastor of that chm-ch, so foal
and monstrous a crocodile should arise, so great a prince, is that great
mystery which all the world may wonder at, as it did indeed admire his
greatness.
How seasonably therefore was this rule given to prevent ensuing mischief ;
and how necessary was it also, in the application of this rule, to give a com-
plicate and exact platform of church officers, and their true bounds and dis-
tinction of their places to this church above all other, who was to become
the mother of abominations ! How seasonable was it to leave this apostolical
canon in her archivi, in her records, to discover the falsehood of those which
she boasts, and to shew all the world in after times, how much she was
swerved from her original, and hkewise to enjoin the observance of these in-
stitutions, with an apostolic charge, as his preface shews, Rom, xii. 3, ' I
say, through the grace given me ' !
The scope therefore of that which follows, is to illustrate this rule, and to
shew the equity of it, from a smilitude drawn from the body, and then to
apply and bring it home to every officer amongst them ; that as his charge
was to every man, he says not omnibus, but cuique, in particular, ver. 3, so
his application is to every one of them in particular, ver. 6, 7. I will not
much msist in opening the similitude, only observe for a foundation to what
follows, that this comparison here, as it is between the body and such mem-
bers as have general offices for the whole, so the church he here compares
the body unto is an instituted church, whether among them, or wherever
else. 1. It is a church he speaks of, for it is a body in Christ, non in
Casare, not a civil body, that is put as a note of difference ; for as not only
many are requisite, so they are considered not as scattered saints, but as
making one body, and so knit ; and then the members of this body, to whom
the similitude is after applied, are officers of a church, and those ordinary
officers also, for those that follow, ver, 6, 7, are the members. He speaks
of eminently gifted members here in general, there particularly, and with
application. Now we may take this for a rule, that wherever the ordinary
officers that are the proper organs of a church as instituted [are spoken of J,
there the church or body spoken of is principally meant a church instituted ;
and of the officers of it he speaks indefinitely and universally, ' we being
many,' &c., not particularly only tjou, because his scope was to lay down
indefinitely a general platform of all other, as well as of this, unto which
they were already moulded, and always to be framed. Now then, the fun-
damental terms of the comparison being thus suited, his similitude hath two
main parts, fitted to infer those two parts of that rule delivered.
1. That as in the body many members make one body, and so become
members to the whole, and also one to another, for one another's good,
ver. 4, so in this instituted body, every one the eminentest and most gifted
is a member of another, ver. 5 ; that is, are ordained for their best profit,
and good, and safety, as of themselves and the whole, so of every member,
to intend the good of the whole. And of every member in particular, they are
to use their gifts with consideration of co-members ; and therefore co-mem-
bership should oblige church officers, of whom he speaks here, especially to
have a care to use and improve their gifts, with diligence in their places, for
the good of the whole ; and not only so, but also to consider every part in
particular, and perform a duty to it, which by their office they are to do dili-
gently. The eye sees not for itself, but for the whole ; yea, for the foot, the
hand, and every member in particular as occasion is, so as diligence in their
office, which is one part of his rule and canon, is hence inferred and argued.
828 THE GOVEBNMENT OF [BoOK VI.
But yet, 2, they are to consider -withal, that every member hath not the
same office ; yea, so far from having the same office, that they have not the
same action. So as though every officer and principal member is to be
diligent [forj the good of the whole, yet not to usurp over the offices of another,
not to do that which is proper for another to do ; one member is not to
invade the room of another ; the foot is not to undertake to see, nor the
hand to walk.
Thus to do would be for the confusion of the whole, and an injury to that
member whose office is assumed, and to whom it is proper, and its honour
to perform it ; and the member who usurps another's office would be less
useful to the whole, and injurious to itself, in perverting its proper gift and
office to what it is not fit, and so to do it untowardly. And this is the second
part of that rule given clearly, proven from this similitude. Now then, in the
6th and 7th verses, he goes on at once, both to amplify that last part of the
comparison, that as in the body, every member hath not the same office,
so that in this instituted body we are members, having gifts differing (enu-
merating all the particular offices), and also he in the strength of that simi-
litude urgeth and applies, and brings home both parts of the rule in each
particular officer, which he enumerates. I say, first he goes on to amplify and
enlarge that last part of the similitude, by a distinct enumeration of all par-
ticular ordinary officers, needful to such a church for ever. And so the cohe-
rence of the words most fitly joints this verse with the former, for 'i^oMrsg,
we having, &c., refer to sV/^sv in the former verse, the apostle not beginning
a new entire sentence, as usually it is read, but continuing these words to
the former, as not having made up his comparison complete. That as he
had said, * so we being many are one body,' &c., so we are withal, having
differing gifts also, &c., which answers to that part of the comparison, ver. 4,
as all members have not the same office. And yet withal they are a strange
inference, wherein the apostle brings home and applies both those duties in
his rule, ver. 3, to every officer which he enumerates, and that in the
strength and force of the similitude ; so as that rule given afore should be
put into eveiy particular, and therefore in the original there is an iXXl-^ig, a
chink and void space left for the reader to put it in, as in those words, first,
' whether prophecy, let us prophesy,' those words, let us prophesy, are not in
the original, but applied by the translators to make up the sense ; whereas
that which in general the apostle had said, ver. 3, is to be inserted in that,
and all the other particulars, and therefore doth best make up the sense, as
whether prophecy, let us soberly mind our duty therein, and not be over- wise,
or beyond what is above us, or not ours to meddle in, but keep to the bounds
of that office and duty, which is the amXoyia of faith ; and so in that other
ministry {let us ivait on, is not in the original), but that which he said is to
be supplied, let us soberly mind our duty in ministering, and not be over-
wise to meddle with what is not our office, but keep to ministering, and so
of the rest. So as he doth at once both exhort every one to diligence iu
their particular office, set him for the good of all, and also dehort him from
meddling with what belongs not to him, sends a man to his own body to learn
these lessons. All which considered gives a most just and full account
and reason why the apostle doth here more distinctly, exactly, and com-
pletely reckon up all particular offices in this epistle, which we find not so
fully in any other ; for it agreed with, and was more requisite every way to,
this scope in hand.
For, 1, the making up the similitude entire in the reddition of it, required
it. He had said, ver. 4, that in the natural body every member had not
the same office (and what are the offices of each member, nature taught).
Chap. VII.] the churches of cheist. 329
Then in the reddition and making up of this similitude he shews, in this
instituted body, all had not the same offices, by enumerating all the particu-
lar offices themselves, and their diversities, which was proper to do, and also
was necessary to do, because they wholly depend upon apostolical institu-
tion and God's will, and otherwise were not known.
And, 2, his scope was to bring home that rule delivered in general, ver. 3,
by way of application, as in an use of exhortation or reproof, a man doth a
general doctrine, by naming all and every of those sorts of men he would
apply it unto ; and, ver. 3, he, in laying down that exhortation, in his pre-
face to it he had said, 'This I say to every man,' not omnibus, or to all defi-
nitely, but every man particularly, as Musculus observes, as intending to
bring it home particularly to every sort of men which he meant and spake
unto.
And, 8, one and the main part of his exhortation being, that officers should
keep to their bounds, so it was peculiarly necessary, as to apply it to parti-
culars, so to enumerate all and every particular, so to distinguish them,
and set them their several bounds, that every one might for ever know his
duty, and not transgress.
And, 4, the epistle containing matter of doctrine, wherein he had handled
a perfect platform of all other epistles methodically composed, it suited with
his scope, that in mentioning the officers of the chtirch also, he should
be as complete and distinct, and set down the exact catalogue and table
of them.
And, 5, being written to the Romans, whose eminent sin, in after days,
was the corrupting of all offices in the church, and introducing new, which
God never instituted, and excluding those he had ordained, or perverting
them, the complete catalogue of all offices, their bounds, and terms of their
duties and distinction, was most seasonable and proper to them, as to pre-
vent aforehand, so to convict that whore of her abominations and usurpa-
tions herein in after ages.
And, 6, to add weight to all, and to confirm these canons of his to all
ages inviolably, it was requisite he should set to his apostolical authority
and seal, which in the preface he doth ; ' This I say by the grace given me' :
and this (as it were) in opposition unto, and to weigh down, in after ages,
that false counterfeit apostolical authority usurped, in that see, which would
make other canons and constitutions clean difiering and opposite to these.
His scope, therefore, being to enumerate all officers, and to distinguish them
and their duties, which is the thing we seek, let us go on to observe how
artist-like, exactly and fully and methodically, he doth it every way, as he
had done all else in this epistle. He proceeds,
1. By a Bi^orofLia, or general division of all officers into two general ranks
and orders.
2. By a subdivision, containing all the particulars of that general division,
and, to prevent mistakes, lest that because seven are mentioned, that there-
fore so many particular offices should be meant, as some have understood
them, whereas he intends but five. Therefore the first two, to shew they
are but a general division of these five that follow, are expressed in the
abstract, jjwjjhecy, ministry ; but the five particulars in the concrete, ' lie that
teacheth,' ' he that exhorteth,' &c., varying his expression, to make evident
the diflerence.
(1.) There is a general division of all officers into two ranks or orders.
[1.] Such whose duty, and the exercise of their office, licth in simple
ministration, in instruction in the word ; the other, of discipline, is that
whose work lies in ruling men's lives and bodies. Prophecy hath relation
330 THE GOVEENMENT OF [BoOK VI.
by knowledge to instruct the mind ; dia-Aovia, to ruling and ordering the out-
ward man ; and although there were in the primitive times prophets of extra-
ordinary gifts, both in foretelling persecutions to befall the church, as Agabus
and others, who also by extraordinary revelation opened difficult scriptures ;
and who are in other places ranked among the extraordinary officers, as
Eph, iv. 11, and 1 Cor, xii. 28 ; yet here prophets of ordinary gifts are
meant, because he prescribes for their rule the dvaXoyla of faith to bound
them with. Which rule, the extraordinary assisted infallibly by the Holy
Ghost in their prophesyings, need not to be regulated by no more than
apostles themselves, the revelation of the Spirit being an infallible guide
and rule unto them ; and also he commands them to abide in that calling,
and confine themselves unto it.
By prophesying, therefore, is meant, that speaking out of the word to
men's instruction, as 1 Cor. xiv. 3, prophecy is taken in opposition to gifts
extraordinary, vers, 1-3 compared, where he defines it to be a speaking unto
men to edification, and exhortation and comfort, and is put for the ordinary
expounding of the Scriptures, which, 2 Peter i, 20, is called a word of pro-
phecy, and so is taken often in Scripture ; as Mat. xiii. 57, ' A prophet hath
honour but in his own country ;' and so in that speech, ' He that receiveth
a prophet in the name of a prophet,' Mat. x. 41 ; that is, any teacher or
instructor out of the word, to prophesy not being always taken to foretell, but
declare, as, Exod, vii, 1, God tells Moses that Aaron should be his prophet,
that is, a declarer of his mind for him. So to open the revealed will of God
is prophesying. So as by prophecy here, their office is understood whose
office it is to open and apply the word according to the avccXoyJa, of the
doctrine of faith, and the proportion of their own gifts, and so is distinguished
from diaxoula, which includes all external ordering and watching over men,
but without labouring in the word ; diazovja, which comparatively is a more
ministerial and external work, this more internal and noble.
And so now under that general head of prophecy is contained these two
first offices mentioned, teaching and exhorting ; and under the other, dia-
nov'ta, is comprehended the other three more external and ministerial func-
tions. Giving is the deacon's office, ruhng the elder's, shewing mercy is
the widow's. So as, though diaxovia is sometimes taken more largely for all
offices whatsoever, as 1 Cor. iii, 5, ' What is Paul, what is Apollo ? biccTtovoi,
ministers, by whom ye believed ;' and also more strictly, for that most
ministerial inferior office of taking care of the poor, as Acts v. 3, 4, and
1 Cor. xvi. 15 ; yet here, it being made a contradistinct member, it is
judged to be taken in a middle sense between both. For all those are
ministerial functions which meddle not with the word and prayer, not ex
officio, so as prophets express a higher rank of officers, that. Acts vi., give
themselves to the word and prayer especially ; and ministry expresseth that
lower rank of external government, either over the lives or livelihoods of
men, as the ruling elder and the deacon. The office even of ruling elders,
when compared with that of prophecy, takes place rather with deacons, and
is reckoned with that inferior classis rather than with the prophets ; and
unto this division other scriptures seems to give light and warrant, as that
1 Peter iv. 11 maketh it also clear, ' Let him that speaketh, speak as the
oracle of God,' which is all one with prophesying here ; by the analogy of
faith, there is prophecy mentioned ; then follows, ' if any man minister' (the
word is the same that here), let him do it as God giveth a liberty. There
their deacons are a contradistinct division to prophecy. The like I take
the meaning of 1 Tim, i, 3, where mention is only made of two officers,
bishops and deacons ; the question hath been. Under which of these two the
Chap. VII.] the churches of christ. 331
ruling elders comes ? I answer, Under deacon in that division ; for bishops
there must be dida/i-ixoi, apt to teach, which in an elder is not so necessarily
required, many having ruling gifts in private that have not teaching gifts in
public ; and that also which sways me so to think, is because the qualifica-
tions of deacon here are such as qualif}'- a ruling elder, as gravity and ruling
their own house well, &c.
And according to the avaXoyla of these places, that of Philip, i. 1 may, in
like manner, be understood. To the bishops (that is, the pastors, and
teachers) and deacons ; that is, both elders and deacons (strictly so called).
This diflering rank of officers seemeth to me also to have been typified out
by those two orders of church officers under the law, of priests and Levites,
which type I would not have thus applied had I not found it by way of pro-
phecy foretold.
As, 1, it is prophesied that two sorts of officers, answering to both these,
should be under the New Testament, Isa. Ixvi. 20, 21, I shall be mindful of
that rule which, in the application of types, we are ever to follow, that no
types are to be applied to anything under the New Testament, but by a
special warrant from the Holy Ghost, so applying it in some place of the
New Testament, or in some prophecy of the times of the gospel in the Old
Testament ; because, Heb. ix. 8, the Holy Ghost is alone said to give sig-
nification to those types. Yet so as, when we have a general type applied
to design out such a thing, then by those ordinary gifts of interpretation we
may fetch out the particular resemblances, as we do in parables and simili-
tudes of Scripture when we know their main scope and aim, these being also
called -Tra^alSoXou, Heb. is. 9. But to return to Isa. Ixvi. 21. He prophesies
there, of the times of the gospel, and the state of the church of the Jews
when converted ; for, ver. 20, he speaks of the bringing in of their brethren
the Jews out of all nations, as an ofiering to God, into the holy mountain
and house of God (the conversion of a people being called an ofiering up to
God, Eom. XV. 16) ; and, ver. 22, he makes mention of the new heavens
and new earth, &c. Now, as he says, he will bring their brethren the Jews
to the holy mountain and the house of God, which is a church estate (as I
have formerly shewed), so he says he will take of them for priests and Levites,
which design out in the language of those types, the officers of those churches,
all not being meant, for he will take of them ; and it being also spoken of
some of them, by way of distinction to the rest and multitude of their
brethren, ver. 20, it typifies out two general ranks of officers in the New
Testament, into which all then instituted are to be referred. And so, in the
Old Testament, I find elsewhere that division made of all the Jews into these
three heads and ranks : the house of Israel, the multitude of believers,
the house of Aaron, the house of Levi, as comprehending all of the church
as so considered, when he calls upon them severally to praise the Lord, Ps.
cxxxv. 19, 20 ; even as when, Philip, i. 1, he, writing to the whole church,
mentions three : 1, the saints ; 2, the bishops, which answer to their priests,
pastors, and teachers ; and 3, deacons, the Levites, which comprehended all
the rest.
I will add, as the conclusion of this difference and distinction of officers,
some observations which suit with these difi"erences upon the types of these
officers mentioned out of Isa. Ixvi. 20 ; and for suiting the particular re-
semblances in those types, I will take that liberty mentioned before, which
is, having found out the general notion, as priests to typify out preachers of
the word, and Levites those three other officers, I will see what stamps of
resemblance there are in those types of these offices, which will further clear
the diflerence, and answer a main argument for the pastor's superiorities
332 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK VI.
over teachers, as it bath been urged by some. Under Levites, I rank all
inferior offices, finding a resemblance in the type of deacons over the poor ;
for there were those that disposed of the treasury of the church among these
Levites, who, 1 Chron. sxvi. 20, were over the treasury of the house of God
and the dedicated things ; and there were also ruling elders among those
Levites, who were porters to keep out and let in to the assemblies, and the
gate of the tabernacle, 2 Chron. ix. 18-20, as these gospel elders also are
to watch over, and especially to regard with the teachers concerning admis-
sion, or keeping out of members, to examine and try, &c. They assist in
opening and shutting the doors of God's house. There were also ruling
elders among those Levites, who watched the temple day and night, and
stood before it, Num. xviii. 2, and kept the charge of it, ver. 5 ; so these
are to watch over the spu-itual temple, the church, and have their souls
committed to their charge, to give an account, Heb. xiii. 17. And then there
are an higher rank of officers to whom these Levites are given in assistance
(as the deacons were ordained,, Acts vi. 3, 4, that the teachers might more
fully give themselves to the word and prayer, and 1 Cor. xii. 28, 29, are
called helps), even as the Levites were given to Aaron, Num. iii. 9, 10, and
xviii. 6. The Septuagint says added, in allusion to the name of Levi, which
signifies joined (Gen. xxix. 34) ; and these officers are these prophets
answering to the priests, the priests being to do many things the Levites
were not to do. For application of that type ; —
1. The priests had the charge of the inward part of the temple, and, Num.
iv. 19, they had the charge only of the most holy things, and the Levites were
not to go in when they were set and covered ; and so the cleansing the inward
part of the temple (2 Chron. xxix. 16) belonged to the priests, the cleansing
of the outward court to the Levites. So answerably the outward lives and con-
versations, and the filthiness that appears therein, is the proper sphere and
jurisdiction of the rule of a ruling elder ; but to instruct and comfort the con-
science, to purge out inward corruption by the word taught and applied, and
inform the understanding, &c., is most proper to these prophets, the pastor
and teacher.
So also, 2, the priests did only burn the incense, 1 Cor. vi. 48, 49, and
only did bless in the name of the Lord, and sanctify the most holy things,
1 Chron. xxiii. 13 ; so these prophets meddle ex officio only with the most holy
things of the New Testament, being stewards of the mysteries of God, 1 Cor.
iv. 1, and put up the public prayers of the church ex offieio, and are the
ordinary mouth of the whole, and so, giving themselves to the word and
prayer, are joined, Acts vi. 4, as belonging ex officio unto them. And so, to
dismiss the church with a blessing, and to administer and to bless the cup
of blessing, &c, belongs only to them.
And although the Levites also did teach, 2 Chron. xxxv. 3, and so it
might seem that teachers are Levites also, and that there was no such dis-
tinction intended between teachers and them,
Yet, 1, to the priests of Levi that charge was in a more especial manner
given, Deut. xxiv. 8, do as the priests and Levites shall teach • and the
priests' lips were an especial ordinance to preserve knowledge ; and so,
though elders may now also teach and prophesy, as also other members (and
so also other tribes might teach, as Drusius proves ; and 2 Chron. xvii. 7,
the princes also are said to teach as well as the Levites, as the pharisees
did whom Christ bade his disciples hear), yet the priests' teaching was that
especial ordinance to preserve knowledge, as now also the pastor's and
teacher's office is to preserve the unity of the faith, and to prevent being
tossed as children, Eph. iv. 12, 13.
Chap. VIII.] the churches of christ. 333
And, 2, the elders also have a teaching which belongs to them e.v officio,
yet of a lower kind than that of these pastors and teachers ; and so some, ex-
tending that of bishops, 1 Tim. iii. 2, to elders, also apply that 'property,
diSa-ATizol, unto them ; and therefore in common they are exhorted to feed the
flock, 1 Peter v. 1, not by a word of exhortation or doctrine, but by a word
of admonition. For any sin committed, or duty omitted, or error held, he
must be able to convince out of the word that this is lawful or unlawful, to
lay open the sinfulness of it, 1 Thes. v. 12. He not only mentions them
that labour, that is, in word and doctrine, but them that are over you and
admonish you, that is, ruling elders.
And, 8, though Levites did then teach as well, and with the same autho-
rity that priests, yet teaching now is one of the most holy ordinances
amongst us, which among them it was not, but sacrifices, &c., above it,
which therefore did fully enough keep up the distinctions, and made the
priesthood an high office. But what was an inferior ordinance then, being in
the New Testament one of the supreme ordinances now, therefore that is it
that now must make the difference and distinction, and that it is the highest
ordinance appears in this, that Paul says of it comparatively to the sacra-
ment, I was not sent to baptize, but to preach, 1 Cor. i. 17.
CHAPTER VIII.
Wherein the distinction of the officers in a church consists, and tvhat are the
due and proper hounds of their several offices and duties ; the difference
between pastor, elder, and teacher stated. — That j^nstor and teacher are
co-ordinate, and that one hath not authority and poiver superior to the
other ; ivhat are their distinct offices and administrations.
Now then I come to search and find out the proper genuine distinction
of these offices, which is the principal thing which I aim at, and is prin-
cipally intended by the apostle (in this Rom. xii.), to the end to set bounds
to officers not to entrench upon one another's duties and callings, as also
to set them more diligently about their proper work. For the clearing of
these distinctions here given by the apostle, I must premise this neces-
sary distinction of these offices : that some of them are, as was observed,
subordinate one to the other ; others co-ordinate, that is, some are inferior
and superior, more or less authorised ; some are of equal power in the
administration of holy things.
The co-ordinate, as I shall shew anon, are the prophets here, viz., pas-
tors' and teachers' office of an equal rank and power ; and their difference
is to be sought only in the differing manner of administration or ministry
of the word. But unto both these offices there is a subordination of the
elder's and deacon's office, as also of the deacon's office to the elder's ;
which subordination, when found out, will help us to see wherein the true
difference lies. This their subordination may be exemplified by the in-
stance of subalternate species, that is, the several kinds and ranks of crea-
tures in the old creation, as these officers are in the new (God having made
the one as the other, in order, weight, and measure), for instance, as there
is subordination between man and beast and plants, so among these three
sorts of officers, deacons and widows are the lowest, elders the middle,
and teachers or prophets the highest ; which subordination, that I may ex-
plain it, is not in respect of dependence or derivation of power, as the
power of inferior officers civil is dependent upon the supreme, as the king,
334: THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK VI.
&c., no, but all hold immediately from Christ. As man, though a more
noble creature, yet gives not life to plants nor sense to beasts, but all hold
of God as in capite, so here too the tenure is immediate. Though antichrist
and bishops would subordinate officers, yet it is not so in God's institu-
tion.
Neither, 2, is this subordination in respect of subjection to any jurisdic-
tion of the superior, so as the superior might restrain the inferior of the
exercise of their power, as the bishops take on them to silence inferior mini-
sters ; no, but every man hath, as his power, so the free exercise of it
dependent only on Christ and his church he is placed in, and that so as in
bis place and office a ruling elder may with authority admonish a pastor, as
well as a pastor him, likeas fee-servants in an house all know and are
beholden, and subject to each other in their place and offices.
Neither, 3, is it only in respect of a greater or less excellency in their
functions that the work of the one is more noble and honourable, and
deserves double or treble honour, though that be true, as appears by Tim.
V. 17, which might have been, though that work the one doth the more
excellent could no way have done.
But, 4, it is in respect of a larger commission that the one hath than the
other in the administration of holy things, so as the superior rank, pastors
and teachers have, ex officio, all the power that the other hath, and more ;
and so the elders all that the deacons have, and more. That there is such
a gradual subordination in these offices may appear, because the apostle,
speaking of a deacon's office, 1 Tim. iii. 13, says, he that hath administered
it well, ' hath purchased to himself a good degree,' &c. ; so in that place also,
1 Cor. xii. 28, he ranks them in superior and inferior classes : 'first, apostles ;
secondly, prophets,' extraordinary, namely, as Eph. iv. 11, under whom also
evangelists are comprehended ; and, ' thirdly, teachers ; ' that is, ordinary
teachers, under whom, by a synecdoche, also pastors are comprehended, as
being of the same rank ; and then after that, as inferior to these, among
others are promiscuously reckoned up * helps ; ' that is, deacons and gover-
nors, which are ruling elders. That as apostles had a larger commission
than evangelists, being the planters of churches, and had power over all the
evangelists, being but their assistants, in settling and establishing them ; and
as prophets and evangelists had a greater power and gifts than pastors and
teachers (all which they had, and more ; for evangelists had the gifts and
offices both of pastors and teachers, since the apostle chargeth Timothy to
attend to doctrine and exhortation, 1 Tim. iv. 13; but here his admonition
is, he that teacheth on teaching only, and he that exhorteth on exhortation),
so likewise have the pastors all the power that the elders have, as the elders
all that the deacons ; and what is the work of either, the pastors or teachers
may do as their leisure serves, as in Acts vi. 1-3. Originally the apostles
themselves (as may be gathered from vers. 4 and 1 compared) did perform
that daily administration, but through the burden of it, appointed a special
office, that they might attend to their principal and more proper work, yet
so as occasionally they might overlook and join with them (as they had
leisure) in their administrations.
Rule and government is also common to the pastor and teacher with the
elders, as by this place, 1 Tim. v. 17, expressly doth appear, in that he says
in common, ' the elders that rule are worthy of double honour, but especially
those that labour in the word and doctrine.' Therefore they that labour in
word and doctrine are also ruling elders ; and it is such a speech, as when
it is said ' God is the Saviour of all men, but especially of them that believe' ;
whence any man would gather that believers were men, only further, some
Chap. VIII.] the chukches of christ. 335
special rank of men ; or as if it be said, Honour all fellows in a college, in
the university, but especially those that labour in divinity. There is another
place which pi'oves the same thing, Heb. xiii. 7, so as their office is to do
both, but yet they are, in common with another sort of officers, especially
designed to that work mentioned, ver. 17.
Now this being premised, to find out the proper distinctions of each of
these subordinate offices, these ensuing axioms, which fully agree with the
apostle's intentions here and elsewhere, may give us light.
1. The first axiom is, that what is common to a superior officer with the
inferior, may yet be made a proper diflerence of that inferior officer ; as for
example : To rule is an office common to pastors and elders, and yet to rule is
made the special difference of such an officer in this, Eom. xii. 6, 7, as he is
distinguished from deacons and prophets ; for it is in this as it is in other
species and kinds of creatures, who have something common, somethincr
proper. So as men have all that beasts and plants have ; and yet when we
would express the difference of a plant from a beast, we say it is a creature
that hath life in it ; when we would express the proper difference of a
beast, we say, it is a creature that hath sense, a sensitive soul ; and so of a
man, we express his proper difference, a creature reasonable, though he hath
sense also. And so the apostle, in this distinction of offices, distinguisheth a
deacon by his office of giving, because this is all that the power of his office
reacheth to ; an elder by one that ruleth, because that is the highest that
his office extends unto ; and the pastor and doctor by prophesying, as that
which alone is proper to them, though they rule, &c., also.
2. The second axiom is, that when that which is common to a superior
officer with an inferior is made the difference of the inferior office, it is in
respect of some peculiarity in that his work, which makes a true difference
between them.
1. Thus, though to rule is a pastor's office as well as an elder's, yet the
elder is more especially said to rule, because he is wholly set apart to it.
It is his proper calling, which he is wholly appointed to mind, and in a
special manner ; and so the deacon's office is to mind the poor, they are
separated to this work, so as to none else. That, as I said, all officers in
common differ from private members, as being separated to some work,
though withal they do besides retain in common with the rest of the mem-
bers the exercise of all privileges and duties that belong to members ; so it
is in this respect in the comparison between the inferior and superior officers ;
though the superior in common performs the same works with the inferior,
yet the inferior is set apart to it wholly, which the other is not, but to some
other of a higher kind, by reason of intending which, he cannot so fully and
wholly intend the other. And therefore it is observable, that speaking of a
ruler's office in ruling, he says, let him do it with diligence ; for that is his
work which he is to mind, and there will be enough of it to fill his hand.
Or, 2, there may be a peculiar duty to be exercised by one more than
another in the way of administration, and more peculiar bounds of jurisdic-
tion in ruling. Thus the elders' ruling, and inspection, and watching, is
only principally over men's lives, their outward man, the infirmities thereof
in conversation ; but the pastor's and teacher's care is over the inward
principally, as their errors, temptations, doubts, scruples, &c. And the
teacher also is more especially to admonish of errors, and pluck up such ill
weeds as are contrary to sound doctrine ; and the pastor to watch over the
doubts about their estates, and slackness and deadness any way in holy
duties ; and accordingly the people are to make use of them, as they thus
have in ruling their more special walks and works.
33G THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK VI.
Or, 3, sometimes there is a difference in respect of eminency, that as a
ruler's work is to admonish and watch over the life, so he may have a more
special gift that way than a pastor or teacher,
3. The third axiom is, that in like manner the superior officers, pastor
and teacher, have, besides those offices common with ruling elders, a special
work, in which they are more eminent, and attend more upon it than ruling
or on the deacon's office (though they are to mind them also), which is to
prophesy and open the word ; and accordingly, therefore, that gives them
their distinction from the other.
1. Thus they are distinguished from deacons expressly. Acts vi. 1. The
apostles, whose ordinary successors these are, gave over much of the busi-
ness of looking to the poor, and established an office for it, to the end they
might continually give themselves to prayer and the ministry of the word,
they being to be in public the mouth of God to the people, and of the people
unto God.
Thus, 2, also, they are most properly distinguished from ruling elders,
1 Tim. V. 17. Those elders are such whose office it is to rule well, but these
are they that labour in the word and doctrine ; that is, that ex officio are to
give themselves wholly up to it. To this purpose also may be observed that
difference in Heb. xiii. 1 ; in the 7th verse, speaking of preaching elders or
prophets, he says, ' Remember them who have the rule over you, who have
spoken to you the word of God ; ' that is, that are openers of the word
amono you ; and therefore he adds, ' whose faith follow,' and then at the 17th
comes in, as a new exhortation, so another sort of elders (or else I suppose
he would have shut up all in that order), of whom he mentions that they
rule, but leaves out, as a note of difference, that which in the former he
added, that have spoken the word to you. So as this is proper to these
officers, and not communicated to the rest (not ex officio), to labour in the
word and prophecy ; and therefore, in Eph. iv. 11, 12, mentioning such
officers as were appointed to gather the saints, and build them up in faith,
and the knowledge of Christ by preaching, he mentions only pastors and
doctors, and is silent of the other, as being the proper work of them, not of
the other.
As I have shewed the proper difference of subordinate officers, it now re-
mains that I should do the like concerning these two in the superior rank,
pastor and teacher, which are co-ordinate, of which we must shew the differ-
ence also.
1. Some would have made the same difference of subordination between
the pastor and teacher, that hath been shewn between them and the others,
so as the pastor should be alone the supreme officer, and all the rest his
assistants ; and he should have also a larger power of administration and
government, both in the sacraments and censures, from which they would ex-
clude the teacher from meddling in them ; but in any such respect, I cannot
find in Scripture any so vast a difference, but every way an equality given
to them, only a difference in the manner of administration.
1. There is only a difference as to the administration of holy things, not
any thing as to power. For then the Scripture would mention also, that the
pastor hath all the gifts the teacher hath, and more, for it is a law will not
fail us, that eminency of power hath eminency of gifts, that fulness of power
hath a fulness of gifts answerable ; but God hath shared and divided gifts of
prophesying between them, to one a word of wisdom, to another the word of
knowledge, 1 Cor. xii. Not to the pastor solely, but so as the teacher is
not his assistant but his compeer in it ; and as their gifts, so their duties
here, in Rom. xii., are bounded gifts, differing, ver. 6, so as the exhorter is
Chap, VIII. J the churches of cheist. 337
to attend on exhorting, as the teacher on teaching, and not to entrench on
one another's office and duty, and so both to prophesy, xara avaXoyiav
•rigTiug, as the Syriac translation hath it, Jidei siue, of his own faith ; and
then the meaning is not according only to the measure of his gift, more or
less, for dmXoyia respects quality rather than quantity, a likeness, a suitable-
ness, and proportion therein according to the kind of his gifts, so as the mean-
ing is, that all sermons and prophesying should be analogical to his gifts and
office. As he hath gifts and an office of exhortation, so let him accordingly
frame his sermons suitably; as we say of words (when proper), they are
according to the analogy of a tongue, so here his ministry is according to
the analogy of his gifts when suitable thereunto. A day of thanksgiving and
humiliation differs, though there is no pre-eminence of holiness in the one
afore the other, only some duties do eininere in the one more than in the
other, as humiliation in the one, and thanksgiving in the other. And there-
fore, as a man may in a day of thanksgiving think of his sins, in order to
raise up his heart to thankfulness, and in a day of humiliation mentions
God's mercies to break his heart for his sins, yet so as the eminent duty is
to be thanksgiving in the one, and humiliation in the other, so it is here in
the administration of your gifts.
Neither, 2, is it that there are any holy things that a pastor may ad-
minister, that not a teacher ; as to instance in the sacraments, wherein the
difierence must lie, if in anything.
1. The sacraments are committed promiscuously to the apostles, and their
successors in teaching ex officio: Mat. xxviii. 19, ' Go and teach, and baptize.'
2. Both are alike stewards of the mysteries of God^ which elders are not,
] Cor. iv. 1.
3. Both may bless, and do, as in praying afore sermons, so in preaching
the gospel ; and it is called the fulness of the blessing of the gospel which a
teacher in teaching brings, Eom. xvi., as well as the sacrament is called the
cup of blessing.
And, 4, though the sacraments are the seals of the covenant that apply
Christ, and so might seem peculiar to the pastor's office, yet they are signs
also for teaching, and belong therefore to the teachers to administer. As
therefore such truths as are mixed belong to them both to preach, so the
administration of the sacraments too ; for they shew forth Christ's death
till he come, as well as the word. Gal. iii. 1, 2, and they preach to the eye
that which the gospel doth to the ear.
5. Teaching is a higher ordinance than the sacrament : 1 Cor. i. 7, ' I
was not sent to baptize, but preach ;' therefore he that,, ex officio, doth the
greater and more important may perform the lesser.
3. They are equal in respect of honour due to them, 1 Tim. v. 17, where
bis scope is to give every office its due honour ; therefore of widows, and
so of deacons, who are of the same rank, he had said, ' Honour them who are
widows indeed ' ; of ruling elders, a superior office, he hath doubled it, ap-
pointing double honour to him that rules well. But to those that labour in
the word (of wisdom or exhortation), the pastor, or in doctrine, the teacher,
he especially assigns double honour, and to both the same, whereas, if the
pastor had been so superior (his scope being to shew what honour was due
to each according to their administration), he would have said. Give to your
pastor more especial honour of all the rest. He doth not intend any pre-
cedency, for he promiscuously ranks the one afore the other, and e contra,
sometimes the one, sometimes the other, as Eph. iv. 12, pastors afore
teachers, so here teachers afore pastors, and sometimes teachers for to ex-
VOL. XI. Y
838 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK YI.
press both, and that more ordinarily^ than the other, as Gal. ri. 6, 1 Cor.
xii. 28, 1 Tim. iii., and Titus i. Nor doth he mean that there is an excel-
lency in the ministries of one above the other, that as all ordinances excel
other in something, so it is here, for when all is in order both come to one.
The one is the tutor of the understanding, the other of the will ; these are
their two pupils committed to them. And when that controversy in philo-
sophj' is decided, which is noblest of those two faculties, then may this
of these two offices.
But they differ,
1. In respect of an eminency of gifts inclining one way rather than
another. It is said of all prophesying elders, Titus i, 9, that they are to be
able both to exhort and convince gainsayers by sound doctrine, so as the
pastor is to use a word of doctrine, and so a teacher a word of exhortation ;
but that which is eminere, or to shine forth in their preaching, is their special
gift. It is not to be thought that a pastor is to speak only in a way of
application and use, for he should have a doctrine as a ground to plant his
great ordnance upon, which he dischargeth. Nor is it that the teacher is to
leave his doctrines altogether without application ; but that his gift is suited
to his office, and so his labour is to be most spent in doctrine ; and so the
words of the text are to be understood, Let him that teacheth be as in teach-
ing, that is, most employed about it.
2. They differ but modaliter, in the manner of handling their ministry.
The one turns all his sermons into applications, by way of comfort and ex-
hortation, the other endeavours to inform the judgment ; they differ but as
logic and rhetoric, which are compared to a shut hand and one opened ; the
same arguments are used in both, but the one so ordered as to convince
the judgment, the other so as to persuade the affection.
More particularly they differ,
1. In the several subjects they are to deal with. Both look to the inward
man. So they differ from the elders, who look to the outward ; but those
share the two noble faculties between them : the one the understanding, the
other the will and conscience ; the one hath more peculiarly the understand-
ing to deal with, the other the will and affections. These are their pupils
committed to their charge ; men are ignorant, and apt to err, and need to be
built up in knowledge. This the teacher takes care of, to feed with know-
ledge and understanding, as Jer. iii. 16, and xxiii. 3, 4, and chap. vi. 8.
And men are slow of heart to do, and need quickening and stirring up ; for
this the pastor's office serves, Eccles. xii. 11. There is need of nails to rivet
and fasten truths on their understanding, and establish them in them ; and
there is need of goads to provoke them unto good works, Heb. x. 23. And
there are feeble arms, and hands that hang down, that are to be strengthened;
inward evils, discouragements which are to be removed, &c. ; which to do is
the pastor's office.
2. They differ in the object matter. The one speaks words of knowledge,
and considers truths, and shews the story and harmony of them, teacheth in
faith and verity, as 1 Tim. ii. 7, or as Rom. ii. 20 ; is an instructer of the
foolish, a teacher of babes, and has a form of knowledge, and of the truth
in the law ; the other is to consider men, and speak words of wisdom perti-
nently to them. The one hath the Bible, and the system or form of wholesome
words for his text ; the other studies men more, and seeks to fit the word to
them. And the pastor is one able to discern what is peculiarly fit for men's
spirits, and so speaks wisely to men, whereas the other speaks pertinently to
truths. The one brings scripture to scripture, and compares each with each ;
the other deals and divides the word, and brings Scripture and men's con-
Chap. VIII.] the churches of christ. 339
sciences together. You may discern this difference in men's conferences :
some, when they speak, consider the occasion of the party; some follow still
the occasion the discourse giveth.
8. They differ in respect of truths. The pastor deals with points of practice
more, with things to be done ; the other with points of faith, with things to
be believed. Some truths are mixed, and in those both are alike to deal, as
in cases of conscience and scruples of conscience.
4. To express it by the method of preaching in use with us : whereas
sermons consist of doctrines and uses, so the gifts of the one lies more in ex-
plaining the words and phrases, and to bring reasons to confirm and to solve
doubts, and resolve mysteries ; and so succeed these prophets under the New
Testament, who opened harder places and difficulties. The other is more fit
to enlarge into uses, and to digest all truths into practical thoughts, which
with power he can set home on the heart.
5. The pastor deals with men's sins more, the teacher with men's errors
more ; the one in information, the other in mortification. The one hath
more of Christ's priestly office, in slaying the old man, and offering up believers
as a sacrifice to Christ, Rom. xv. 16 ; the other hath Christ's prophetical
office more imported, in opening truths, as the elder hath more of Christ's
kingly office in ruling over men's consciences.
Use 1. See the goodness of God, who hath made such abundant provision
for all defects. As he hath fitted gifts to offices, so both to the needs of men,
1 Cor. xii. 21, which implies that God in placing the members respected the
need of the whole, as natura non deficit in necessariis, neque r/ratia. Look
what the inward man wants, preaching officers are to provide for, and all the
several parts of it, and what is defective in the outward man, the elders are
to watch over ; and accordingly we see, as ministers are thus eminently gifted,
so people are eminently fitted to them. Some are quickened more by an
affectionate way, and cleave to such a ministry ; some by a doctrinal way, and
are built up by notions and knowledge ; that so all tastes may be suited, and
all have their portion.
Use 2. There is a rule for churches in their choice, to rank men into
offices according to their gifts. This you are to heed, for you choose not for
yourselves, but for the Lord (as he said, you judge for the Lord). The
apostle says. Acts xiv. 23, the Holy Ghost made them overseers ; yet they
were called by men, and set over his church purchased by his blood, over a
flock which God accounts so precious. You are not therefore to choose
out of any ends of common prudence, but for spiritual ends, merely comparing
spiritual things with spiritual, to suit men and places accordingly. There is
simony in by-ends. In other choices they use to give oaths, as in colleges
and in corporations, but here there is none but conscience to be a tie upon
you.
That which now remains is to establish the truth of these several offices
here mentioned, because it is denied by many (as you know) that there are
such, or so many differing officers to be in churches ; denying that there is
such a difference between the office of pastor and teacher, and that under
those two names one only kind of officer is meant, in respect of a differing
action to be performed by hitn, and so that there are several works, not
persons ; and then again, wholly taking away the office of the ruling elder, as
neither necessary nor any way the institution of Christ.
I will first therefore, in general, argue out of this place of Rom. xii. G-8.
1. That in this place officers, and not actions or duties of members, are
spoken of is evident, 1, in that he mentions oiaxona, or ministnj, which is the
name of an office, not of an action of any private member.
310 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK VI.
2. la that he says, he that ruleth, he must needs note out an office, for
otherwise one brother is not to rule over another, or to take upon him to do it.
3. In that he speaks of them as of such callings as men are to exercise
themselves in, which is proper for officers to do. Now so he speaks of them,
for that he calls for diligence of a ruler; it is sv s-^roudj), which, as Boetius
defines it, is, vehemens animi intentio ad id quod siiscipitur, a vehement
intention of mind to that which is undertaken, so as to mind it and employ
one's self in it, as in a calling and employment designed there, which also that
phi'ase sv oiaxovla implies, ' He that ministereth in ministering, that teacheth
on teaching.' That phrase to be in notes out making it one's calling; for so,
1 Tim. iv. 15, 16, speaking to Timothy to perform the work of an evangelist,
he says, ' Give thyself wholly to them, and be in them,' ver. IG, as the word
is in the original ; and in that also he useth such participles to express it, as
exhortations in docendu, in exhortando, it implies a calling, and not an action,
for otherwise it were a tautology ; for if he meant an action only, then to say,
he that teacheth, teach, were a tautology. So as the one notes out jus et
nomen officii, the other, the exercise of his office. To say, let him that seeth,
see, is a tautology ; but to say, let the seer see, he whose office it is, is to
call upon him to do his duty by reason of his office ; so as the one, he that
teacheth, notes out jus et jjotentiam, the other, in teaching, notes praxin, the
exercise of it.
4. Those who oppose this congregational way have none to teach or exhort,
but those that are in office, or orders, as they call it.
5. Though he call them gifts, yet so officers are called, Eph. iv. 3. The
apostles' office he calls '/ai"' '■> ' ^ ^^^j' ^^^^ ^^' ' through the grace given
me,' that is, my apostolical power and office, as was shewed afore.
And, 2, ordinary officers are meant.
1. Because the gifts and actions he speaks of are ordinary, such as no
extraordinary gifts are required for the performance of, as to teach, or exhort,
to give, &c., which actions and gifts remain still in the church.
And, 2, because even the prophets here (which, if any, might seem extra-
ordinary) are limited to the analogy of faith, and all exhorted not to entrench
upon others' callings or actions ; which bounds, if they had been extraordinary
officers, they could not have set to them.
Now then, 3, if officers and officers ordinary be here meant, then look how
many several enumerations there are, so many several offices are there too.
For else,
1. The scope of his former general exhortation, that they should not
entrench upon one another's functions, had been made utterly void if several
offices and actions had not been intended.
And, 2, because he had spoken of diversity, ver. 46, therefore these enume-
rations must be understood as instances of that diversity.
And, 4, if pastors and deacons were differing, then why not all? There
is the same reason for the one as for the other ; and therefore why should
not he that teacheth be differing from him that exhorteth, as well as from
him that giveth or ruleth ? And in that Eph. iv., pastor and doctor, and
1 Cor. xii, teachers, and helpers, and governors, are reckoned up amongst
the extraordinary, it argues that in an ordinary way there is the like necessity
of them, that in an extraordinary there was of the other. I shall speak
more particularly of the difference and distinction of the offices of pastor and
teacher.
1. It appears that these offices are distinct in that place, Eph. iv. 11 ; we
find pastors and deacons "'•' enumerated.
* Qu. ' teachers ' ? — Ed.
Chap. VIII.J the churches of christ. 341
Obj. Against this place is objected, that it is spoken exegeticallj, pastors
and teachers as making up all one office.
1. But then he would have said rather, pastors o?" teachers, not a/ic? teachers.
2. But Ka; doth not always lock together, but sometimes differenceth two
things it is set betwixt, as in the like case Acts xiii. 1, 'prophets and
teachers.' By prophets he means, in the language of the primiti%'e times,
extraordinary gifts, but teachers were ordinary ; and Barnabus and Saul, who
were extraordinary men, are there reckoned.
And, 3, in all exegetical speeches, the latter explains the former, and useth
to be more clear ; but after jiastors in that sense that is held (this being the
proper name of the office) to say, i. e. teachers, is to explain the more proper
by the improper.
Obj. But to all the rest there is a note of difference affixed, as when he
says, * some apostles, some evangelists ;' but of these pastors and teachers
there is none, so as it seems they were intended as one.
Ans. But it is the manner of the Grecians to bring in the word Ka/, and,
in the end of a disjunctive enumeration, in a disjunctive sense, as in that
Gal. iii. 21, after he had said, ' There is neither Jew nor Greek, neither
bond nor free,' he ends that last disjunction, ' neither male or female.' In
Greek it is, neither male and female ;' so in the original, and the Syriac so
reads it.
And, 2, as their offices are thus here, and in that place, thus distinct, so
their gifts also are distinct ; and this is a rule infallible, that according to
diversity of gifts hath God appointed diversity of offices. He suited gifts
and offices together, so 1 Cor. xii, 4, 5. There are diversities of gifts and
diversities of administrations, so as they are commensurable. Now in the
same place, when, ver. 8, he enumerates the variety of gifts, to one,_says he,
is given the word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge.
1. He speaks of preachers that speak the word, which differenceth them
from elders ; for he calls it a word of knowledge, and a word of wisdom.
2. He speaks of ordinary officers, for as Beza observes, when he begins
to speak of extraordinary gifts, in the next word he varies the phrase, sj-sgw
iria-ig, ver. 9. And they difl'er, as j^'^'udentia and scientia in philosophy,
many men knowing things in the notion, that are not so wise to discern of
men and things, and to apply accordingly. And according to what the Holy
Ghost hath said here of the variety of men's gifts, we find nothing more evi-
dent in experience, even in a church, where there is a distinction of offices ;
yet God still kept to his rule, and distributed gifts accordingly. Some apt
to open things more largely, others to apply them; yea, the papists did
observe this difference of gifts, as is evident in their comparing Thomas
Aquinas and Bonventure together: Thomas intellectu emimiit, Bonaventura
affectu splenduit ; the one was a more understanding, judicious divine, the
other more afi'ectionate and eminent to stir up affection'. And even in the
natural parts of men, there is that difference : some are fit positively to ex-
plain and convince, but cannot persuade ; others are more fit to persuade
and prevail with men. And thereby do ordinary officers difier from those
extraordinary', that both meet in these ; so in Timothy, but are differing in
those other.
3. As there are differing gifts, so differing works, to a differing end.
Prophesying elders are distinguished from ruling, by labouring in the word
and doctrine, 1 Tim. v. 17, for the great labour is that of the mind. By
word, some particularly understand a word of exhortation, as here distinct
from doctrine or teaching : so Heb. xiii. 22, ' Suffer the word of exhortation ;'
and Acts xiii. 15, ' If any have a word of exhortation,' &c. And doctrine,
342 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK VI.
on the contrary, is taken for the form of truth and wholesome words,
which is taught especially by the teacher, as, 1 Cor, xiv. 2G, doctrine is taken.
And as here they are called both prophets, so according to those ends of
prophesying mentioned, 1 Cor. xiv. 3, may their distinction here be illus-
trated. Prophes3'ing, he says, is a speaking to edification, to exhortation,
to comfort. If edification be taken in a strict sense, as distinct from com-
fort and exhortation (though I confess elsewhere, and in the next verses, it
is taken largely), then it notes out building up in knowledge, which is the
teacher's work, and exhortation and comfort, the pastor's. The teacher pro-
phesieth to edification, and the exhorter to exhortation and comfort. And
therefore it is observable, that the word used here, ira^ajtaXiTv, is either to
comfort or to exhort.
4. By this distribution of officers, there is a communication of all the
offices of Christ.
(1.) The pastor represents the priestly office of Christ. For he, by the
word applied, slays the old man, and presents the new creature to God.
(2.) The teacher represents the prophetical office of Christ.
(8.) The kingly office of Christ is more eminently seen in the ruling elder.
5. This suits Avith all the needs of a church : their understandings are the
teacher's pupils; their wills, the pastor's; their lives, the charge of the
elders. And accordingly, we see believers appeal, some to doctrinal preach-
ing, some to exhortation. And thus ranked were the ministers in the
primitive times : there were two prophesying elders, at least, in a church,
Col. iv. 18. Archippus had a ministry he was to fulfil, and that surely
a teaching one ; for their other minister, Epaphras, who was also their
minister. Col. i. 1, was then absent. Col. iv. 12. More besides they might
have, and a church may have, as Acts xiii. 1. They had many teachers in one
church; and as Musculus observes on Rom. xii., he says, all have not the
same office, not that none have the same. The body, to which the com-
parison is, hath two eyes, two hands, &c. ; there was something in it, that
Christ, in sending forth the apostles, sent them two by two. So Cyprian in
his time says, you that are pastors with the elders, doctors, and readers, &c.
So in the church of Alexandria, Origen was a doctor.
The German divines make this office proper to universities, and professors
there, but the apostle makes the officer a member of the church, and for all
saints, Eph. iv. and Rom. xii. So in our cathedrals, there remains a ves-
tigium., a footstep of this distinction, in that we have, as bishops, so also
readers in cathedrals ; and in the same church there are vicars and pastors.
CHAPTER IX.
That a pastor and teaclier, and many other officers of a particular church,
have the pivmise of a special blessing from. God. — That accordingly theij do
receive such a special blessing, suited to the rank and order of their office,
to give success in the execution of it, beyond what a mere preacher can
expect.
Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in
unity, dc.—Vs. CXXXIII. 1-3.
There is one thing which I cannot pretermit, but must urge and press it,
viz., that every institution, and office, and order appointed by God, hath
answerably to accompany it, and succeed it, a special blessing suited to the
Chap. IX.] the churches of christ. 343
nature of it. This is evident from this, Ps. cxxxiii. 1-3. It is common to
the New Testament, though spoken of the assemblies of the Old Testament,
either of the lesser synagogues, or of the general assemblies at their feasts,
for they were under their high priests, to whom he does allude : ver. 2, ' It
is like the precious ointment upon the head, that ran down upon the beard,
even Aaron's beard, that went down to the skirts of his garments.' Every
member partook of some benefit of the holy oil poured upon Aaron's head,
the chief oliicer of those general assemblies ; and it is expressly added of
them there, that God commands the blessing. And this, though an Old
Testament instance, may fitly serve for the New, iimtatis mutandis. For
a particular church, where the brethren meet in one Iri to auTo, and 6fjio6viMadov,
with one consent, one heart, one worship, is in itself alone a distinct special
ordinance and institution of Christ ; and he hath promised, that ' where two
or three are gathered together in his name, he will be in the midst amongst
them,' Mat. xviii. 20. And his presence brings all sorts of blessings with it,
and there it is that God commands a blessing. For that company are the
house of God, 1 Tim. iii. 15, the church of the living God, the pillar and
ground of the truth ; iB^diufLa, the seat of truth, a pillar of truth, not
architectonically, that supported the truth, but forenically, as pillars use to
be, with papers pasted on them to declare the truth. It is an ordinance to
preserve truth in the woi'ld, to hold it forth, as on pillars they used to place
their writings. God is used to bless the small, despised assemblies of saints
gathered together in unity, more than great councils, consisting of popes,
and bishops, and cardinals. These small assemblies have been the little
creepers in the chimney, that keep up the fires, which the great andirons do
not, as was Prince Henry's speech. And a church, though very small, is
yet a church of the living God; and, as Mr Nye once well said, a church is
a thing that lives, because it has the living God to dwell in it.
And as God blesseth the churches that are the casket, the sheath, so he
blesseth their officers too that are proper to them, though among men
accounted the lowest, that is, they are pastors and teachers in particular
congregations, who are their preaching elders.
The papists plead that it is their church that keep the faith and the truth,
and that God has made a promise to lead them into all truth. But it is the
ordinary ofiicers of the church, pastors and teachers, which the apostle Paul
says do build up the church, ' till they come to the unity of the faith,'
Eph. iv. 11—13. And it is among you he has commanded the blessing ;
which is demonstrated thus, that Christ, when he ascended, gave gifts unto
men, and scattered them among the saints, tnnquam missilia, as the Roman
emperors did their donatives among the people, as their chariots went along.
Now, w^hat were these gifts but the offices which God instituted in the church
universal ; first, the extraordinary, that ceased before Tertullian's time, as
apostles, prophets, evangelists, and there are no more of them to be found
on earth, only their writings continue, and make up the New Testament.
But who are the lasting officers of continuance, to preserve the truths when
they were gone? None but pastors and teachers; and unto these it has
been that the faith hath been committed, and by them preserved, and truth
hath been taught ; and how long do they last ? Till all come to the unity of
the faith of the Son of God. If any point of faith be erred in that is not
fundamental, these pastors and teachers do restore it unto its primitive
native splendour. It is there God appoints the blessing, whatever men pre-
tend of general councils ; and the reason is, because God still follows his
own institutions with his own blessing, and there God commands a blessing.
As Christ himself did ascend from the lower parts of the earth unto that
344 THE GOVERXMENT OF [BoOK VI.
height which he has in heaven, so doth all trnths arise from the lower sort
of ministers ; and if general councils have any truth among them, it is be-
cause it hath ascended first unto them, fi'om the inferior lower sort of
ministers, as they in debasement call them.
That, in general, a special blessing from God is promised to all assemblies
and institutions, whether of the Old or New Testament, is evinced from this
one place which I have mentioned, Ps. cxxxiii. 1-3, where a blessing is so
emphatically declared : ' There God commands a blessing,' which denotes
the intention of God's mind in it. Now to whom and to what is this super-
excellent blessing, even eternal life, which is the sum and quintessence of
blessing, commanded to be bestowed ? Under the Old Testament the pro-
mise of eternal life was then given ; witness that one scripture, speaking of
the Old Testament worship by the twelve tribes : ' To which promise,' says
the apostle, ' the twelve tribes,' meaning the nation of the godly Jews,
* hoping to come, served God day and night.' Their assemblies were either
the general assemblies or feasts, at which the high priest, the greatest officer
of the Old Testament, and the type of Christ, was present, or else the lesser
assemblies of the synagogues, and all the order and institutions belonging to
them. And all this blessing was promised to each and every of them. And
their holy communion together in the general assemblies, the psalmist com-
pares unto the pouring down the holy oil upon the head of the high priest ;
and as the oil dropped down upon all his garments, the skirts, &c., so every
particular member likewise they exhorted ' to keep the unity of the Spirit in
the bond of peace.' These are the unities of the New Testament, that the
saints are exhorted to live in also, and above all to avoid divisions ; they are
called to peace in one body, and every particular church is called the house
of the linng God, dwelling together with them to keep them in unity. And
Christ's first institution of a particular church under the New Testament
expresses it on this wise again : ' I say unto you, that if two of you shall
agree upon earth,' &c., Mat. xviii. 19. There is unity, and * as touching
any thing they shall ask of my Father which is in heaven,' says Christ, ' it
shall be done unto them' ; and then adds the words of institution, ' For
where two or three are gathered together in my name, I am in the midst of
them.' They therefore who are present receive a participation of the bless-
ings promised, of some of the holy oil poured upon Christ the head.
2. Secondly, this scripture, though written under the Old Testament, is
yet, mxitatis vnitnmlis, readily applicable to the new constituted assemblies of
the saints under the gospel, and even the terms and the language used in
the Psalm is fitted to those of the New Testament. As, for instance, the
word brethren dnellwff tor/ether, is the proper cognisance of the community
of the saints assembled under the New. Those words, durUing toe/elher -in
iinity, is well nigh the same ; for they dwell in churches under pastors and
teachers, and are instructed till they all come to ' the unity of faith and
knowledge of the Son of God.' And where Christ's presence is, there is
always a blessing ; and it is* also a description of a New Testament church,
1 Cor. xiv. 23. That it is a whole chm'ch, consisting of all its members
* met together in one place,' there is unity of place. And then. Acts
i. 14, we have an account that they met with one consent [o/xcOv/xadhv) to
perform the duties of worship. And whoever will read the story of the first
New Testament church that God reared in Jerusalem, will find abundantly
enough in the story of the first chapter of the Acts, and in the second
chapter, concerning tbeir continuing together in one place, * they were all
with one accord in one place,' chap. ii. 1 ; and there was fulfilled the pro-
phecies of Joel, in pouring out the Spirit of God upon them, which inwardly
Chap. IX.j the churches of christ. 345
united them togetlier. And Jesus Christ his presence was amongst them ;
and he being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of
the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, was in the midst of them.
And he being the High Priest of the New Testament, Heb. iii. 1, God hath
anointed him, of which anointing we have all participated. Acts iv. ver. 27.
Nor did they only continue together in the apostles' fellowship in the
temple, and in Solomon's porch, in preaching, in prayers, and in breaking
bread (as in those chapters is mentioned), but it grew to such a unity that
* the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul :
neither said any one that aught of the things he possessed was his own ;
but they had ail things common. And with great power gave the apostles
witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus : and great grace was upon
them all,' Acts iv. 32, 33, For that time they keep as a day of thanks-
giving, and continual feasting unto the Lord, for the joy they had that their
new King was alive and risen. So those other words of the psalmist, ' Be-
hold how good and how pleasant a thing it is for brethren to dwell together
in unity,' were then verihed in such a manner, and with such a joy, as had
never been seen afore in the world at any time, insomuch as the common
Jews that were not believers, nor of their company, beheld and magnified
them ; * praising God, and having favour with all the people,' Acts ii. 47.
Ecce quam invicem diliginit. Behold how they love one another, was the
common cry of the multitude, thus plausibly and happily did this church
begin, ' and great grace was upon them all,' Acts iii. 33 ; they were joined
or glued together, as the word is. And thus blessed from Grod was the
first seat and pillar of truth, not architectonical, or a pillar that bore up the
truth, but forenical, whereby, according to the custom of those times, the
holy mj^steries of God and Christ were posted, to be seen and read of all.
And thus much in general to prove that there' is a blessing from God in a
gospel church, truly gathered and constituted by God, where Christ is
present.
2. And if the case, the sheath, the cabinet be thus precious to God, then
the gifts which God places in his cabinet, I mean the instituted officers of
this church, which are the furniture and ornament of it, are also precious
unto God, and ought to be unto us ; and that which I insist on is, that each
of them have a special blessing from God to accompany them as a gift from
God, and special blessing. And indeed the officers duly placed and fixed
in this seat of truth, have been in all ages since Christ the great preservers
and restorers of gospel truth, and to whom we owe the glorious reformation
of our religion.
The papists make a great plea of the church's infallibility and authority
through God's blessing, as they pretend ; but when we come to examine
what that church is, that is the preserver of truth, they cry up the higher
clergy (as they call it) of popes, patriarchs, bishops, and such like doctors
of the higher rank. But it is reported to have been Prince Henry's speech
and similitude (eldest son to King James the First), that being invited to a
merchant's house, where a great pair of brass andirons were, these gaudy
appearances of shining brass (says he) are not the pillars that hold up the
fire, as your bishops and doctors are not, but they are the little creepers of
iron which bear up the fire. So it is not your prelates which uphold the
church, but it is your inferior ministers, which take pains in their places, that
uphold it, and not general councils nor the dignified clergy. In Eph. iv. 11, 12,
it is said of pastors and teachers, that they are the only standing officers of
the church whom Jesus Christ hath continued in the ministry, for the edify-
ing the body of Christ through every age, which their succession does run
346 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK VI.
through, till we all come in the unity of faith and knowledge of the Son of
God, every such age hy the instructions of these ordinary ministers pre-
serving the knowledge of Christ and unity of faith. Now, what is the
reason that the people of God should be built up by these means, rather
than by pompous ostentation of knowledge, but only because indeed God's
blessing follows his own ordination ; and apostles and evangelists being
ceased and gone off the stage, and only their writings in the New Testa-
ment left, God produces an oral propagating down of these truths among
his elect by these ordinary pastors.
And these and the hke blessings Jesus Christ hath freely bestowed, as
special gifts and donatives of grace, so as the gift of them is in itself a
singular blessing to any people that enjoys them ; and besides, God follows
the person with a special blessing and endowment, together with his gift and
abihty, according to the rank and order of the office itself, which is also the
gift in that Eph iv., before quoted. He rehearseth all sorts of instituted
officers in the church, whether ordinary or extraordinary, as for preaching
the extraordinary : ver. 11, 'He gave some apostles, some prophets, some
evangelists.' These are the twelve stars about the church's head, Rev. xii. 1,
wherewith the primitive age was crowned, but they have ever since dis-
appeared, only leaving their writings ; and they ceasing in respect of living,
the Christian world began anew, were children rather than fathers, there
being few preaching elders that had gifts of ability, as may be discerned by
their writings they have left. But the ordinary standing ministers were
pastors and teachers, and to them Christ committed the instruction of the
church. Now concerning them jou. may observe two things for our present
purpose.
1. They were special gifts of Jesus Christ, and superadded graces out of
grace were bestowed on men, and such as might somewhat exceed the com-
mon sort of believers, being first instructed from the extraordinary : 2 Tim.
ii. 2, ' And the things thou hast heard of me before many witnesses, the
same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.'
2. Christ having all power committed unto him in heaven and earth, ap-
pointed two distinct offices of preaching elders, investing them with his
authority and in his name suitably.
3. He, by special solemnities of his appointment, set and separated them
to those offices with fasting and prayer.
4. He gave a special blessing to each office and officer in the execution of
his office, for the people's sake over whom he is placed.
And when he had made up and compounded an office or officer with all
these particulars, he then gave them as a gift and donative of mere grace,
and has scattered them as missilia among the people, according to his good
pleasure. I call them so, alluding to the name which the Romans gave to
the pieces of gold and silver which their emperors ordered to be cast amongst
the people. This our Lord Jesus doth from heaven himself, withal blessing
them, for our Lord and Saviour Christ, when he was to ascend to heaven in
the sight of the five hundred that were present, 1 Cor. xv. G, he then singled
out his apostles and other ministers whom he had appointed in his lifetime,
and had sent them two and two: Mat. xxviii. 18-20, ' All power is given
unto me in heaven and on earth ;' and upon that he sounds their commis-
sions : ' Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name
of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost;' for that was spoken only of ministers,
' Go and baptize,' &c., which was only proper for ministers, who are the
only stewards of the mysteries of God, and so of baptism, being a sacrament
and seal of the covenant. And Christ also adds this for them, ' Teaching
ClIAP. IX.] THE CHURCHES OF CHRIST. 347
them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you ; and lo, I am
with you always, even to the end of the world. Amen.' And when he had
given them this authority and gifts to teach all nations, he promises to be
with them to the end of the world ; and the last thing he did was to bless
them: Luke xxiv. 50, 51, ' And he lift up his hands and blessed them : and
it came to pass, whilst he blessed them, he was parted from them and car-
ried up into heaven.' And this he did in analogy to what God did in the
first creation, when he had made the first man and woman : Gen. i. 28,
' And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply.'
And thus Christ did in his new creation of ministers, whether extraordinary,
as in the first times, or ordinary, which are to endure to the end of the
world ; and upon all inferior or lower ministers, and on all ofiicers of his
church to come, in their several degrees, he commands the blessing, which
still continues, and we act and are acted in the virtue of it.
Thus I have proved that Jesus Christ hath himself solemnly blessed these
institutions of the offices of preaching ministers, and that he did it just as
he was going to heaven.
2. I shall now demonstrate more expressly that every ministerial ofiice
hath a blessing to accompany it, according to its order and institution, which
will yet more confirm that these two particular ofiices we have instanced, of
pastor and teacher, have certainly the blessing commanded to them ; for if
every ofiicer else hath it, then much more these, which are very noble, Rom.
XV. 29, in their employment and usefulness to man. If we want this com-
pleteness, we shall find we shall fall so much short of the blessing ; but the
apostle says that he came to the Romans in the fulness of the blessing of
the gospel, so we are to take care that we do not miss of some degree of
that blessing which the fulness of the institution will bring with it.
I proceed to demonstrate this truth by a view of particular offices which
God has instituted, and with them each hath appointed a particular blessing
or benefit, or issue, and event thereof.
As for the Old Testament, I will give but one instance (but to me it is a
great one), to evidence the thing in hand : Lev. ix. 23, ' And Moses and
Aaron went into the tabernacle of the congregation, and came out, and
blessed the people ; and the glory of the Lord appeared unto all the people.'
Yea, when the ordinary Levites and priests blessed the people, their voice
was heard : 2 Chron. xxx. 27, ' Then the priests and the Levites arose and
blessed the people : and their voice was heard, and their prayer came up to
his. holy dwelling-place, even unto heaven.' And as it had its efiect in the
heart of God, so the blessing of the high priest had a strange and miraculous
efiect in the heart of a poor woman. How much was poor Hannah's heart
loaded and made unquiet by her fellow-partner Peninnah, Elkanah's other
wife ! the story doth pitifully and mournfully set it out : 1 Sam. i. 6, ' And
her adversary provoked her sore for to make her fret ;' and then poor
Hannah, ver. 10, was in bitterness of soul, and prayed unto the Lord, and
wept sore ; but when Eli blessed her, saying, ver. 17, 'Go in peace, and
the Lord God of Israel grant thee thy petition, that thou hast asked of him,'
ver. 18, then the woman went her way, and her countenance was no more
sad.
In the New Testament, if we examine from the lowest office of the church
to the highest, there is a peculiar blessing promised according to the degree,
rank, or order of the institution.
1. A deacon is esteemed the lowest office, but the discharging of it well
hath a special encouragement, in comparison of what other common Chris-
tians have : 1 Tim. iii. 13, ' For they that have used the office of a deacon
318 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK VI.
"Well, purchase to themselves a good degree, and great boldness in the faith
that is in Christ Jesus.' A good degree, that is, they obtain, as a reward
to themselves, an estimation above the rank of ordinary believers in the faith,
and great boldness thereupon. And in ver. 11, likewise the women ywaTKag,
viz., deaconesses (so Grotius renders it, and not wives) who were to tend the
sick, must be grave, sober, faithful in all things ; and Christ will be faithful
to them to reward them according to their deservings. Thus it is in the
lowest offices in the church. If we ascend to the highest, which was the order
of apostles in the church, there were several things concurred in an apostle,
as to have been conversant with Christ during the time of his walking upon
earth, and then to have been eye-witnesses of his resurrection after his
death ; but the principal eminent thing, that had the blessing to convert souls
wherever they came, and had the great success in that their ministry, was
by virtue of the very office itself. For when our Saviour Christ sent out
his twelve apostles, he furnished them with two things.
1. "With the matter which they should preach. They were directed to
preach the kingdom of God, and so to work upon men's souls.
2. Christ furnished them with authority and power extraordinary, Mat.
X. 1, to heal the sick, cleanse the leper, &c. Now this is my assertion, that
it was not only the gift of ability to preach, but the authority and power
which they were invested with, wherein lay their apostleship and their uni-
versal commission to go over all, or to any nation, and preach the gospel
with success. In the virtue of this office it was, that the blessing did
accompany them wherever they went ; and from thence it was that God
wrought so with them as he did. It was by virtue of the office itself which he
had placed them in, and environed them about with the power of God.
What says Paul, Gal. ii. 6, 7, concerning his own and Peter's apostleship ?
That when they saw, by different experiences, and by conference of us
together, the various working of God in the ministry by me and by them,
they knew that the gospel of uncircumcision was committed to me, as the
gospel of circumcision was to Peter. Now this arose not from the diiferent
abilities of Peter and Paul, but from the various commission and success
that their office and apostleship had in it from God. It was not that Paul
was more abundantly laborious in the ministry than them all, that his
gospel ran like wildfire upon seared trees in a torrid zone : Rom. xv. 19,
' Through mighty signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God, so
that from Jerusalem and round about to Illyricum' (that is, all along as
far as Hungary), * I have fully preached the gospel.' And it was not the
knowledge of his own ability he presumed on, but the authority God had
put him into by his office, and he, in a holy kind of ambition in doing this,
scorned to build upon another's foundation, as in ver. 20, ' Yea, so have I
strived to preach the gospel, not where Christ was named, lest I should
build upon another man's foundation.'
And it was chiefly the conscience of that office of apostleship which God
had placed him in, and that success to an admiration that God accompanied
him with, which did thrust out that holy boast of his : 1 Cor. xv. 10, ' But
I laboured more abundantly than they all ; yet not I, but the grace of God
that was with me.' And this I boldly interpret, that he speaks it not of the
grace of God that was in himself, but of the grace of God that was with him,
and so speaks of his office which God had put him into, as in ver. 9, ' For I am
the least of the apostles, that am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I
persecuted the church of Christ. But by the grace of God I am what I am.'
He speaks not of the grace he received at his conversion to Christianity, but
of that of his apostleship, which I speak not to provoke to pains, that is un-
Chap, IX.] the churches of christ. 349
reasonable, but to shew that the success ever he had from God in it provoked
him unto it. It was not the grace of his conversion he thanked God for, but
that of his apostleship, as in 1 Tim. i. 12-18, ' I was a persecutor and a blas-
phemer, and yet he put me into the ministry,' &c. He seems to thank God
for that in the first and chief place, and Rom xi. 13, ' For I speak to you Gen-
tiles, inasmuch as I am an apostle of the Gentiles ; I magnify mine office.'
By the way, Mr Parker, in his Ecclesiastical PoUcij, has a controversy
with the bishops about this, viz., to which of Christ's offices ministers owe
their original for the ministry. They say they hold it from him as priest,
chiefly for their honour, but the apostle Paul attributes it to his being king.
He is the great sovereign, that works all things and does all things, and yet
he is invisible, which is his glory, and so Jesus Christ founds it on his
kingly office : ' All power in heaven and on earth is given to me' (says he),
and so 'go and teach all nations,' &c.. Mat. xxviii. 18, 20. But here, the
wonder may be that the privilege of being put into the ministry should be
called by him grace, but the apostle has prevented us in our wonder at it in
Rom. i. 5, ' By whom we have received grace and apostleship for obedience
to the faith among all nations for his name,' which he accordingly urges
them unto upon every occasion ; ' according as we have received grace,' says
he, ' we exhort you, &c. Now, would you think it ? he styles every stand-
ing office in the church a grace, or the grace of God, in like manner as he
had done the apostleship : Eph. iii. 7, ' Whereof I was made a minister
according to the gift of the grace of God given unto me, by the eflectual
working of his power.' In like manner he calls every particular office in
the church instituted, a grace from God : Rom. xii. 4, 6, ' For as we have
many members in one body, and all members have not the same office ;
having gifts diffijring according to the grace that is given to us.' And then
he enumerates the standing instituted offices as pastor, and so downwards
to the very tenders of the sick. ' He that sheweth inercy,' says he, ' let
him do it with cheerfulness.' And as he calls these offices gifts, so he calls
it grace to be so called into such offices, even as he had called the apostle-
ship the gift of grace unto himself, and so there is in their proportion the
like blessing and obligation.
It is strange that all that perfect holiness that Adam had before his fall
should be called the image of God, and yet it arose not to the dignity and
style of being called grace, which denotes something supernatural above the
due of creation.
Because in Rom. xii. 6, 7, two standing offices are in common named pro-
phesying and teaching, in distinction from the lower offices, I shall upon the
occasion thereof argue the point in hand, namely, that the two preaching
elders being made officers, and their caUing being to prophesy, that they
have a special blessing promised, answerably to their institution. To
explain which more distinctly, we may and must know that prophesying, in
the language of Paul's epistles, is used to express the preaching of memlaers
who are not officers, and yet have gifts fit to edify the church, which the
apostle therefore allows, 1 Cor. xiv. ; but so as this kind of prophesying was
not to hinder the church from having standing elders of preaching, for that
other kind of exercise of prophesying from the members is to be voluntary
and occasional, as the Spirit of God supplies them with new matter. But
Jesus Christ, Head of the church, thought not fit to leave his church to such
an uncertain, slender provision only. But as he is rich in mercy, so he would
have his word to dwell richly and plentifully in his house ; and has therefore
appointed officers that should preach in season and out of season, that should
give themselves wholly up to these things, to make it their work and business
350 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK VI.
to seek, to find out, pleasant words, as of Solomon it is said, Eccles. xii. 10.
Now, our Lord Jesus Christ, our founder, is a great king, and will have his
children nobly educated, by men whose office it is to tend them, as princes
have ; yea, he has appointed and set tutors over every faculty of his people,
teachers to inform their understandings, pastors and exhortcrs to deal with
their wills and aflections, and those lower than they to take care about their
bodies for sickness or poverty. ' This is a faithful saying. He that desires
the office of a bishop, desireth a good work ;' and of these the apostle says,
they are ' worthy of double honour,' 1 Tim. v. 17. To whom doth he speak
it, but to these other mentioned that are out of office, who are to have but
single honour in comparison of those other, who are the stars in Christ's right
hand, firm and fixed in their orbs ?
And here it will not be improper nor impertinent to shew the procedure
and degrees, but especially the outward course and means, that God took to
bring the apostle Paul's apostleship to this perfection and height of consum-
mation. But especially it is for us to consider the outward means and course
God took therein.
First, The foundation of his apostleship was founded upon Christ's calling
him in so extraordinary a manner, who prophesied of him aforehand that he
was a chosen vessel, and that he would send him as a witness of him among
the Gentiles, so at his conversion. Then for three years he lived in Arabia,
during which time (as Bishop Ussher happily conjectures) God took an occa-
sion to make known his whole gospel to him, both in the centre and circum-
ference of all the truths of it, and their coherence one with another. And
though God was able speedily to reveal, yet Paul was to take all in, and that
required time. Now, after God had filled and furnished Paul's heart and
head with all kind of matter to enable him to preach, after this you read of
his preaching up and down to the Jews, but unknown by face to them, Gal.
i. 22 ; and then he went to Tarshish, his own city, from whence Barnabas
fetched him and brought him to Antioch. And there it was that Paul re-
ceived an outward mission and commission to be an apostle to the Gentiles.
And it was by the ordinary course and means of laying on of hands, with
fasting and prayer for him, which is an example for our encouragement in our
being put into the ministry, to receive a blessing in the use of that ordinary
means. The stoiy is. Acts xiii., the elders of the church at Antioch being
met, and having fasted, ' The Holy Ghost said. Separate me Barnabas and
and Saul for the work wherennto I have called them. And when they had
fasted and prayed, and laid their hands on them, they sent them away.'
Now, Paul writing to the Romans, citizens of the head city of the Gentiles,
refers, Rom. i. 1, to the words of this story, and to that mission of him re-
corded in that story, in using the very words, as glorying in that style which
he counted the foundation of his apostleship among the Gentiles. ' Separate
me Barnabas and Saul, for the work whereunto I have called them,' says the
Holy Ghost, Acts xiii. ' Separated unto the gospel of God,' says the apostle,
Rom. i. 1. ' We have received grace and apostleship, for obedience to the
faith among all nations for his name.' And from thence in the rest of the
epistle, ami in this epistle to the Corinths, he urgeth obedience to his
apostolical authority in such words as those, ' according as we have received
grace,' viz., grace of apostleship, as he interprets it, do so and so, as we have
commanded. This is frequent too in the epistles to the Corinthians, and in
this to the Romans : chap. xi. 13, 'For I speak to you Gentiles, inasmuch
as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify mine office.' Eph. iii. 3,
' Whereof,' viz., of the gospel, ' I was made a minister, according to the gift
of the grace of God given unto me, by the cfi'ectual working of his power.'
CaAP. IX.] THE CHURCHES OF CHRIST. . 851
It was to tlie authority of his office he ascribed the efficacy and success of
his ministry. And though the offices of pastor and teacher hath not the
authority as that of an apostle, nor the call so extraordinar}', yet ' despise
not the day of small things ;' for they are the blessed ordinances of God, and
shall have thoir due efficacy upon the hearts and heads of those exercised
therein, and it is there God commands the blessing.
And by the way, the separation to the work of the ministry is ascribed to
the Holy Ghost, who is the executive power of the Trinity ; and therefore it
is said, Acts xx., ' Feed the flock, over whom the Holy Ghost hath made you
overseers ;' and the apostle says, 1 Cor. xii. 1-3, ' Now concerning spiritual
gifts, brethren, I would not have you ignorant; ye know that ye were Gen-
tiles, carried away unto those dumb idols, even as ye were led ; wherefore I
give you to understand that no man, speaking by the Spirit of God, calleth
Jesus accursed ; and that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the
Holy Ghost.' The apostle convinces them that those spiritual gifts and offices
which were among them were merely gifts out of grace, though a common
grace to ungodly men, to the rebellious also. He convinces them by this,
that they were supernatural, for till my ministry and the gospel came among
you (says he), you were far enough from such gifts. ' Ye know that you were
Gentiles carried away unto these dumb idols, even as you were led.' And
therefore, if you have any knowledge of Christ, it must be from the Spirit,
as an heavenly agent, that is come upon you all. The knowledge of, and
assent to, Jesus as the Lord, must be from the Holy Ghost ; you have it not
by nature, you were led after dumb idols. These gifts are all supernatural,
and from a divine agent, and in that respect they are called graces, and a
gift. But then the making a man a minister, and putting him into the divine
office, whether of p'astor or teacher, is no less than a work of all the three
persons, and not of the Holy Ghost only. There is a conjunction of all
three persons. Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, blessing and laying on of hands
as it wTre upon a minister ordained : 1 Cor. xii. 4-6, ' Now there are diver-
sities of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are differences of administra-
tions, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of operations, but it is
the same God which worketh all in all.' There you have all the three per-
sons: the gifts of a minister are from the Spirit; the administration, i.e. the
office where a man administers, is from Christ as the Lord ; the operations,
the powerful success that works upon men's hearts by them, is from God
the Father. You see your calling, brethren, as the apostle speaks in another
case ; I mean you brethren of the ministry, learn to follow your callings and
your authority. When Christ laid his hand upon John, Eev. i., how did it
revive him and put hfe into him. All the three persons in the work do lay
on their hands. We count it a great concurrent dispensation of God, that
each person in the Trinity should share the works of our salvation among
them, and it is a wonderful thing to bless them for it ; but seldom have the
three persons concurred in one action. When Christ was baptized, and God
himself proclaimed, ' Thou art my Son,' there were all the three persons.
The Father was heard by speaking himself immediately, the Holy Ghost was
descending as a dove upon Christ, and the Son of God was himself in the
water. And here is another Oio(pavia, an appearance of God in three persons,
at the ordination of a minister.
Which notion is confirmed and backed by our apostle in naming two of
the persons, the Father and the Son, as authors of the instituted officers of
a church : Gal. i. 1, ' Paul, an apostle (not of men, neither by man, but by
Jesus Christ, and God the i'ather, who raised him from the dead'). There
is two of them, the will of the Father and Jesus Christ ; and the Holy Ghost,
352 THE GOVEKNMENT OF [BoOK VI.
the third person, you have in Acts xiii,, as expressly named to be a founder
of this work : ' Separate me Paul, for the work I have appointed.'
And from hence you may learn what holy, holy, holy ground it is that an
instituted officer of the New Testament stands upon, which Mr Bains, in
his Diocesan Trial, hath firmly asserted ; and it sets right and corrects the
Brownist error at their first setting out, who looked on their ministers but as
servants pf the church, and instituted by the church only, which is but of
human institution. Gal. i. 1 ; and so they chose them anew, to officiate in
their several turns, remaining but brethren still. But Mr Bains makes
them the immediate servants of Christ, who is the instituter of them.
And from hence I assert, that a minister is a servant of Christ to the
church, to do his work to the church as occasion is. Before his call unto the
ministry, he was as gold in the bullion, fit for, and capable of, the ministry ;
and the church, in Christ's name, chooses him, and sets upon him the seal
of a sacred separation of him unto Christ ; and in Christ's name he acts
toward them, independently on them, till he shall forfeit himself and his
calling by deserving to be excommunicated.
And hence I assert also, that they are not only ministers to that church
which calls them, but preach as ministers, and with a ministerial blessing
accompanying them, wherever they are called to preach. And herein doth
a singly called, though gifted, man fall short of that blessing which accom-
panies a minister rightly separated unto an office of ministry in a church.
There were some in the church, either of Antioch or Jerusalem, that were
called ' principal brethren,' yet only brethren, though the word principal is
annexed. And it is an ordinary style in the Epistles, when the apostle
speaks of the brethren in a church, who are chiefly such, he styles them
' one of you ;' yea, though they be acknowledged by the apostles to have
been helpful to them ; whereas, when they have been separated to the
ministr}', either as pastor or teacher of the church, Paul gives the honourable
title of ' unto you' (speaking of that church), ' a faithful minister ;' and
imder that title he sets out Epaphras to the Colossians, who was minister to
their church ; yea, and hence it comes to pass, that whenever they preach
to any either called or to be called, they may be said to preach as ministers
to them. When, Eph. iv. 12, their ordinary pastors and teachers are said
to be in the work of the ministry, they are said to be in it not only for
the edifying the body of Christ, that is already his body, but Tg&j rhv Ka-ao-
7t6ijjh, for the jointing in, as members of the body, such as are yet uncon-
verted and out of joint, and loose from them, though elect ; and if they be
ministers (as it is there expressly said) to the jointing of them in, then they
are ministers before conversion, to them whom to convert God blesses them
as ministers. And what other is the reason why those who have been fixed
ministers to a people, and by persecution are driven out, have that allowance
too given to them by Christ, who says, Mat. x. 23, ' If they persecute you
in one city, fly into another.' For Jesus Christ is not a loser thereby, but
he follows on his blessing of them for conversion unto a new people ; for
why ? They carry their ministry along with them, and preach as ministers
to whomever they preach ; for they preach cr^og y.ara^nisiMov, for the jointing
of them in. Know, therefore, that your ministry, or being ministers, doth
not stand on your own feet, but on Christ's feet, in whose hand these stars
are, for their further motion, guidance, and protection and blessing on them.
Chap. X.] the churches of christ. 353
CHAPTER X.
Of the communion of saints, which the members of a church ought to have
one vjith another.
Having proved that Christ hath instituted divers sorts of officers to be in
a church, and having described the distinction of their offices, the thing next
to be considered is, What communion the members of such a church ought
to have one with another (besides the communion which they pubUcly enjoy
in ordinances), for their mutual edification and increase of their graces.
The communion which I intend is not by way of exercising gifts, but of
grace ; a communion, not in the way of a set institution or ordinance, but
in the way of a fit means and help to increase that love which ought to be
between one member and another. The question, in sum, is. Whether every
member is not bound to seek the knowledge of every member's spirit and
graces, and that not only by occasional converse, but by fixed meetings
appointed on purpose for such spiritual converse, to know one another's
cases and spirits, and ' to provoke one another to love, and to good works,'
Heb. X. 24. There are two things which must be supposed as unavoidably
to be granted.
1. That every member of a church cannot in public edify the others, for
women must not speak in the church, 1 Cor. xiv. 34, 35. And, besides,
public meetings are for exercise of gifts, which even all the men have not.
2. In private occasional converse, one member may not have opportunity
to discourse with another once in seven years ; for when will occasion offer
for a godly servant to discourse with the master of another family ? There
seems, then, to be a necessity of a fixed meeting to this very end, that such
opportunities may be afforded to them.
And, 3, it may be demanded, whether for these members, who occasionally
perhaps meet every day, such appointed meetings are not necessary, that
there may be a set time for this spiritual conversation. It is not meant that
herein there should be preaching or praying, but a spiritual conference, to
gain experience of each other's improvements in grace.
1. I shall consider whether this be a duty, and what in a church fellow-
ship should bind the members of it to such a duty.
1. This is certain, that one member should make known his spiritual case
and condition to another, of known faithfulness, James v. 1 6 ; and that he
should make known too his needs or wants of any kind, not to the minister
only, but to any of the members of the church, who is in a special manner
known to be faithful, that he may pray for him. Confess your faults (says
the apostle), and pray one for another, that you may be healed. ' The
effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.' That phrase,
Confess your faults one to another, is not general, as if it were to be done to
every one ; but the apostle's design is to shew that there are occasions upon
which this duty is to be done to some.
But, 2, that place in Heb. x. 24 seems to call for and require a more
special animadversion, to know one another's cases and experiences, and that
not only as they may be made known occasionally, but to inquire of one's
own accord, and to take occasion to do it. * Let us consider one another,'
says the apostle, ' to provoke unto love, and to good works.' The word is
xaravoSj/Asv, the same which is used to express. Mat. vii. 3, the diligent in-
quiry and exact animadversion which we ought to make upon ourselves.
VOL. XI. z
354 THE GOVERNMENT OP [BoOK YI.
3. This also seems to call for such a stated converse of church memhers
together, to inquire into and know one another's cases and experiences,
because otherwise every member would not have an equal benefit in church
communion. For some that are rich, and have time to converse much
together, may indeed reap the fruits of a blessed fellowship ; but others that
are poor, or servants, &c., will be abridged, and so the same inconveniences
will arise as were in the Corinthians' love-feasts, 1 Cor. xi. 22,
1. Then it is evident from Scripture that it is the duty of every member
to observe, and to take care of another's spiritual welfare. This appears
from the duty enjoined, Heb. x. 24, and it is a duty distinct from assembhng
together, which follows in the next verse. The same thing is also manifest
from that text, 1 Thes. v. 11, ' "Wherefore comfort yourselves together, and
edify one another, even as ye do.' The Greek word is TapaxaXeTrs, exhort
and edify one another, ilc, rh ha, i. e. ' every one of you, do this duty to every
one.' And the apostle commends them, that it was their practice so to do,
• even as also,' says he, ' you do ;' so that a primitive apostolical church did
practise this duty. And this was distinct from the work of the officers, for
of them he speaks afterwards, ver. 12. And then he tells them the several
ways wherein they should exercise this duty one towards another : ver. 14,
' Now we exhort you, brethren, warn them that are unruly, comfort the
feeble-minded, support the weak, be patient toward all men.'
But the question is. Whether this duty is only to be exercised occasionally,
as the providence of God gives opportunities and occasions of converse,
and according to the relations wherein he hath set men, of man and wife,
master and servant, &c. That as we ought to give to poor saints, when there
is occasion, so it is duty also to exhort, admonish, &c., when an opportunity
is oflered.
1. It is evident that this duty is to be discharged between persons who
live in these relations ; and as man and wife have more occasion of converse,
so more of this duty is incumbent upon them. They, not only as members
of a church, but as being in such relations, ought to serve the ends of church-
fellowship. And the greater the occasion is, the more are they obliged to
this duty ; though he owes it as a member, yet he is bound the more to exer-
cise it in this occasional way of relation : Eph. iv. 16, ' From whom the
whole body, fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint sup-
plieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh
increase of the body, unto the edifying of itself in love.' The word tuv H
aZ/j^a (which is translated the whole body), may be translated every body, or
particular church, for he speaks of particular churches there, for the whole
mystical body of Christ is not edified by every particular person.
2. He mentions here the edification of the members, by the members, as
considered distinct from their officers.
3. The word suva^fioXoyoufj-svov, Jithj joined, evinceth as much. It signifies
being joined as with sinews and bones, for so 6 aofxlg is taken, Heb. iv. 12.
And so here is it to be understood ; for the apostle speaks of a body which
every joint supplieth, did Taa-^g a(prig, as he also useth the word. Col. ii. 19.
The body is knit by joints, and the nourishment is supplied from Christ; and
it is knit together, not only by joints, but by sinews {auvdia/MOjv, Col. ii. 19),
which run between every one. So then there are joints by which Christ
supplieth nourishment to the body, and there are sinews by which the mem-
bers of that body are joined together ; and those are the several relations
which the members have one to another, either as in a family, or in the
offices of the church. For if there were no other relation, yet this of mem-
bership in a church is one sufficient, since all the members have from Christ
Chap. X.] the churches of christ. 355
a measure of supplies for the nourishment and strengthening of the whole
body. And the laws of life and motion are as natural here as they are in
bodies of flesh and blood ; for as the several parts of them receive spirits
from the head to enliven and move them, so, to all the members of Christ's
body, the church, the Spirit is conveyed from him the head, to give spiritual
life and motion to them aJl, and so to the whole body. So that if there were
no other relation between the saints but this of their being set and joined in
one body, the church, and not in a family, &c., only ; yet this is enough for
their mutual life, strength, and edification : 1 Cor. xii. 14-22, ' For the body
is not one member, but many. If the foot shall say, Because I am not the
hand, I am not of the body : is it therefore not of the body ? And if the ear
shall say. Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body : is it therefore
not of the body ? If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing ?
if the whole body were hearing, where were the smelling ? But now hath
God set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him.
And if they were all one member, where were the body ? But now are they
many members, yet but one body. And the eye cannot say unto the hand,
. I have no need of thee : nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of
you. Nay, much more those members of the body, which seem to be more
feeble, are necessary.' And indeed every member hath some grace, or some
experiences wherein it diflers from another, and is helpful todt. As the mem-
bers of the natural body, though consisting of the same flesh and blood, yet
difier in some properties wherein they excel, and wherein they are useful to
the other, so every member in a church hath some peculiar grace by which
the other may profit. So Paul says of himself, writing to the church of the
Romans, that he was comforted by their mutual faith, not by their gifts,
Rom. i. 12, ' That is, that I may be comforted together with you, by the
mutual faith both of you and me.' In like manner he says, that when in
conference with the other apostles, there was nothing added to him, yet their
discerning the grace of God which was in him had the desired etfect. Gal.
ii. 6, 9. There is then no member in a church but what is necessary and
helpful, and no one can say that he hath no need of another. Thus the
apostle tells us, that they who are feeble are necessary, 1 Cor. xii. 22. And
therefore he argues, ver. 25, that all should have the same care one of
another, though never so mean an object. And, ver. 21, says he, ' you are
the body of Christ, and members in particular,' not only members for the use
of the whole body, but for the use of every one member considered apart.
There are three expressions used by the apostle, which shew that the care
which the saints in church-fellowship together ought to have over one another,
should not only be exercised as occasion off'ers, but that it is a constant duty,
and that we ought to seek all occasions of acting it.
1. The apostle says, Heb.'x. 24, ' And let us consider one another, to pro-
voke unto love, and to good w'orks.' The Greek words are, KaravouifLsv
d'/.X^'koug, let us accurately consider one ajiother, that our care over one
another may be answerable.
2. The same apostle speaks in like manner, 1 Cor. xii. 25, * That there
should be no schism in the body ; but that the members should have the
same care one for onother.' The Greek word /j-set/xvOjei signifies that we
should have an especial and sohcitous care of one another's souls.
3. What the apostle says in another place is to the same purpose : 1 Thes.
V. 11, ' Wherefore comfort yourselves together, and edify one another, even
as also ye do.' The Greek words Tra^axaXsTrs aXk'/iXoug -/.ai oi/iodo/xsTTi sTg
Ti,v ha., import not a general, but a particular care ; not only occasional, but
such as we should study, and endcarour to exercise, for the edification parti-
356 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK YI.
cularly of every one. But besides, there are tliese further reasons of the
thing :
1. Because there is this difference between the members of the church
universal, and the members of a particular church, that the former are obliged
to those duties of taking care to help and edify one another as occasion
serves ; but the other are bound by a more especial covenant to perform this
duty one to another in a constant manner, and therefore ought to seek occa-
sion for it.
2. The same thing is evident from this, that every member hath in him
something that is needful for another, 1 Cor. xii. 22, though not in gifts, yet
in graces, by which the strongest may profit ; as Paul increased in faith by
the mutual faith in the Romans, chap. i. 12, though in the gifts nothing
could be added to him.
3. There would not otherwise be the same care taken of all that there is
of some, which is contrary to what the apostle enjoins, 1 Cor. xii. 25. And
reason shews that care should rather be taken of the weak, 1 Cor. xii. 22, 23,
1 Thes. V. 14. And the neglect and despising of the poor and weak, was
the fault of the love feasts, which the apostle reproves, 1 Cor. xi. 22.
4. Because, otherwise, the relation of being a member in a particular church,
would add nothing to the person as proper to such a relation, if one member
was not thereby bound to be helpful to another, not only occasionally, but on
set purpose, and on appointed times, when occasions are not offered.
But the question will be, How this care, which every member is to have of
another, will difier from the care which is incumbent upon the officers to
take of the church.
Ans. 1. The olficei'S are bound to their care in a more especial manner,
and the exercise of it is incumbent on them, ex officio, by virtue of their
office. And besides, their care reacheth to the whole church, but every
member's care to another : Rom. xii. 4, 5, ' For as we have many members
in one body, and all members have not the same office ; so we, being many,
are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another.' The Greek
word is TTga^/i', activeness, uvrking; so that it is evident from this text of
Scripture, that every member hath its peculiar working, as we say that the
eye hath not only its office, but the ear also hath an office proper to it.
2. The officers are wholly in this work, and entirely devoted to it.
3. The officers have the charge of the whole, and of every part, which is
not incumbent on the private brethren. Though in Rom. xii. the apostle
mentions the authority and work of the officers, yet withal he insinuates the
activeness and working of each member as needful : Rom. xii. 4, 5, * For as
we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same
office ; so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members
one of another.' And so, in 1 Cor. xii., he speaks of works and duties,
which are incumbent on more persons than the officers of the church. And
the apostle Peter also speaks of private members, and their duty and work,
1 Peter iv. 5 ; for he speaks of the elders and their office in the fifth chapter,
which follows.
5. It is made a sign of grace for saints to visit each other. It discovered
the truth of grace and faith in Moses's heart, that he visited his brethren.
James makes it also a trial of the sincerity of our grace, Isa. i. 27, ' Zion
shall be redeemed with judgment, and her converts with righteousness.'
And our Lord Jesus makes it the touchstone and test of his chosen sheep,
when he separates them from the goats, that they visited the poor little ones
among his saints. Mat. xxv. 8G, 40. And if there is the like reason to visit
the members of a church, then certainly it is to be done. We are to shew
Chap. X.] the churches of christ. 357
our love to their souls, to visit and refresh them ; for souls have need as
well as bodies, and require suitable supplies.
6. The prophet mentions it as the duty and practice of saints under the
gospel, to speak often one to another, Mai. iii. 16. What he speaks of those
times, hath reference to ours,
7. There ought to be so great and peculiar a love between the members
of a church, as cannot be discharged but in the performance of this special
office and duty : Rom. xii. 10, ' Be kindly affectioned one to another, with
brotherly love, in honour preferring one another.' It is (ptXosroqjia, a natural
instinct of affection, <piXadeX(pia, a natural love, such as parents bear to their
children, and brethren to brethren. And in this they are to increase and
abound : 1 Thes. iii. 12, ' And the Lord make you to increase and abound
in love one towards another, and towards all men, even as we do towards
you : ' 1 Peter iv. 8, ' And above all things have fervent charity among your-
selves, for charity shall cover a multitude of sins.' The word is Jxtjctj, such
a fervency as presseth to a mark. It is pure love ; all inordinacy of love of
self, of wife, &c., is removed; any inordinacy would take too much, that there
would not be love enough for all the brotherhood. As it is such a love, so
it is a growing love ; and therefore what is necessary for the feeding it, is
necessary to put forth towards the members of the church ; which, how can
it be done without a communion maintained among them ?
8. Whatever other relations binds us to, we are engaged to the same
duties by om- relation of brethren in a church. If obhgations of civility, or
ties of nature and kindred, engage men to visit one another ; then, much
more the relation of members in a church obligeth us to the same duty ;
and the poorest, meanest saint, is as worthy of it as any ; for otherwise we
should have the faith of our Lord Jesus with respect of persons, which the
apostle forbids, James ii. 1.
Obj. But the work and business of the officers in a church take oif this
care from the private members, and render it unnecessary. And besides,
they have other callings, as being merchants, &c,, which they ought to mind
and attend.
Ans. It is true ; but yet these are duties which occasionally they ought to
perform ; as if offence be given them, they are enjoined to speak and admo-
nish the person. Mat. xviii. 15. They are requii-ed also to do good, as
opportunity serves, Rom. xiv. 19, 1 Cor. x. 24. If anything be revealed to
a person, it is proper for him to tell it, if there be leisure or opportunity ;
whereas an officer ought always to have something ready for edification.
The main question to be discoursed is, wherein this duty lies ?
1. It doth not properly consist in the communication of such gifts, whereby
the church is edified in the public worship of God. It doth not properly
consist in expounding nor in praying together, though this may be done
occasionally. There are two sorts of gifts.
(1.) Such as are superadded to graces, and are sanctified to a public use,
as the gift of expression in prayer, of prophesying, &c.
(2.) There are such gifts as are necessary to communicate, and make
known our graces one to another, as to be able to express what experiences
of God's love, &c., we have had; for, as the thoughts of our minds cannot
be known, unless we have a tongue to express them, so neither can our
graces be known without such a gift. Now the end of this communion of
saints, whereof I now discourse, is not to make known such gifts, but to
communicate experiences, not to repeat sermons (which is a duty proper to
families), but to declare what it was in a sermon that God blessed to them,
358 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK VI.
and that affected their hearts, what promises they have found to be made
good to them, &c.
2. This duty of communion of saints doth not consist in giving an account
of their graces in that set way, as they gave an account of their conversion,
when they were first admitted into the church. But it is a communication
of their experiences, as to the growth of their graces, and as to the exercise
of them. The graces of a believer, the to yvu/rrhv rov QboZ, may be knoivn of
God in him, may rather appear thus, by way of conference, than in a set
narration. The reason of it is, because an account of the person's grace is
not now given, for a judgment to be made of his state thereupon, as it was
at his admission into the church. There is not in this case any authorita-
tive act, for none have power to call for an account. But the duty incum-
bent on the person is, to consider whether the declaration of his experiences
may be for the edifying and comforting of others, and what good fruits may
arise out of such a manifestation, and accordingly to do it. It is to be
minded what God leads a man's spirit to confer about. There is such a
thing as a manifestation of spirits in a several way, whereby is not meant,
that a person is obliged to lay open all that is in his heart ; but that, by a
mutual conference concerning spiritual things, there should be a test given
what is in one another's spirits.
3. This communion doth not consist in a confession of all sins, or in dis-
covery of everything that burdens us. For to that end a believer will make
choice of some particular, in whose wisdom and faithfulness he can confide,
as occasion is, James v. 16. As for extraordinary cases, wherein there is
need of help, as in case of feeble-mindedness, 1 Thes. v. 4, temptations, &c.,
there is no need for any believer to tell his case to all the members of the
church particularly, that they may all pray for him, for upon his making it
known to the pastor or officers, he may be prayed for publicly.
4. But yet that love which the members of a church bear one to another
will move them, and put them upon a solicitousness, and a study, and care
for each other's souls.
5. Let us consider that subjection in which all the members ought to be
one toward another, whereof the apostle speaks ; 1 Peter v, 5, * Likewise, ye
younger, submit yourselves unto the elder ; yea, all of you be subject to one
another, and be clothed with humihty : for God resisteth the proud, and
giveth grace to the humble.' I cannot conceive otherwise, but that by this
subjection (the word is h-Trorasso/xsvoi), is meant that they should be content
to receive instruction one from another.
6. It is to be considered that Christ puts an honour on the weakest mem-
bers, 1 Cor. xii. 18-24. And that there may be no schism in the body,
application must be made to one as well as to another, and there must not
be a total neglect of any: 1 Cor. xii. 25, 'That there should be no schism
in the body ; but that the members should have the same care one for
another.' And so likewise the apostle tells us that there are diversities of
gifts, and administrations, and operations : 1 Cor. xii. 4-7, ' Now there are
diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are difi'erences of ad-
ministrations, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of operations,
but it is the same God which worketh all in all. But the manifestation of the
Spirit is given to every man to profit withal.' These diversities of gifts and
administrations do not relate to officers only, but to the whole body, so that
a course should be taken to receive the benefit of every member's gift, for
otherwise there will be a neglect of God, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
who are the fountain of these diverse gifts and administrations.
Book VII. Chap. I.] the churches of christ. 859
BOOK VII.
That the preaching of the gospel is an ordinance of Jesus Christ, instituted for
the conversion of sinners, and for the edification of the saints. — Of the use
and necessity of ministers irholly set apart to preach. — That Christ by his
iyistitution hath appointed a due maintenance for ministers. — Goncerning the
time for the administration of ordinances, and ivhether the sacrament of the
Lord's Slipper ought to be administered on every Lord's day. — Whether, in'
case of necessity, a church may by common consent divide themselves, to meet
in several parts, and receive the Lord' s supper in such distinct meetings, rather
than omit that ordinance ivholly. — Whether in case of apjmrent danger of life,
loss of estate rationally foreseen, or in case of force and violence, causing
ordinances to cease, there may )iot be prudent forbearance or secret avoid-
ance. — Whether one who is not a church member may be the subject of bap-
tism. — Whether one ivho is not a jjastor may administer baptism. — Whether
a church may depose an officer for a fault, ivhich doth not deserve excommu-
nication. — Of anointing with oil. — Of toleration and liberty of conscience
to be granted to particular churches, though differing from the national con-
stitution.
CHAPTER I.
That the preaching of the gospel is an ordinance instituted by Christ, for the
conversion of sinners, and edification of the saints. — The reason ivhy hehath
chosen the preaching of the ivord by men to be the means of salvation rather
than any other. — The pleas which men make against their constant attend-
ance on the preaching of the ivord as needless, answered.
Hoiv then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed ? and how
shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they
hear without a preacher f and hoiv shall they preach except they be sent ? as
it is written. How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel ofjJeace,
and bring glad tidings of good things ! But they have not all obeyed the
gospel : for Esaias saith. Lord, who hath believed our report ? So then failh
Cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. — Rom. X. 14-18.
The apostle having proved at large in the former part of this chapter, and
the whole epistle, that the righteousness of Christ apprehended by faith was
the only true righteousness whereby men are to be saved, he begins here, at
the 14th verse of this chapter, to lay down the outward instrumental means
of attaining to this righteousness and salvation, and this by a gradation or
chain of causes ; all which he shews to hang upon preaching of the word of
faith, as the first link of that whole chain of outward means. And as, in
Rom. viii. 29, 30, he makes a chain of the principal causes of our salvation :
' Whom he foreknew, those he predestinated ; and w^hom he predestinated,
those he also called,' &c. ; so here he makes a chain of the means outward,
860 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK "VII.
praying and worsliipping God (that is the first step), ' whosoever shall call
upon the name of the Lord shall be saved,' ver. 13 ; without prayer there is
no salvation, it is here (by a synecdoche) put for all obedience. But then,
* How shall they call on God without faith, and how believe without hearing,
and how shall they hear without a preacher ?' ver. 4. For it is such a hear-
ing as is by preaching ; neither is this preaching (the hearing whereof is
blessed to work faith) by any but by men sent, ver. 15 ; and the conclusion
of all this is, that faith cometh by hearing, ver. 17.
And experience also helps to manifest and confirm this. For still, where
God meant to have a church called, thither he still sends, and there he main-
tains the preaching of the gospel. For this compare Acts xvi, G, 8, with
the 9th and 10th verses of the 18th chapter; in that first cited place it is
said that God forbade Paul to preach in Bithynia, but in this other, that be
bade him stay and preach at Corinth, giving this reason : for ' I have much
people in this city.' So also, says the apostle. Col. i. 1, 4, 5, 'Knowing
the election of God, our gospel came unto you, not in word only,' &c. And
therefore we see that those places that want it lie like deserts and wilder-
nesses, full of rudeness and ignorance, and the inhabitants living rather like
beasts than men. And this is the reason why the light of the gospel, and
the preaching thereof, shifts so from place to place (in tbe east once, now in
the west), for still where God hath a good shoal and fry of fish, thither he
sends his fishers with their drag-nets, it being good fishing sometimes in one
coast, sometimes in another. Where God intends to plant a church, thither
he sends the gospel, ' to make known by it the mystery of his will, that, in
the dispensation of the fulness of times, he might gather together in one all
his elect,' Eph. i. 9, 10. What is the reason of this ?
1. Take that which the apostle intimates in this Eom. x. 17, 'faith comes
by hearing;' and how so ? ' Hearing is by the word of God.' So that if the
reason be asked, why this way rather than any other ? the answer is, It is
so appointed and ordained by God, for that is meant by ivord here, his word
being all one with his commandment and appointment. So says Christ :
Luke iv. 4, ' Man lives not by bread alone, but by the word of God;' that is,
by this ordinance of God, that bread should nourish ; it is not said hearing
of the word, but by the word. What is the reason the rain, that falls down
upon the earth from these bottles of heaven, the clouds, drops such fatness
with it, and crowns the year with increase ? Ps. Ixv. 11. It is only this,
God at the beginning did so appoint it, as we read in Gen. ii. 5. Now,
Isa. Iv. 10, 11, it is said, 'As the rain cometh down and watereth the earth,
and maketh it bring forth and bud, &c., so shall my word go forth and prosper
in the thing whereto I appointed and sent it.' It shall prosper, because God
so appointed it, and it shall cause the earth both to bring forth and bud,
that is, it shall work both beginnings and increase. Yea, it doth that which
other rain doth not, for other rain falling on a briar, it remaineth a briar still;
but where this rain falls, God accompanying it with a blessing, instead of a
thorn comes up a fir; and of fuel for hell it makes men fruitful trees to God,
and fit for his building, for it fully alters the nature of them. And though
watering the earth with watering-pots is good and useful in the time of
drought, and so is reading of good books and conferring of things holy, yet
preaching is the kindly ordinance, when * doctrine drops as the rain, and
speech distils as the dew, and as small rain upon the tender herb,' as in
preaching it still doth, Deut. xxxii. 2.
2. As God appointed it, so Jesus Christ prayed for it, in John xvii.
Christ consecrates his death, and prays for the application of it, namely,
that the apostles might be sanctified, and how ? ' Through thy truth ' (says
Chap. I.] the churches of christ. 361
Christ), that is, the gospel, called ' the word of truth,' Eph. i. 13. And then
he goes on to pray ' not only for those, but for all that should believe ;' and
how should they come to believe ? ' Through their word,' so vers. 19 and 20.
And certain it is, that Christ's intercession puts a force into this means unto
this day. For doth Christ mean only the apostles' preaching, as that which
he then prayed for ? No, this prayer reacheth unto the ends of the world ;
for it is their word that we do and shall preach, and we are their successors.
Therefore, Mat. xxviii. 20, Christ says, though he speak only to his disciples,
' I am with j-ou unto the end of the world.'
8. As God the Father appointed it, and God the Son prayed for it, so
God the Holy Spirit is by promise and covenant engaged to accompany it
with his blessing unto the seed of Christ for ever : Isa. lis. 21, ' My Spirit,
who is upon thee, and my words which I have put into thy mouth, shall not
depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed's seed, for ever.'
It is spoken of the word as preached unto the people, and therefore we find,
Acts X. 44, ' Whilst Peter spake, the Holy Ghost fell on all them who heard
the word.' And therefore it is, that, 1 Cor. ii. 4, the preaching of the gospel
is called the ' demonstration of the Spirit,' and, 2 Cor. iii. 8, the ' ministra-
tion of the Spirit.' Now if any demand the reason why God ordained it, and
Christ prayed for it rather than any other means, I shall, for the explanation
of this, propound certain queries, in the answers to which I shall give the
reason of it ; and I shall proceed herein by degrees.
Quest. 1. Why did not God work immediately by his own power, and
rather use no means at all ?
Ans. 1. He doth this to shew his diverse manner of working, for he still
loves to vary his dispensations towards man. At the first creation he used
no means, but made man in his own image ; even as when he gave the law,
he both made the stone tables immediately, and also writ it with his own
finger. But now, in this recreation and renewing of the image, because he
will not go the same way to work, he will take a pen in his hand to do it
withal. ' Ye are,' says the apostle, 2 Cor. iii. 3, ' the epistle of Christ
ministered by us.' And though God made the world without the help of
angels or any other creature, yet now in this new creation he is pleased to
shew his diverse ways of working, and takes creatures to work by, whom
therefore he calls co-workers with him, 1 Cor. iii. 9.
Ans. 2. He now useth means, as to shew his various kinds of working, so
to hide it from the eyes of the undiscerning world, who contemn the means
to their destruction. For this work of conversion being the only standing
miracle in the church (and indeed the greatest, and therefore all is summed
up in it), Christ therefore hides his power in working it : ' The blind,' says he,
' receive their sight, the deaf hear, and the poor receive the gospel,' but he
lets them not see from whom all this comes, and by whom it is wrought ; that
so that might come upon the foolish world which was fore-prophesied, Heb. i. 5,
and alleged by the apostle, Acts xiii. 41, ' Behold, ye despisers, and wonder,
and perish : for I work a work among you which you will in no wise believe,
though it be declared unto you.' Because the means are so small and so
unlikely, therefore it is that the world despises God's word and people ; and
they wonder at this, that such weak means should have such power on men's
hearts, and yet they believe it not ; they feel no such thing in their own
hearts, and so falling to despise it, they perish in their own ways. You have
it, Prov. XXV. 2, that ' it is the glory of God to conceal a thing,' to carry his
greatest counsels and works covertly and closely ; and therefore he hides
them under means, because ail should not see them. So, when he sent his
Son, how did he befool the devil and the world in sending the Prince of glory,
362 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK VII.
clad and concealed in infirmities, to be crucified, and so to bring about God's
greatest work! 1 Cor. ii. 6-8.
Quest. 2. But why of all things else hath he chosen his word to do this ?
Ans. 1. He hath chosen preaching of the word, because it is the weakest
means of all others, and therefore his power would the more appear unto
his own glory in it. What is weaker than a word ? and yet God created the
■world by it, for he only said, * Let there be light, and there was light,' &c.
But you will say. That was his own word spoken by himself. I answer, that
now to manifest his power the more, he will take the voice of a frail man
speaking his word for him ; and what is weaker than a man's breath ? In-
deed, ' in the word of a king there is power ' (as Solomon speaks), but what
power is there in the words of a mean and weak man ? Yes, there is a great
power, and the reason why God chose this means is given, 1 Cor. i. 18 to
ver. 28. It is to shew his power and wisdom unto his own, and to confound
the world. They know not God in his wisdom, by reason of their own
wisdom which they are so full of, and by reason of their high esteem of
worldly learning and eloquence, accounting the plain, naked, and slow style
of the word to be but foolishness ; that is, a foolish and an empty doctrine,
contrary to their reason, and utterly unlike to work any great matter (as the
Athenians thought) ; but God chose it the rather : * It pleased him, by the
foolishness of preaching, to save them that believe,' ver. 21, to shew that his
foolishness is wiser than men's wisdom. And if his foolishness be so, then
what is his wisdom ? He sent his apostles forth, a company of poor fisher-
men ; and were they likely men to conquer the world by commanding living
men to believe on one crucified, especially when the conditions were such as
these, that men rich, and learned, and great, should wholly deny themselves
and their own wisdom, and become fools ; was this ever likely ? Well, but
see, ver. 20, how the apostle triumphs upon this occasion : * Where is the
wise ? where is the scribe ? where is the disputer ? ' They are clear put down,
they have lost ground both among Jews and Gentiles by this foolish and
weak means, this preaching of Christ crucified ; all their wit and carnal
arguments could not prevail so much as one of the apostle's sermons. And
so when Luther, Calvin, and those other divines came once to preach, where
were the schoolmen and learned of the world ? Popery fell down before
preaching, like Dagon before the ark of God. And God appointed this way,
that his wisdom might appear to the confusion of the wise, that so his power
might the more appear to the praise of his grace towards them that are
called, and to the confusion of Satan, and, ver. 25, to shew that 'the weak-
ness of God is stronger than men.' If God can by a word work such eftects
as all creatures are not able to work, then what would his strength do if put
to it ? What will that power do for his elect in another world ? And this
means did God appoint, thereby also to confound the power of Satan, as the
strength of Jericho was subdued by the blast of rams' horns. Thus, Ps.
viii. ver. 2, it is said, ' Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings hast thou
ordained strength.' Through the weakest means God hath ordained the
greatest strength; and why? ' To still the enemy,' to confound Satan, that he
should not boast of his conquest. God therefore chose preaching, that it
might be his own power unto salvation.
Ans. 2. The second reason why, of all means else, God hath chosen his
word as the means whereby to work grace, and to reveal himself unto us,
rather than any other visible representation, whereby he might have made
himself known ; yea, rather than by his works (though they are said to
preach also, as Rom. x. compared with Ps. viii. implies), was because the
word was less apt to be abused to idolatry, by corrupt nature, of all things
Chap. I.] the churches of christ. 363
else. This was the most naked and simple representation, and most suit-
able to reasonable creatures that could be, to represent things by words.
God made himself known by creatures, Rom. i. 20 ; and what was the issue
of it ? Vers. 23 and 25, men fell to ' worship the creature instead of God
the Creator, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image
made like to corruptible man,' &c. The sun and other glorious creatures re-
presented God, and they worshipped those creatures more than God, and
ascribed all unto them. Thus also in the time of popery, when preaching
was banished, they represented all religion to the eye ; the objects of which
man is more apt to idolize, than the instructions which he barely receives by
the ear. An evident instance whereof we have in this, that whereas God
ordained but two means to convey the gospel to us, one by the word preached
to the ear, the other to the eye in sacraments, which are visible signs (and
as Christ is preached in the one so in the other, and indeed no more in the
one than in the other), yet corrupt nature made an idol of the sacrament,
and never of preaching ; and this men did, though God chose the meanest
things to these signs, even bread and wine. And for this cause especially
God sanctified his word, as a means to convey himself unto us, as appears
by Deut. iv. 12, ' The Lord spake unto you : and ye heard the voice of his
words, but saw no similitude,' &c.
Quest. 3. The third query is. Why hearing of the word should be by God
appointed, rather than reading of it alone by ourselves ?
Aus. 1. God hath appointed the hearing of the word, because he would
confound Satan, and untwist and dissolve the works of the devil in the same
way that they were woven. Our first parents took their infidelity in by the
ear, and therefore God thought good to let faith in the same way.
Aus. 2. Because God had many simple people to be called; and indeed
'not many wise,' nor book-learned, are of that number; and if reading were
the ordinary means, how should they do ? But the simplest can ordinarily
hear as well as the wisest ; and so the poor do come to receive the gospel,
who otherwise would want it.
Quest. 4. The fourth query is. Why hath God ordained hearing the word
expounded rather than hearing it read ? So we find it, Neh. viii. 7, 8, it is
said, * The Levites read in the book of God's law distinctly, giving the sense,
and causing them to understand the reading ; ' that is, the word read. The
same we have 2 Chron. xvii. 9. The Levites went about with the book of
the law, and taught the people ; and the reasons of this are,
Ans. 1. Because of the dulness that is in many people : Acts viii. 30,
' Understandest thou what thou readest ? ' said Phihp to the eunuch. 'How
can I,' says he, ' except some man should guide me ?' It was therefore neces-
sary that there should be men whose calling and business it should be to
study out the meaning of the word, and so to reveal it unto others ; and who
might (as Ezra did, chap, vii. 10) ' prepare their hearts' (and set themselves
apart) ' to seek the law ' (or the meaning of it), ' and to teach in Israel .
statutes and judgments ; ' and (as Timothy) wholly give themselves to attend
on reading, &c,
Ans. 2. Because Jesus Christ, when he ascended, 'gave gifts unto men,'
Eph. iv. 8. And, 1, the treasures of wisdom and knowledge being in him.
Col. ii. 3, lest when he went to heaven he should have carried all wisdom
away with him ; therefore, as he left the word written behind him, so he
gave gifts to men to expound it, both for the begetting and perfecting of the
saints. Now, as for simply reading the word, every one can do that ; but
an ' interpreter ' is ' one of a thousand,' Job xxxiii. 23. And it were a
derogation from Christ to make a faculty of bare reading to be one of the
364 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK VII.
utmost fruits of his ascension. And for tliis reason also it is that the gifts
of men are reckoned among the chiefest goods and riches in a Christian's
inventory : 1 Cor. iii. 22, ' All are yours, Paul and ApoUos,' &c.
Ans. 3. It is not the letter of the word that ordinally doth convert, but
the spiritual meaning of it, as revealed and expounded. Paul, who had the
letter of the law, yet says of himself, Rom. vii. 9, that he was without the
law until the spiritual meaning of it was revealed to him. There is the
letter, the husk ; and there is the spirit, the kernel ; and when we by ex-
pounding the word do open the husk, out drops the kernel. It is the mean-
ing of the word which is the word indeed, it is the sense of it which is its
soul. The devil, quoting Scripture, used the letter of it ; but the apostles,
when they quote it, allege not so much the words as the meaning. And
therefore, 1 Cor. ii. 16, we are said to 'have the mind of Christ; ' that is,
what he meant in his word when he revealed it. Now, preaching in a more
special manner reveals God's word. When an ointment box is once opened,
then it casts its savour about ; and when the juice of a medicinal herb is
once strained out and applied, then it heals. And so it is the spiritual
meaning of the word let into the heart which converts it and turns it to God.
Quest. 5. The fifth query is. If we are to be saved rather by hearing the
word expounded than by it as read, yet still, why by it only as preached by
men like ourselves ? Why not by God's immediate voice from heaven, or
why not by the preaching of angels ? The reasons of it are,
Arts. 1. Because men themselves first chose this way, as most agreeable
and suitable unto themselves, and unto their natures and conditions : Deut.
V. 25, 26, * If we hear the voice of the Lord our God, we shall die. Go thou
therefore near, and hear all that the Lord our God shall say, and come
and speak thou it unto us, and we will hear it,' &c. Ver. 27, And God,
hearing the people say thus, said unto Moses, ' They have well spoken, &c.
Stand thou therefore here, and I will speak to thee all the statutes and judg-
ments which thou shalt teach them,' &c.
Ans. 2. God betrusted this treasure in earthen vessels, not heavenly (as
it is, 2 Cor. iv. 7), because we are not able to behold the angels. You see
how the sons of men have always trembled when they appeared. And
further, we should have been apt to worship them, as John would have done,
Rev. xxii. 8 ; and therefore God appointed men like ourselves to be the
instruments.
Use 1. See here the necessity of this ordinance, so as to attend upon it,
waiting upon God in the dispensation of it for the conversion of thy soul.
' A necessity lies on me,' says Paul, ' to preach the gospel.' Now that
necessity of his duty was founded upon another necessity, namely, that it
was a means to save the souls of men whom God had committed unto him.
As for such as are already converted, I shall not need to urge upon them
the necessity of this ordinance, they have one within who will do it. If they
should but want a few meals of their appointed food, there is a new creature
within them would cry for bread. In the first of Peter, i. 23, the apostle,
having said they were 'begotten by the word,' in the next chapter he exhorts
them, ' as new born babes to desire the sincere milk of the word, that they
might grow thereby.' As if he had said, If you be but babes of a day old,
3'ou will desire this word by which you were begotten. Now, for such as
are not yet converted, let me ask them but this one question, Do you think
salvation necessary ? Yes ; then so is this, necessitate medii ; for (says the
apostle) it is ' the power of God unto salvation.' But you will say, God's
power^can save me by other means, if he will. I deny it not ; but see what
James says : James i, 18, ' Of his own will begat he us with the word of
Chap. I.] the churches of chkist. 3G5
truth.' He that out of his good pleasure begets us, out of the same free
will hath chosen this means, even the word of truth, to do it by. You see
the power of God engaged in it, it is his ' power unto salvation ; ' and you
see his will also in it, ' of his own will begat he us with the word of truth.'
But you will say, as Rom. x., ' Have we not all heard ?' I have heard ser-
mons enough already, if they would do me any good. Yes (God be thanked),
* their sound is gone out into all the world.' I3ut let me ask you another
question, which the apostle asks in the former words, Have all you that have
heard obeyed the gospel ? Hast thou had faith wrought ? has thy heart and
life been changed as yet by this word heard ? The apostles, who were better
preachers than we, yet cry out, as Isaiah once, * Who hath believed our
report ? ' And if thou be one of the members yet unchanged, thou hast as
much need to attend to the word as if thou hadst never heard it, that so
thou mayest escape that damnation and fiery vengeance that will befall them
who ' obey not the gospel of Jesus Christ,' 2 Thess. i. 8. But you may haply
say, I have knowledge enough already, and as much as the preacher can
teach me, and may not that work sufficiently in me to put me upon practice ?
Suppose this, that thou couldst not increase in knowledge, yet thou mayest
as yet not know anything as thou oughtest to know ; and this plea is a sign of
it, and so made by the apostle, 1 Cor. viii. 2. And though thou mayest
have knowledge in salvation, and the matters of it, yet not to salvation, as the
apostle distinguisheth it, 2 Tim. iii. 15; for such a knowledge must be a
new work of tlae Holy Ghost, whom we receive by preaching of the word :
Gal. iii. 2, ' Eeceived ye not the Spirit by the hearing of faith ? ' All thy
notions may lie as dry gunpowder barrelled up in thee ; but what shall give
fire to them, and inflame thy heart by them, but a being anew baptized with
the Holy Ghost as with fire, and by his striking some spark and good motion
in [you] ? Now the Holy Ghost falls on men at these ordinances. Preaching
is therefore called ' the ministration of the Spirit,' 2 Cor. iii. When a pill
lies dead in a man's body, and works not, then physicians use to prescribe
another, which often sets all a- working. So after all the sermons thou hast
heard, thou hast need hear again, to make all eflectuai to thee again. When
saving knowledge is once begun in thee, it receiveth daily increase by the
preaching of the word, even then when notional knowledge doth not ; that
is, suppose thou hearest no new truths discovered, but the same again and
again, yet in the things represented by those notions, thou mayest get a
further and more clear and distinct insight every time thou hearest them.
Thou mayest grow up into more riches of assurance of the knowledge of
those truths thou knowest, as the apostle speaks. Col. ii. 2 ; and thou may-
est grow up to more comfort and joy in those truths. Paul desired still to
preach to them (although converted), for the furtherance of the joy of their
faith. Though many promises belong to thee, and thou already knowest
them, and distinctly rememberest them, and daily viewest them, yet thou
mayest haply not have much peace from them ; but when thou hearest them
again delivered in this ordinance, thou mayest have such peace from them.
For God 'creates the fruit of the lips; peace,' &c., Isa. Ivii. 19. And this
is a thing to be added to thy knowledge, and therefore is said to be created.
And how but by the lips of men uttering it ? It is therefore called ' the
fruit of the lips.' As, for example, thou knowest that thou art to be justified
only by Christ's righteousness ; and thou knowest all that can be said to
manifest the truth of it, and nothing more can be added to thy notion about
it ; yet, for all this, the apostle says that * this righteousness is revealed ' in
the preaching of the gospel ' from faith to faith,' Rom. i. 17 ; that is, from
one degree of faith to another. This may be revealed with more evidence
366 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK YII.
to faith, to draw thy heart to trust more perfectly in it. Again, thou know-
est all the particular branches of the law ; thou hast a form of truth, as the
apostle speaks, Rom. ii. 20 ; that is, a platform and table of all the sins
which the law forbids, and duties which the law commands ; yet when this
is again taught thee out of the word, a new light may come in to discover to
thee those sins which thou never as yet sawest before ; a light which may
divide between the marrow and the bones, and anatomize thy heart unto
thee, and shew thee some new vein or artery which thou never yet sawest.
In and through prophesying, the secrets of men's hearts use to be discovered,
1 Cor. xiv. 25, so that thy experimental applying, and saving knowledge of
the things themselves, may be increased, although thy notions be not. For
though the glass thou still lookest in be the same, yet thy light may be new
and different ; and so thou mayest come to see the beauty or deformity of
the things represented in it ; which is the difference between saving know-
ledge, and that which is not such.
CHAPTER II.
Of the end and design of the ministry, and of the use and necessity of ministers
set apart to preach, and devoting themselves ivholly to that work.
Wherefore, saith he. When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive,
and gave gifts unto men. — Eph. IV. 8.
The apostle having mentioned, in the 5th verse, the variety of gifts given
by Christ under the New Testament, enlargeth himself about them.
1. By shewing the author of those gifts, Christ, according as it was pro-
phesied, Ps. Ixviii. vers. 8, 9, 10.
2. By enumerating the variety of those gifts, ver. 11.
3. The ends of those gifts, vers, 12, 13, 14.
1. The author of those gifts set forth, that his person is God : Ps. Ixviii.
17-19, ' Thou, the Lord God ;' for none but God could have given them.
2. Then it is declared what he did for the bestowing them. 1. He
descended ; 2. He ascended. He descended and ascended. The apostle
argues his descending from that word ascending : so ver. 9. ' Now that he
ascended, what is it but that he also descended into the lower parts of the
earth ?' Ps. cxxxix. 15. He improves that scripture against the Jews, to
demonstrate that the Messiah must be humbled and laid low. He gathers
a doctrine from a word, as we use to do.
And from this observe, 1. That before God exalts, he humbleth. The
text says, ' first he descended.' Thus did God with his own Son, and so
with us, as with David, Joseph, and any other whom he employs. And,
therefore, ' humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that he may
lift you up.'
2. Observe, that Christ descended to the lowest, and ascended to the
highest place, as those two phrases import, iig ra-Aarwrs^a, ' to the lower parts
of the earth ;' and his ascension is on high, ' far above all heavens ;' v-zig-
dvu, is super supra, above all beings above. The descending was into the
lower parts of the earth, the ascending far above the heavens. By his
descending, is meant that emptying himself, spoken of Philip, ii. ; for oppo-
sitely the fruit of it is made the filling of all things. Christ was full of all,
and God emptied him. He condescends to behold things here below, Ps.
cxiii., but to come down below is more. And in that phrase, the lower parts
Chap. II.] the churches of christ. 367
of the earth, he names the first and last step of his descending : not from
heaven to earth only, nor to live on earth only.
1. It imports to be enclosed in the dark dungeon of the womb, Ps.
cxxxis. 15, so the womb is called, and there to be hid nine months. It is
an allusion to curious workmen, that work within doors their most curious
works.
2. It imports to be laid in the grave, to be killed and buried. Mat. xii. 40.
The Son of man shall lie in the heart of the earth three days : not in hell,
the place of the damned, as the papists would have it, but in the grave,
which is called the heart of the earth ; as Tyre is said to be in the heart of
the sea, Ezek. xxiv. 27, which yet was a city near the sea-side. From both
these places, the womb and grave, Christ was raised ; and the same body
that had lain in these two places and dungeons, the same, says the text,
ascends far above the heavens, uTSPavw ; avoi is above, but D'Ts^ is added, that
is, above above, above all heavens ; that is, angels, who are called heavens
(as the devils are called the gates of hell, that is, the powers of hell, for
magistrates sat in the gates) ; so Heb. vii. 26, he is said to be made higher
than the heavens, that is, in his person excelling all creatures (so Eph. i. 21,
his ascending is interpreted to be far above all principalities and powers, &c.).
Though it is true also, he is above all heavens for place ; for though in
heaven, yet his throne is conspicuous there eminently.
Use. You see that, to be much abased by God, is the way to greatest glory.
Fear it not ; the lower the soul is laid in distress, the more comfort at last.
The lower the ebb, the greater the flood.
3. His descent was so low, as none would ever think, that had seen him
in his abasement, it were the same man who is now exalted. He descended
so low, into so mean a condition, that when you shall see him so glorious,
you would never think that that man should have been on the cross. There-
fore, ver. 10, the apostle says, it is the same person ; and that he who
descended is the same that ascended ; and so the same bodies that were
miserable here, shall rise again and be glorified. It will be such an infinite
glory, that men will hardly believe they are the same men. ' Know,' says
Peter, ' that this same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, God hath made both
Lord and Christ.'
4. Observe the manner of his ascending ; it is in a way of triumph. He
leads captivity captive. Enemies being conquered, princes use to go in their
chariots triumphantly, when from a great journey they come again to their
own city and country : Ps. vii. 6-8, ' Awake,' says he, ' in thine anger, so
shall the congregation encompass thee about' (that as a conqueror, for he
alludes to the manner of soldiers in the field, that encompass their lord
general) ; for their sake return then on high as a conqueror : ascend glo-
riously. And the leading captivity captive is but to lead the enemies cap-
tive, for the abstract is put for the concrete ; for so it is used, Judges v. 12,
Numb. xxi. 1.
Now then, 5, his end in ascending, as in descending, was, (1) general ;
(2) special.
(1.) General : ' That he might fill all things ;' 1, all places, heaven and earth ;
therefore he comes into both, as a king that takes possession of all his domi-
nions ; 2, that he might fill all persons, he hath ascended, as the sun, to fill
all with light to the top of honour ; 3, this is made the fruit of Christ's
descending, as well as his ascending. He became j)oor, that we might be
rich ; he became empty, that we might be filled.
(2.) The second end of his ascension is special, viz., the bestowing gifts.
To this end both his ascending and descending is here brought in, for both
3G8 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK VII.
these were necessary for the bestowing these gifts on men ; he must both
descend and ascend. Ere Christ could give gifts to men, he must purchase
them. Your church officers cost Christ his death, and Christ gave away
himself first, to give these to you, and emptied himself to fill you. And to
answer to both these, the phrase the psalmist useth concerning the gifts
bestowed, signifies both his buying of them, and giving of them ; and it is
besides translated there by our translators, 'received gifts.' 1, it signifies
to buy or purchase, emere ; so Hp"? signifies, and is so used, Prov. xxxi. 16 ;
and, 2, it signifies to give or bestow : so usually in the Hebrew, Gen.
xxxii. 13, Gen. xxv. 2, it is meant to take and bring an offering. So, then,
Christ's descending was to buy these gifts ; his ascending, to receive and
give them.
2. We may consider the variety of these gifts : 1, extraordinary ; 2, ordi-
nary : they are here jumbled together ; also 1 Cor. xii. 28, and ver. 8-10.
And the reason is, because the ministry, in respect of the essential things,
is the same now that it was then, 2 Tim. ii. 2 ; therefore God blessed them.
Mat. xxvii. 20, as God blessed all men at first in Adam and Eve. Now, if
we know what gifts are extraordinary, and which are not, by this we shall
know.
1. What ordinary gifts remain, what ordinary necessities are still in the
church. We find gifts of teaching, &c., and governing, and bowels of mercy
still; but no gifts of apostles, evangelists, &c., remain. Miracles, infallibi-
lity, and foretelling things as prophets (so as Agabus was), are ceased ; but
gifts of teaching and feeding remain. Now God continues no gifts in vain.
1. The power of apostles ceaseth. Acts xii. 2 When James was slain,
there was none appointed in his room, but elders were appointed in each
church. Acts xiv. 23. The election of one in Judas his place, was in con-
formity to the patriarchs.
2. Prophets are extraordinary, for so they are ranked. Acts xiii. 1. Paul
and Barnabas were separated: so 1 Cor. xii. 28 ; Agabus, Acts xi. 28, 29,
and Acts xxi. 9-11.
3. Evangelists ; they had their calling not immediate, but from the apostles,
as they from Christ, by laying on of hands. These were to perfect the work
that was begun, and to settle the churches, Titus i. 5, 1 Tim. i. 3 ; nor
were they confined to any place : Titus i. 5, ' In every city,' &c.
3. The ends of these gifts are two. 1. General: Eph. iv. 12, ' For the
perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of
the body of Christ.'
2. More special, ver. 13, 14.
The general ends are three :
1. Conversion, 'rr^og xara^ng/^hv, ' for jointing in the members.' He had
compared, ver. 4, the whole church to a body (as also ver. 16), and every
saint that belongs to that body unto a member, the members of which body
are loosened, cut off, scattered one from another, and from the head, whilst
they remain unconverted to God and separated from Christ. And the fruit
and success of ministers' labour is to bring all these scattered members into
the right place in the body foreordained to them by God. By saints here
he means the elect uncalled, for he speaks of conversion as in distinction
^from growth. Jointing in is bringing in the members to the body, edifica-
tion is building them up, who, because they are chosen to be holy before
him in love, afore the world was, Eph. i. 4, they are by anticipation called
saints, and aforehand entitled by what they shall be, as young great heirs
are styled lords of the places they shall have. They are called also Christ's
sheep, John x. 16. Sheep not yet brought into the fold are termed sheep.
Chap, II.] the churches of Christ. 869
So tbe Connthians, not j^et converted, and so not God's people, 1 Pet. ii. 10,
are termed by election and anticipation * the people of God': Acts xviii. 10,
* I have much people in this oily' yet to be called. Thus the elect of God
in an nge afterwards to come unborn are called our brethren and follow-ser-
vants : Rev. vi. 11, ' And white robes were given unto every one of them ;
and it was said unto them, that they sliould rest yet for a little season, until
their fellow-servants also, and the'r brethren that should be killed as they
were, should be fulfilled.' He speaks to the saints in heaven in one age,
and of a persecution to come in an after age, viz., of the saints to be killed
by the Arian or antichristian persecution, that was long after to come. Thus
also Christ calls his whole body of elect, to whom the benefit of his death
should extend, whether converted or yet to be converted, he cails them the
saints on earth, Ps. xvi. 2, 3, John xii. 19, 20. I pray not for these
apostles alone (snys Christ), but for them that shall believe through their
word, namely, in all ages. And the thing prayed for was, ' Sanctify them
through thy truth.' So then, since the elect, though unconverted, yet by
conversion are made saints, he therefore terms their conversion here the
jointing in of the saints. Take it thus :
1. God had given from everlasting to Jesus Christ as bead, a company of
persons of mankind ordained to make a body to him, and such are their
names and persons represented to him. They were and are in God's nnd
Christ's account viewed as set all together in one, as they shall be at the
last day. But by the fall of man into sin, the members of all this body are
actually and in themselves loosened and dissolved from Christ, and every
joint and member of that body that by foreordination was set in its proper
place, seat, and socket in the body, is now rent and torn from the body,
and one from another, even as the bones of men dead are in a charnel-
house. Now, then, ministers are appointed by God to be in their ministry
tbe means of converting men, and to gather them into one, and to set each
elect saint in his right seat and socket of this body, which, Acts ii. 47, is
called ' adding to the church such as should be saved.' Even as the angels'
ministry at the resurrection shall be to gather the elect from all the four
■winds, such is the work of ministers now. Neither is this spoken of gather-
ing members to a particular church, but is meant of the church universal,
ver. 4, 16.
Use. Hence, then, learn that ministers are to employ their giffs and
ministry for conversion of them without, as well as to build up the saints of
their particular charge. Even pastors and teachers are to mind this, for you
see they are thereunto appointed ; neither can or should any particular
church engross the gifts of their ministers to their own use only: Acts v. 19,
the angel of the Lord that set them at liberty said to them, ' Go, and stand
and speak in the temple to the people all the words of this life ;' to the
people, i. e. the common sort unconverted, and choose out the most public
place wherein to do it, viz., that of the temple, the place where the Jews
met. And Christ used to preach there, John xviii. 20 ; and they were
bidden to preach to them, not such truths only that may serve to build up
the converted, but all the iroids nf this life, that tend to conversion as well as
edification. And they practised accordingly, ver. 42 ; and therefore saints
converted and gathered into a church should not think those truths dead
and dry that tend to convert, to discover to men their natural state, &c., for
they tend to quicken men dead, to enlighten the elect ordained to be saints,
and to joint them into Christ.
Use 2. Learn that ministers are, in a true and proper sense, and for some
VOL. XI. A a
870 THE GOVEENMENT OP [BoOK VII.
ends, ministers to them without as well as to them within. You see here
pastoi'S and teachers are, as such, as well crooj xaraoTKjiih, as for edifying.
The apostles, when they preached to cities unconverted, as Athens, Corinth,
&c., were they not apostles to them, though the people owned them not as
such, nor knew of it ? Yet in the tendency and ordination of their office
they were such to them whenever and wherever they preached, and if they
converted them they were much more so to them. Yea, and when they
preached, the power and presence of God went with them as such, as well
to those that were to be converted, as to those that were converted, to turn
them : 1 Cor. ix. 2, 'If I be not an apostle unto others, yet doubtless I am
to you, for the seal of mine apostleship are ye in the Lord.' And God
owned me, and looked at me as your apostle, when his power accompanied
me as such in turning you to God. Now, what is there said of an apostle
(who was sent to preach in several places) is true of pastors and teachers, in
their circle, sphere, and place where they are called to preach. They preach
as ministers to them without (whether they acknowledge them or not), as
well as to their own flock. And God looking upon them as men set apart
to the gospel, he accompanies them with the blessing of a minister, and
useth them rather than others to convert more generally and more fre-
quently ; and though they have not that obligation for watching, or power to
censure, admonish, &c., yet as to preaching, which is an ordinance of con-
version, they have. Paul as an apostle had not power of censure over those
that were without : 1 Cor. v. 12, * What have I to do to judge them that
are without ?' No, not as an apostle had he such a power ; yet to preach to
them he had, and that as an apostle. And therefore it is neither on the one
hand a right assertion to say that ministers, when they preach to others
than their own church, are therein, and as to them, to be considered but as
private men, gifted brethren, for God considers them as more, and blesseth
them as ministers, and hath as well ordained them as pastors to joint in the
elect, as to build up saints. Neither is it on the other side a true asser-
tion, that because they are ministers in preaching to other congregations
that hear them, that therefore they may challenge power of censure and
excommunication over many congregations. The truth lies in the midst.
2. The other end of the ministry is, as to joint in the persons elect, and
to make the number complete extenaive, so to build up and to be a means of
growth unto them that are within, and so intensive, to increase their graces,
Acts XX. 32. When men are converted, they yet want building up to an
appointed measure (which yet they know not, but God), without which they
should not be saved, no more than if not converted they should not. ' Ex-
cept ye be converted (says Christ), and become as little children, ye shall
not enter into the kingdom of heaven,' Mat. xviii. 3. He speaks to men
converted. Now he hath appointed the word of his grace to bring them to
that measure, as well as to convert ; it is for building up of the body. That
word is added as in distinction from that former ; first, men must be brought
into the body by a xaracr/ff/xoi/, then built up. The natural body, after it
hath all its members formed, then it is nursed. The ministry serves for
both ; the 13th verse tells us that the members are to grow up to a
measure of stature, which is Christ's fulness, Eph. i. 23. Now, unto a
perfection, a fulness of body,
1. There must be a fulness, a completeness of all members or parts, so
as none may be wanting ; and to this serves conversion, to joint in the
members, and for this the ministry is appointed.
2. There must be a fulness of degrees, and proportionable growth. There
must be no writhen member ; and though one be smaller than the other, as
Chap. II.] the churches of christ. 871
the little finger is to the rest, yet it must arrive to its stature, and the sta-
ture of each is appointed by God. And when the whole workmanship
appears, an i all is set together, there is an infinite beauty ; and to cause
them each to grow up, thereto the ministry serves. Or if you will take the
other metaphor of building, as an allusion to a house supposed to be made
up of living stones, as those are : 1 Peter ii. 5. ' Ye also, as lively stones, are
built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to ofi"er up spiritual sacrifices
acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.' As suppose there were an house built
of such stones, having life and growth, as the body of man hath, which being
laid on a foundation, did of themselves grow up into an house, there would
be in such a case, 1, the placing of the stone in the foundation, as in its
proper place ; and, 2, the growth of the stones to such a proportion as should
make a comely building. Now, such an house are the saints : Eph. ii.
20, 21, 'And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets,
Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone ; in whom all the building,
fitly framed together, groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord,' Now then,
conversion is a building us on the foundation, a laying us in the building ;
and growth in grace is our growing up together into that comely structure of
the whole, and both are accomplished by the ministry.
3. The third general end or use of pastors and teachers is ' the work of the
ministry.' This is usually taken as brought in between both, to shew, 1, that
it is a work or calling of labour, hyov, as in 1 Tim. iii. 13 ; and, 2, of ser-
vice, not lordship. But I take it rather as noting out the whole work of their
calling, and the whole work of their ministration, which is the immediate
end of their office, as their duty, and which tends to those two other ends
that follow thereon, through God's blessing thereupon, viz., that men are
converted and edified. And so all particulars of it, as preaching, administra-
tion of sacraments, prayer, are included. Acts vi. 4. And thus it imports
certain works to be performed by them, that make up the proper special
calling of a man set apart to it ; it is diax.ovlag, it is the work of service, as
the word signifies. When James, Paul, and other apostles, style themselves
servants of Christ, they intend it not in that sense wherein all Christians are
servants, but they intend their being as menial household servants, that
have a proper constant work every day assigned them. As ofiicers and
courtiers write themselves servants to the king in a special manner, and not
as other subjects ; therefore a minister is styled by this, as a name more
proper to him, * the servant of God,' 2 Tim. ii. 24 ; ' set apart to this work,'
Gal. i. 16 ; Rom. i. 1, 2, ' an apostle separated;' and therefore, 1 Tim. iii. 2,
he calls the very office a work, because it should be his whole work : ' He
that desires the office of a bishop, desires a worthy work ;' and chap. iv. 15,
* Give thyself wholly to them.' It requires the whole man ; ' let him that ex-
horts, be in exhortation,' &c., Rom. xii. 8. Toms in illo, let him make it
his calling, and meditate on these things, and make them his study. He
must be a scribe instructed. Mat. xiii. 52, that by long use and exercise, and
experience of himself and others, hath a treasure of old coin and of new, a
stock of coin laid up, and an importation of new bullion. Ezra vii. 6, he
was a ready scribe in the law of Moses, which the Lord God of Israel had
given ; and the king granted him all his requests, according to the hand
of the Lord his God upon him. He was a ready scribe, versed in
it ; and, ver. 10, Ezra had prepared his heart, to seek the law of the Lord,
and to do it ; and to teach in Israel statutes and judgments. He prepared
his heart to study it, and to seek out the meaning, and to teach it, and he
did nothing else in comparison ; and, ver. 9, the good hand of God was with
him. You will, ere long, come to find that blessing in men set apart to it,
872 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK VII.
as to a calling, that is not in all the gifts of brethren that occasionally per-
form it.
2. The more especial ends of the ministry arc :
(1.) Positive ; (2.) preventive.
(1.) Positive, the preserving them in, and growing up to the unity, of the
faith, &c. ; (2.) preventive, ver. 14.
[1.] Positive growth in knowledge nnd faith, which is the cause of all other
growth, and which pastors and teachers should take care of: Jer. iii. 15,
' And I will give you pastors according to mine heart, which sball feed you
with knowledge and understanding;' that is, wisdom practical and spiritual.
God hath taken care, and made provision for the instruction of his people in
the faith and knowledge, and set apart men, whose callings should be to
perfect them therein, for which private prophesying is not sufficient. As in
universities and colleges, it is an ample provision, that young students have
not only public acts which themselves perform, and what by private study
and conference they get, but they have tutors and professors set apart, to
make it their employment to read to them. God hath taken the same care,
he would not have his children read to ex tempore ; but they have men that
are as scribes, instructed in the law ; and in a church, pastors and teachers
are as tutors to their understanding and affections, to read constantly, and
on purpose to both these ends, and to improve them in knowledge specially,
which is therefore alone mentioned, because if it be spiritual, it works upon
the affections ; for if you grow in true spiritual knowledge, you will grow in
grace : 2 Peter iii. 18, ' But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our
Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory,' &c. The church is under
age, children, as ver. 13, not yet come to stature. And as great men have
tutors for their children in their travel, to perfect their understandings, and
observe their manners, so hath God betrusted his church in their pilgrimage
with ministers, whose work and calling it is to read to you. God accounts
the training up of his children as great a matter as you do yours, and there-
fore hath not left them to the common care one of another.
[2.] Those words, tintil, &c., Eph. iv. 13, which notes out the duration,
have a double sense : 1. It means, age after age. The church is instructed
more and more in truths, and their judgments by the ministry of all ages are
so cleai'ed, that in the end, through the help of their ministers, all differences
will be ended, and tlsey will have one faith, &c., and be one man, of one
mind. 2. Or it signifies there being one foundation of faith necessary to sal-
vation, even as one body, as ver. 4. And these saints being to come forth
in several ages successively, which ages are to last till the day of judgment,
the use and duration of the ministry is to last and continue until all those
saints in every age come and arrive at this unity of the fundamentals of
faith, and in the true knowledge of the Son of God, which, as necessary to
salvation, God hath orda,ined, so as it shall be found true of all the saints
at the latter day, that they all had the same unity of faith. And the
ministry is to last therefore till this be performed. And truly, if we look
over all stories, we find down all along that God hath performed this pro-
mise in Piome itself, which hath still truth enough to save men, though the
light, indeed, in these latter days in other things is so cleared, that in deny-
ing and gainsaying, they sin against light, and so are lost, though otherwise
they had truth enough to save them. So that this word witll doth not
simply note out that one full lerminus or period of perfection that shall be
at the latter day, and not until then be accomplished. For it cannot well
be judged, how, at the day of judgment and in heaven, there is the unity of
the faith, where faith ceaseth ; but it serves to note out what was to be
Chap. II.] the churches of christ. 373
a-doing all the time along in every age. The emphasis being put upon the
word ail, who, coming in a snccession into the world, the ministry must, as
a means hereof, continue until all come to the same unity. And so the
meaning is, that the ministry is needful, that they all might arrive and be
found to have the same f lith, and to have arrived to that stature here, who,
appearing together at the latter day, make up Christ's fulness. There are
common principles, and foundations of all saints in all ages, as to instance in
that one: 1 Peter i. 1, ' Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ,
to them that have obtained like precious faith with us, through the righteous-
ness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.' There is an unity in the faith,
and that would we have made the standard for liberty of conscience, not to
dispense therein. And we may acknowledge this to the honour of councils
and synods, that this we should have lost, if it had not been for ministers
and councils.
(2.) The ministry is necessary to prevent errors and mischiefs ; to that
purpose ; —
1. He shews the danger of saints without officers : 1, they are as children,
the ordinary sort of them, who are easy to be deceived to take counters for
gold.
2. They are as ships at sea, either riding at anchor, or such whose anchor
is apt to be broken, and they exposed to be tossed in both cases.
1. It they lie at anchor in the main sea, yet if a storm come they are
exposed to the fury of the waves, and to be tossed this way and that way,
and to a being unsteady, not knowing what to hold. This th« word Trswfegf/v
imports, to be carried I'ound about.
Or, 2, if their anchor break, then they are liable to float, and be driven any
way, on rocks, heresies, and the like, and so to make shipwreck of faith and
a good conscience. Do you use to commit the ships you have but mer-
chandise in unto ordinary sailors ? No, but to men specially skilled to pilot
them, to direct them in a storm.
2. He shews the advantage which evil teachers have to do mischief.
1. Many of them are men, which is spoken oppositely to the generiility of
saints, who are but children ; and these as men can wind and cheat children
as they please. There had need therefore be those that are men too, and
men of God, to encounter them, that have their senses exercised to discern
good and evil, as Heb. vi. 13, 14, ' For every one that useth milk is unskilful
in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. But strong meat belongeth
to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their
senses exercised to discern both good and evil.' Such are necessary, who
are able to convince gainsayers, that have depths of knowledge to answer the
depths of Satan.
2. He says they ai*e masters of their art, which is juggling, and easting
false dice, who can cheat, as men at dice and cards. They can pack scrip-
tures, so as they shall appear for their cause ; they have that sleight of hand
as to deceive your eye, £Uid you have need of them that should discover them,
and their juggling tricks, which being once discovered, are the most plain and
easy to be avoided.
3. They are highway- side men that come stealing on you by degrees ; and
then with violent surprise (as having judgment in an ambushment) one opinion
shall draw on another cunningly, till being wound in and encompassed about,
you must needs yield. Now if the use and end of the ministry is to be as a
preservative from, a bank and wall of opposition against these, then whilst
you see such as these deceivers to continue in the church (as in these times
you do, and they have abounded), and perceive the saints still as apt to be
374 THE GOVERNMENT OP [BoOK VII.
deceived, there must needs be acknowledged the remaining and continuance
of this ministry, and the necessity thereof, as there will be to the end of the
world.
Use 1. See and consider the greatness of the benefit and favour of God
vouchsafed in these donations of ministers and officers to his church, which is
discovered, out of the text, iu three things.
1. It is a gift, and precious gift every way ; a gift not for Jehovah only, or
his worship (although in that respect they are said to be a gift from the
Lord, Num. xviii. C), but it is withal added, to you they are given as a gilt.
So here says the apostle, they are gifts to men ; and consider the particulars :
1. The gifts or inward abilities the men have, how rich and precious are
they ! It is a rich treasure, though in earthen vessels. 2. To ordain the
officers suited t* these gifts, the administrations as well as the gifts, these
are from the Lord, 1 Cor. xii., as Num. xviii. 7, ' I have given the priest's
office as a service of gift.' God looks upon the ordination itself as a gift.
3. That he should in his providence to our days, through the virtue of his
ascension, raise up men thus gifted to supply his church withal, this is
more than that covenant made to Noah, that harvest and spring shall
not cease for ever. And, 4, God gives them his Holy Spirit, inclining their
spirits to undertake this service (so contemned in the world) so willingly.
2. They are the gifts bequeathed us at Christ's ascension ; and so they are
bis last gifts, whereby he would express his love, as Elijah at his ascending
let fall his mantle, wherewith a double portion of his spirit went. Yea, they
are the fruits, not only of Christ's ascension, but of his descending also ; and
that must be a matter of infinite moment, for the efiecting which Christ must
take such a journey backward and forward, from heaven to earth, and then to
heaven again.
3. The donative is great in respect of the blessing which God follows all
these with. Indeed, the apostle mentions it not, but citing it, referreth to
all that the psalm speaks of it. Now, Ps. Ixviii. 19, it is there added, he
ascended to give or receive gifts for men, * that he might dwell among them.' ,
It fills up the allusion to an house. "When Christ ascended, he became absent,
going into a far country, but to the end he might visit them with his Spirit
and spiritual presence. He first builds himself an house on earth (' 1 will
build my church,' says Christ), and then he farnisheth it with all sorts of
officers and furniture ; and when it is thus completed, he comes down into it,
and dwells in it, and delights to do so, and he there keeps open house for
all comers. That exhortation, Col. iii. 16, ' Let the word of God dwell richly
in you,' is spoken to them as a church, ver. 15. It is an allusion to God's
keeping house among his saints ; and he loves they should fare richly and
deliciously, and feast all that would come in among them, which is done by
gifts of officers specially. This invites him to come and sup, and dwell with
him, for so it runs, * lie gave or received gifts, that he might dwell.' Not
but that he dwelt in these faints afore, but much more now, when he finds
all his household servants about him to attend him.
4. The donative appears to be great, from the ends thereof, which are every
■way full ; for both exteubivcly they serve to bring into him all his members,
and to make his body complete, and to add to his church such as shall be
saved, and so to bring an honour to God, which consists, as a king's, in the
multitude of his subjects. And it is the church's honour to increase and
multiply, and the means of each person's growth is by what every one
supplies. And intensively these officers and ministers do also serve to build
up and cause to grow to a full stature (as here) every member also, Acts
XX. 82. Paul committed to the word of God's grace to build them up, &c. ;
Chap. III.J the churches of christ. 375
and it is as if he had said, Now you have ministers among you, I make
account you are settled ; you want nothing but building up until you come
to heaven, and for that 1 have seen you provided, and so I leave and commit
you to the word of grace.
CHAPTER III.
The character and duty of a true, faithful minister of the gospel.
For in doing this, thou shalt both save thyself and them that hear thee. —
1 Tim. IV. 16.
These words are the close or conclusion of a set and solemn exhortation
made to Timothy, and in his person to all that are or intend the ministry.
The exhortation itself is continued along from the eleventh verse to this liist
period of it. The matter thereof wholly concerns that part of a minister's
office, preaching or teaching, ver. 11 ; and this in distinction from ruling the
church, of which in the next chapter he treats at large. And the design of
the apostle is to give several directions and instructions to him, how to render
himself a powerful and profitable preacher, unto the salvation of himself and
others, intermixed with stimulations to care and diligence in the observation
of those directions. The directions and instructions are reduced into two
heads, as appears both by the entrance into that part of his discourse, ver.
12, 13, and then again in the conclusion of it in this verse.
1. He directs him to have a special care of his own personal converse :
ver. 12, ' Be thou an example of the believers in word,' or good conference
or discourse, 'in conversation,' or deeds answerable, &c. Christ taught with
authority, and not as the scribes. For they say and do not, says Christ.
2. He directs him to furnish himself with meet abilities for preaching
itself: ver. 13, * Till I come, give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to
doctrine.' Till I come ; as if he should have said. Until when I shall afford
thee other helps by conference, and the like, I think meet to give these in-
structions, which is all I can do by an epistle. Here is, first, the preparatory
part, that he must furnish him with materials, give attendance to reading,
with meditation and study, ver. 15. Now this reading must have an object,
and what that is, Paul's parallel exhortation to the same Timothy resolves
us: 2 Tim. iii. 16, ' All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is pro-
fitable for doctrine.' 2. As for that which is here in one word termed exhor-
tation, there he brancheth it forth into the particulars of it : ' profitable for
reproof, correction, instruction in righteousness ; that the man of God may
be perfect;' as you say he is a perfect artist, a perfect physician, that is
skilled in all these parts of learning requisite to that function ; in anatomy,
in simples, in the nature and symptoms of diseases, and in the cures of them.
And thus he subjoins, explaining himself; and it is exegetical, when he says,
* throughly furnished to every good work,' viz., of the ministry. As in
general he terms it, Eph. iv. 12, ' the work of the ministry,' so here he ex-
presseth his instructions, that to every good work that Timothy should be
furnished, that is, to every business which belongs to that function ; for so
in his intention here it is to be restrained, viz., to such particular work as
doctrine, reproof, &c., which he had mentioned, and whatever else there may
be supposed.
3. We have the executive part, wherein he reduceth the work of preach-
ing to two heads : 1, Exhortation, which we call application, provoking and
stirring men up to practice ; 2, Doctrine, teaching, explaining, confirming
376 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK VII.
divine truths out of the Scriptures in a dogmatienl way. Solomon, speaking
summarily of preaching in the synagogues, which he calls their assemhhes,
which had masters or rulers over them ; or rather (as olhers think) interpre-
ters of sacred Scriptures then written by liimself and others, infallibly guided
by one shepherd, tlius Eccles. xii. 9, 'And moreover, because tlie preacher
was wise, he still taught the people knowledge ; yea, he gave good heed, and
sought out, and set in order many proverbs.' He makes the same division
of the work of preaching : ' The words of the wise,' says he, ' are as goads'
pricking on to holiness ; and as nails, which rivet and fasten truths in men's
minds, or which are as nails to hold up and support lesser chains of truth,
that are consequential from those that are more fundamental, and hang
upon them.
Now Paul's scope is, as to exhort Timothy to a diligence in these two
parts of preaching, so, in his reading the Scriptures, to have these two parts
in his eye and design. And therefore it is he joins these two with that of
reading in one continued speech, because the use he would have him make
of reading should be, still to sort and adjust what materiiilly in Scripture he
found serving unto these two parts of preiicliing, either to strengtlien and
thicken all sorts of exhortation, as there should be occasion, with testimonies
of St-riptures ; or if he were to explain and confirm any truths, to have in
a readiness scriptures to do it by ; that in what he speaks, though out of
never so fresh and full experience, he might not seem to spenk barely as a
man, but should still pi'oduce the Scripture, speaking the same thing, as Paul
tells us that he did : 1 Cor. ix. 8, ' Say I these things as a man ? saith not
the law the same also?' and as you have it, Acts xxvi. 22, ' Saying none
other things than what the prophets and Moses did say should come to pass,'
And the Scriptures are an abuudary for ail sorts of truths and experiences
spiritual ; for exhortations, doctrines, and confirmations of all sorts. And when
a man speaks his own faith and experience, in the very meaning and sense
of the lloly Ghost, it hath power in it; yea, his power to accompany it:
* If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God,' 1 Pet. iv. 11.
4. And again at the fifteenth verse, he calls upon him to meditate on these
things, which speech refers (as Chrysostom says) to the things spoken,
ver. 13 ; and therein (say I) it refers not barely or so much to the precepts
or instructions themselves, as to the things propounded in them, namely,
the Scriptures read by him, that by meditation and study he should search
forth the mind of God in them, and by industry and intention of mind sorb
"what he finds therein unto exhortation and doctrine ; yea, and make this his
calling, sv To-jToic, 'I'aOi, sis iolus in iUis, ' Give thyself wholly to them.' lie
was nut to read or study the Scriptures, as a private Christian is bound to
do (which is his duty and character: Ps. i. 2, ' In the law of God he medi-
tates day and night'), but as one that is to make provision for the comfort,
directi'in, and instruction of others, as one who is to read to the end he
may bo able to teach, exhort, &c. (as was observed). He is to do these
things as a man that is separated to the gospel, Rom. i. 1, who is as a public
steward or provider to a great family, as both Christ and Paul compares the
ministers of the gospel — Christ in Mat. xiii. 52, Paul in 2 Cor. iv. 1. A
minister therefore is to be furnished with a treasure and a stock, as Christ
there speaks and compares it. And it is not his duty to do this for a time,
and then to think himself furnished enough; but he is to continue, to perse-
vere in them. So in this verse, the apostle still carrying these things in his
eye, enjoins him so to continue in this study, as his profiting might appear
to all, ver. 15 ; his profiting in knowledge in the Scriptures : Gal. i. 14, ' I
profited,' says Paul, • in the Jews' religion,' in the knowledge of it, and zeal
Chap. III.] the churches of christ. 377
for it, as well as his profiting in piety. And all this concerns those who, in
their own intentions, have set their hearts upon the ministry as the mark of
their calling, and are in preparation to it, as well as it doth concern those
that actually are in the calling of the ministry.
Now then, consider, that Paul should give these directions and counsels
to Timothy, who had something extraordinary in his call ; it was by prophe-
tical design, 1 Tim. i. 18, the Holy Ghost setting him forth unto it by name,
even as. Acts xiii. 2, you read that Paul and Barnabas were by name at a
fast. And as it should seem, this our Timothy was at a like church meeting
at Ephesus, ver. 14 of this chapter, at which Paul was present, 2 Tim. i. 6 ;
and therefore he may be supposed to have had a participation of gifts extra-
ordinary, which was common in those times. He also had, from a child,
been trained up in the knowledge of the Scriptures, 2 Tim iii. 15, and had
now (when this was wrote), as a preacher, been experienced long in them ;
yet he calls afresh upon Timothy to give attendance to reading, meditation,
or study, and to give himself, together with preaching, wholly unto these
things. What pretence then can there be, either that the ministry, or the
preparation to the ministry, is not now in our days as a calling, Avith labour
and study, as other callings, to be attained ?
There is a generation of men that are against acquired knowledge, or that
which is sought out by study, or received from others, and would have all
infused. Now consider that Timothy had the main and chief of his know-
ledge this way : 2 Tim. iii. 14, ' Continue in the things thou hast learned,
and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them.' He had
learned them of Paul. Paul, indeed, himself had it by revelation : Gal. i. 14,
I indeed (says Panl) had the gospel by revelation, ' I neither received it of
man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ,' which
■was my special privilege. Revelation is there opposed unto two other ways
of knowing divine truth : 1, by tradition, which is receiving it from man, as
most do their religion ; 2, by instruction and teaching, as Paul taught
Timothy ; and this is the way of ordinary Christians and professors, and
hinders not the knowing things by faith or experience. For so Paul there
tells us, that Timothy had been assured of them, and yet taught, and
Timothy was by teaching to propagate them to other teachers : 2 Tim.
ii. 2, ' And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses,
the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others
also.' And this may be had from men's writings, as well as ore touts, by
word of mouth ; witness Paul's both books and parchments : 2 Tim. iv. 13,
* The cloak that I left at Troas with Carpus, when thou comest, bring with
thee, and the books, but especially the parchments.' Books were those of
other men's writings, and parchments his own (which he therefore put a mark
especially upon), his own exccrpta, or notes gathered out of others ; or,
because, if he had a revelation, he might forget it, he had therefore his
memorials in writing. Yea, that word -rhv <pi\wr,v (which we translate cloak),
as Estius and others say, was a case for books, Ubroiwn rejio.siloriiiin, from
f £aXo:, wh'ch signifies a book, or the bark of trees on which then books were
wiitten. Daniel also, though a prophet, understood by books the period of
the captivity : Dan. ix. 2, ' I Duniel understood by books the number of tho
years whereof the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet.' Jere-
miah had the prophecy by revelation ; but the accomplishment Daniel under-
stood by record, and so set himself to fast; and God recompensed his
diligence in the search of this with a revelation of a more happy period, the
coming of Christ in the flesh, at the close of that day's last. And what says
our Saviour Christ also? Mat. xiii. 62, 'Every scribe which is instructed
378 THK GOVERNMENT OP [BoOK VII.
unto the kingdom of heaven is like a man that is an householder, which
bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old.' 1. He speaks of
ministers of the New Testament, who are instructed or furnished for the
kingdom of heaven ; and yet, 2, he gives them the same title which they
bad under the Old, viz. scribes. For in this respect their calling and work
is much alike, as also the means of attaining knowledge: Mat. xxiii. 34, ' I
send unto you prophets, wise men, and scribes,' says Christ, speaking of the
preaching of the gospel. Of Ezra it is said, Ezra vii. 6, ' He was a ready
scribe in the law of Moses, which the Lord had given.' Ready; some read it
dilif/ent, as that which had made him ready ; so you have it Prov. xxii. 29,
' a man dligent in his business.' And, Ezra vii. 10, it was added, that ' Ezra
had prepared his heart to seek the law of the Lord ;' that is, had set him-
self with all his might to find out the meaning of it, and to do it, and to
teach in Israel statutes and judgments. 3. Christ in that text. Mat. xiii. 52,
means, that they are to be iurnished vv'ith a store and treasure of knowledge,
laid up aforehand, and ready at hand ; and, 4, that they should have the
knowledge of former ages, and so bring forth things eld as well as new truths
observed in present times. And therefore decreta 2)>'udentum, the decrees
and interpretations of other ages and persons, are to be consulted. For
though Christ hath promised, that whatever secret is in the Scriptures shall
be uttered and known openly, and upon the house tops, Mark iv. 21, 22, yet
his promise is not, that every one shall be in any one age only ; but he doth
this successively, and in one age one secret is discovered, that was not afore.
One age sows, and another reaps, John iv. 36, 37, and day instructs night,
and night day, Ps. xix. Which passages in that psalm, the apostle interprets
of the teachings and writings of apostles and ministers, that go forth into all
the world, Rom. x. 18. The darkest night in popery, as it received and re-
tained much light from Augustine, whose writings preserved the foundations
of the Piomish church, and his light as the day of the primitive times, hath
transmitted and taught us, in this day of the gospel, many truths which
otherwise we should have been to seek in. And answerably, the apostle,
Eph. iv., tells us, that from the lime of Christ's ascension, pastors and
teachers should teach the whole universal church to come, to the end of the
world, ver. 13, which could not be, did not the ministry of one age afford
and traduce down light unto another. Truths are Christ's current money,
for one age as well as another ; and some of them are stamped in one king's
reign, others in another. If we should have had no more silver in this king-
dom than what was brought in our age, how poor should we be ! That is
revealed to one, that is not to another ; it was so even in those times when
knowledge by revelation was most frequent, 1 Cor. xiv. 30. And how doth
the apostle take such men up ? ' What ! ' says he, ' came the word of God
out from you ? or came it only to you ?' ver. 36, as if he should have said,
God hath taught other ages and churches as well as you. And you cannot
say of any one. We have no need of you; that is, of your light or help, 1 Cor.
xii., the apostle to another though hke purpose infers.
Whereas some men are for preaching only extempore, and without study,
Paul bids Timothy meditate and study, and give his mind wholly to these
things. Even in writing some scriptures, the penmen, though guided in-
fallibly by the Holy Ghost, yet used study, and meditation, and art in the
contriving of them. That psalm of psalms, Ps. xlv., that song of songs
about Christ's kingdom, is an evidence of this ; it was a poem, and of all
other the master-piece, and the first rude draught of that song of songs
which Solomon after wrote, and the very epitome of it. Now what is his
preface to it ? ' My heart is boiling up a good matter,' ver. 1 (so in your
Chap. III.] the churches of chbist. 379
margins) ; it was boiled in his thoughts (as the meat-offering in the law with
oil, Lev. vii, 9), and so it was prepared by study to be offered up to God.
' I speak the things which I have made touching the King,' says the psalmist,
Ps. xlv. 1, i.e. I speak my works to the King. He calls it, as men do their
writings, his works ; and dedicates it, as men do works, to the King. And
again, Solomon, that wrote the Canticles and Ecclesiastes, professelh that in
teaching the people he gave good heed, and sought out and set in order
many proverbs ; he weighed things as in scales, as some read it, sought them
out, and set them in order ; yea, and he sought to find out words that might
take, Eccles. xii. 9, 10. All which imports that it did cost study.
Yea, it' it be considered, these men who decry learning and study, yet do
not themselves keep to this their law ; for that sound knowledge which they
have or retain hath been from the ministry of this age, which hath diffused
it, and lighted the whole house ; and jei unthankfuUy they set up against
them with that light they have had by retail from them. Neither can they
be said to preach extempore, or what is at that present revealed, for they
preach those things which their thoughts and speeches have been exercised
in before. So as ordinarily the extemporariness is in respect of memory,
for it is what comes to their memories of notions again and again meditated
upon. The Holy Ghost may be supposed to bring to remembrance things
before considered in study and meditation, or reading, in order to doctrine
and exhortation in public. And that place of Christ's, Luke xxi. 14,
' Meditate not aforehand what to say,' is spoken in case of persecution, ver.
12, and of being brought to the bar ; which is in an extraordinary season,
and so hath usually extraordinary assistance. It is not spoken of ordinary
sermons in the pulpit. And again, the}'^ were ordinarily taken on the sudden,
and haled away to answer presently, as Christ himself was, and so could
not premeditate. To comfort them, therefore, he gives forth that promise.
And again, it excludes not premeditation, for the Christians studied, and
studied apologies ; but it is spoken against anxiety and solicitude that way,
and to provoke them rather to a dependency on the Spirit to help them,
though they had prepared never so much.
I shall only close this with the very conclusion of Solomon's Ecclesiastes,
which hath an admonition in it full of weight: Eccles. xii. 12, 'And further,
by these, my son, be admonished : of making many books there is no end ;
and much study is a weariness of the flesh.' Concerning the scope and
coherence of this, I observe, 1, that he having commended the writings of
sacred Scriptures (wrote by himself and the prophets inspired by God imme-
diately) unto every man's study and search, he gives a caveat and an admo-
nition concerning reading and studying too many other books. Those
words, ' and further, by these be admonished,' seems to import only a
superadded admonition; as we use to say, over and above, and, in fine, take
this admonition. Others read it thus, magis, or potius ex his admonitus ;
that is, rather seek knowledge and instruction ex his, out of these books,
than others that are of men's writings, and foreign to a Christian. Exercise
thyself in the study of the Scriptures, and what doth best serve to open and
explain them. Others (which comes all to one) paraphrase it thus, anipliiis
his, cave quceras, take heed of seeking too inordinately other knowledge than
what is in these, or than that tendeth to explain these. Or if you will have
my mind, says Solomon, more plainly, take heed of making or reading many
other books ; for there is no end, no satisfaction in them. And besides,
much study is wearisome to the flesh, and preys upon the best of the spirits.
I observe he doth not altogether condemn reading other books, or making of
them, only preferring others to these, or not counting these most excellent ;
8S0 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK VII.
and, 2, he condemns reading too-many ; and, 3, he finds fault with it when
it tends to decay of health anil spirits. And this is to be reckoned aaioug
thepe vanities which he had cried down as vnin, and not simply unlawful, as
gardens, orchards, &c., are not. 2. He did this in his times, when the holy
Scriptures were but few in comparison of that access which we have had
since ; for David had but Moses's law, jet you see how he studied it day
and night. 3. He propounds, in the coherence of these words with the
former, his own example, as he had done in other things throughout this
book. He was a writer and reader of many books, perhaps the greatest in
the world ; and many of them were not scriptures, but of other things, and
he found it vanity, as he had found the rest. It had took up too much of
his time, and had shortened his days. And therefore (says he) I commend
to you rather my sacred writings, than all the other books of mine or others
in the world. And indeed, the holy Scriptures wrote by him only have
remained, when the other are lost. Yea, 4, by the next words, ' Fear God,
and keep his commandments,' he would insinuate that even study had took
up too much of the man from piety and keeping up communion with God.
Therefore so we should study, as that the whole and main of our souls may
be in the worship of God, and doing his will, which these books teach you,
says he, and none other. And last of all, I observe it is his last admonition,
and he reserved it to bring it in last. For, 1, learning is of all other the
best vanity this world hath. ' Wisdom,' says he, * is better than folly,' and
60 is apter to draw the heart away from God and his holy Scriptures ; and
yet even this is a vanity, says Solomon, as well as the rest. He had before
concluded in general, and made an end of reckoning up any more vanities
(ver. 8, vanity of vanities, all is vanity, says the preacher), only as having
forgotten one as necessary to be mentioned as any other, he brings it in with
aj'uitliirmnre (as our translators read it) ; as if he had said, Last of all, I give
you this admonition, to the end it may the more stick with you, ' Further,
my son, be admonished.' And he doth it, as you have heard, upon occasion
of commending the Scripture too, as alone sufficient to make one wise in the
fear of God; and all this is done to make the admonition more weighty and
solemn.
CHAPTER IV.
Of the mini.'iter''s maintenance. — Of the riijht and tenure hy u-hich he hath a
claim to it. — 0/ the ways and means by ivhick it is to be settled and raised.
In discoursing of the maintenance which is due to a minister of the gospel,
we must first consider upon what a tenure he holds his right to it, and that
consideration will guide us to find out by what rule this maintenance is to be
proportioned.
1. The ministers of Christ, under the New Testament, hold their tenure
of right to a due maintenance by virtue of the laws of common justice, as
are practised between men and men in like affairs. By the same right on
which all other stipends of places, offices, and callings in kingdoms or
cominonwealths are founded, these sacred officers may challencte a mainte-
nance due and proper for them. As both civil and military offices, as that
of a captain in war, or of a judge, chancellor, &c., have a stipend from the
state, proportioned according to the rules of common justice current among
men, so a m'nister ought to have a maintenance from the church by the
same rule of justice, suited to the dignity and labour of his place and calling.
Chap. IV.] the churches of christ. 381
The stipends of oflBces in human governments are measured out by these
rules :
1. The dignity of the place is considered, and due provision is made, that
the person may have an allowance sufficient to uphold the honour of his
function.
2. The expenses of the office are also rated, that the person may be fur-
nished to discharge all that his being in such a plnce requires.
3. The hazard which he may undergo in his office comes also into con-
sideration.
4. The labour and pains of the places and calling are weighed, and a due
consideration had of them.
5. The breeding and education of the persons before they can be fitted for
such an office is also put into the balance.
6. An account is made how beneficial and useful a person in such an
office is to the government.
All these things, in all sorts of offices, are valued among men by the
common rate that justice current among men doth put upon them. And all
these considerations, so far as they are found in this sacred office of the
ministry (as they are all), are by that standard of common justice, and cus-
toms of men in like callings, to be regarded, and this office is to have its
stipend answerably proportioned. Now that this calling bolds upon these
tenures of common justice is evident, because the pleas used in the New
Testament for the maintenance of Christ's ministers are founded upon this
claim, and this right and tenures are pleaded therein.
1. Let us consider the text : 1 Cor. ix. 7-14, * Who goeth a warfare any
time at his own charges? who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of tbe
fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock?
Say I these things as a man ? or saith not the law the same also ? For it
is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox
that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen? Or saith he it
altogether for our sakes ? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written : that he
that plougheth should plough in hope; and he that thrashefh in hope should
be partaker of his hope. If we have sown unto you spiritual things, is it a
great thing if we should reap your carnal things? If others be partakers of
this power over you, are not we rather? Nevertheless we have not used
this power; but suffer all things, lest we should hinder the gof-pel of Christ.
Do ye not know, that they which minister about holy things live of the things
of the temple ? and they which wait at the altar are partakers with the altar?
Even so hath the Lord ordained, that they which preach the goppel should
live of the gospel.' Mark the instances which he brings : 1, of soldiers, and
their places in war ; 2, of planters of a vineyard ; 3, of a shepherd. And he
adds this expression, ' Say I these things as a man?' He insists on the
examples and customs of men in the like cases, the same common rules of
justice holding in this case as there. And (as Parens observes) he also pleads
all sorts of titles of justice which serve to strengthen the fundamental title :
1, he mentions the customs of men in like callings, as in that of soldiers, &c. ;
2, he takes notice what natural justice it is, to plough and sow in hope of
a crop, and to reap in hope of eating the fruits of the labour ; 3, he remarks
the moral equity of the judicial law, which forbids to muzzle the mouth of
the ox which treadeth out the corn ; and though it would be lawful to do
so under the gospel, yet God thereby taught a rule of common justice to be
observed among all callings of men (for this was not a typo). And this among
other things God taught by it, that in justice a reward is due to a labourer,
since it is so to a beast ; and the apostle herein pleads the justice, not the
382 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK VII
type of the thing. 4. The apostle considers the eqnallty of commntative
justice, and what the laws of exchange require, that value should be given for
value, ver. 11 ; and though indeed he doth not say our spiritual tliinr/s, as he
says your carnal, yet he plainly expresseth that it is we who sow them. He
in justice requires only parva jyro magnis, smaU things for great ; for the fruits
and benefits of this calling are to be considered, which exceed in proportion
all carnal things whatever. 5. The apostle takes notice of the equity of the
ceremonial law, ver. 13, 14.
2. The other text of Scripture to be considered is 1 Tim. v. 17, 18, 'Let
the eldei's that rule well be counted worthy of double honour, especially they
who labour in the word and doctrine. For the scripture saith. Thou shalt
not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn ; and. The labourer is worthy
of his reward.' 1. He speaks of honour to be paid to them. Now, honour
was a due as well as tribute, which was exacted, Rom. xiii. 7 ; and it was
due in justice. 2. He tells us that the labourer is worthy of his hire ; every
word which he useth expresseth matter of justice: 1. Labourer; this shews
that to the work injustice the reward is to be proportioned, Rom. iv. 4.
2. The apostle expresseth a worthiness of his work, that it deserves a valu-
able consideration, that a labourer is worthy of his hire. 3. The apostle
mentions hire, whereby he intends a covenanted reward, such as is set by
mutual agreement; so /x/a^oj signifies. 4. The words are roD /i/ffJou ahroZ, of
his hire, i.e. which he in justice may call his.
8. This was also the first institution of Christ : Mat. x. 9, 10, ' Provide
neither gold nor silver, nor brass in your purses, nor scrip for your journey ;
neither two coats, neither shoes, nor yet staves ; for the workman is worthy
of his meat.' And to this institution of Christ the apostle plainly refers in
both these fore-cited texts, 1 Cor. ix., 1 Tim. v. From all this there flows
these corollaries.
1. In the estimate of Christ in his institutions, there is a great difference
between the duty of relieving the necessities of our poor brethren, and this
duty of maintaining the ministers of the gospel. For though the relief of
the poor be an act of spiritual justice, into which, by spiritual obligations
in relation to God and Christ, we are bound, yet the maintenance of ministers
is farther due by the rules of all human common justice that are found among
men ; so as rules of human justice exact it, and rules of human justice pro-
portion it according to the desert and merit of the thing. But the poor have
not power to claim relief by such a title, for their tenure is merely from the
obligation which the gospel lays upon us. I find indeed a collection for the
saints at Jerusalem to be called a debt, Rom. xv. 27 ; but it was a peculiar
case, for from this church of Jerusalem came the word of the gospel, and the
blessings of spiritual things to the Romans and other Gentiles ; but this word
did not come so from Corinth, 2 Cor. xiv. 3G, or any other church. And
again, all communication of benefits to the poor is matter of mere service to
God, 2 Cor. ix, 12 ; nay, it is called acts of grace, 2 Cor. viii. 19. But this
is not merely so, for it is both a gift and a sacrifice. And then besides, the
object of this communication to the poor is a certain condition of men, which
wisdom must discern and judge of, and proportion succours accordingly; but
the object of this act of ministers' maintenance is a settled calling and labour
of men, in rewarding which justice must be shewn. The rule of measuring
out collections for the poor is as God hath blessed men, 1 Cor. xvi. 2. And
that instance is only concerning such a collection ; but now in all cases and
respects, as the labourer is worthy of his hire, so a minister deserves a due
subsistence.
2. If the maintenance of a minister is thus to be regulated by the common
Chap. IV.] the churches of christ. 383
rules of justice in use and custom, and which are found in like cases, then it
is also to be rated according to these considerations to which a regard is had
in all like callings. 1. It is to be considered that honour is due to ministers
on account of the dignity of their office and work : 1 Tim. v. 17, ' Let the
elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honour, especially they who
labour in word and doctrine.' 2. The necessary charges of their office are to
be considered, for by it they are bound to be charitable and hospitable unto
others. 3. The hazard to which by their calling they are exposed, is to be
had in consideration. As it is a spiritual warfare, so as soldiers who stand
in the forefront of the battle are most open to wounds or death, so ministers
in times of persecution are most obnoxious to danger. 4. The labour of their
calling is considerable : it is inward especially, 1 Tim. v. 17 ; it ;s the labour
of the mind, which spends the best spirits and preys on the vitals, and there-
fore it is the greatest labour of all other. 5. Their education and breeding
for this calling is long and expensive, and men's pensions in other places and
callings are valued in the consideration of what is requisite to them. 6. The
more and greater benefits any c;illing brings, the more it is prized and valued.
If ministers bring in spiritual blessings to you (as they do), it is but equal
that they should partake in those carnal blessings which you enjoy. We may
in justice plead all these considerations, and require as good and equal justice
as is found to be distributed with respect to any other the like caUings among
men. The rule of justice is not what the custom of men is to give to ministers,
but it is to be taken from the measures of proportion which men observe in
respect to other callings, which have the fore- mentioned resemblances to this
of the ministry.
3. The party himself who is this sacred officer of Christ, hath a right and
power to set a value on the merits of his office, as well as the people who are
the other party ; in all like callings it is so. Therefore neither the deacon
nor the people can oblige the minister to accept what proportion of allowance
they please to set him ; but he himself hath a right and power to plead for
and claim a just, valuable stipend, and accordingly to rate what his office
deserves. It is not left therefore to the wisdom of either the deacons or the
people to adjust the value of it. Therefore the apostle in reference to this
maketh use of the word s^ouaia, which implies not only poirer, but aiUhoritij.
He useth the word three or four times on this occasion, 1 Cor. ix. 4-G ; and
he expresseth a right, a title, and dominion which he had over them in this
respect, 1 Cor, ix. 12 ; whereby it is plainly asserted that the people have
not a power over the minister, to oblige him to take whatever they are pleased
to give, but that he hath authority to claim what is justly due to his callincr.
For not only apostles had this power here spoken of, ver. 12, but ordinary
officers ; for his words are, ' If others be partakers of this power over you,'
and by others he means ordinary ministers ; for the false apostles preached
gratis, not requiring any consideration.
4. Unless there were something peculiar found in this calling of the ministry
which is not to be found in any calling else, unless there were found some
gospel duty obliging and requiring ministers to forego their right (which in
justice is to be insisted on by them) and to give themselves up to the free
arbitrary discretion of the church and her deacons, or unless there were some
certain proportion set by God under the New Testament as there was under
the Old, a mutual covenant between minister and people is the best and most
effectual course to adjust this affair. This is evident from the instances of
which the apostle makes use, 1 Cor. ix. 7. Unto a labourer in a vineyard
a set penny is due. Mat. xx. 2 ; soldiers also have their fixed pay. The
word used by the apostle, which is 6-^uvioig, signifies a soldier's stipend, as
381 THE GOVERNMENT OP [BoOK YII.
Beza observes. And when the apostle says, 1 Tim. v. 18, that the labourer
is worthy of his hire, that which he is worthy of is called his hire. The
word /i/(rc)f;5 signifies merces pacta, a reward fixed by mutual agreement, and
therefore they were not to stand to the courtesy of those who were to give
it them. Nor doth the apostle use this expression as a proverb only, but as
a rule which is to be observed. What is said, James v. 4, of the hire of the
labourers, hath respect to Dent. xxiv. 15. The instance of shepherds also
hath a regard to what was the usage in Laban's time, when great men had
others under them to look after their flocks, and agreed to reward them for
their labour by giving them some of the sheep which they kept. Gen. xxx. 31.
And to this custom the apostle alludes when he says, ' Who feedeth a flock,'
&c. From all this it necessarily follows that the minister's stipend is not
to be left to arbitrary determinations ; but as the minister and the church
which calls him are joined together by a mutual covenant, so his stipend is
to be settled by a like covenant, according to the dictates of nature's
equallestrule. By this way all complaints will be avoided, all things will be
preserved in peace between all parties, whether people or officers, and the
one will be tied to the other most fastly by their own cords. I shall now ex-
amine what is pleaded for leaving the minister's maintenance unto the free
and voluntary contribution of the people. 1. Any instances out of the Old
Testament to this purpose do not seem to be convincing. What is moral
indeed in them holds, and accordingly the apostle brings them, not to be
measures of proportioning a maintenance for ministers in like manner, but he
only refers to the moral justice of them ; that as the Levites lived wholly on the
altar, so it was but just that ministers should live wholly on the gospel, i. e.
that they should not live on their own charges, but on what they have for
preaching the gospel, that they should not live on their own means, but upon
that which comes in by the gospel, 1 Cor. ix. 13, 14. Bat the particle .so doth
not mean that they should live after the same way and manner, but only that
there was justice and equity for one as well as the other. And so our Lord
Jesus Christ ordained. Mat. x. 9, 10, so that according to that common rule
of justice, ' the labourer is worthy,' &c., Christ formed his institution with
respect to the ministry of the gospel. They were indeed extraordinary dis-
ciples, and therefore what he says to them as such, Mat. x. 8, is not a rule of
perpetual obligation, but he afterward alters this rule with respect to ordinary
ministers, in saying that ' the workman is worthy of his meat,' Mat. x. JO ;
and he adds these further, Luke x. 7, 8. Thus as Christ in Mat. xviii.
ordains the institution of a church, so here he ordains a rule for the main-
tenance of ministers. But to answer any objections that may be brought
from instances under the Old Testament, it is to be considered that there is
not the same way now for the maintenance of the ministers of God as there
was then, but there are many differences between one and the other. 1. The
Levites then were a tribe set apart from their birth by God himself, and
accordingly God says that he would be their portion, Num. xviii. 20. All
these dues therefore which the people paid to them were first paid to God,
and he gave them to the Levites, so that they held them not by any law of
human justice, but by tenure from God ; for as these dues were paid to God,
so he gave them unto them. But maintenance is due in justice to ministers
as they are labourers, by the same rule which Christ gives, that the labourer
is worthy of his hire ; and yet too because ministers are an ordinance of God,
and they serve to the worship of God ; therefore offerings made to them are
sacrifices to God, and thus they are a gift also as well as a due. But yet
so as the first object to whom the due is paid is the minister, not God,
though they communicate to him for God's sake, Gal. vi. 6 ; i. e. that you
Chap. IV.] the churches of christ. 385
may have an ordinance to serve to God's worship, be sure to maintain it ; and
therefore this giving to a minister is called sowing to the spirit, when all other
expenses are called sowing to the flesh, Gal. vi. 8. 2. This chief maintenance
of the Levites under the law was not left to the freedom of the givers, nor
did God trust men to assign the proportions of their maintenance, but he did
it himself, since he appointed not only free offerings but tithes. There was
a portion set for them, and a fifth part of every man's estate went one
way or other for the maintenance of the Levites. To leave all therefore only
to free offerings now, and to cut off set stipends or tithes, is to put us minis-
ters into a worse condition than the Levites were. And surely God hath not
bound us to these hard terms. What pecuHar bond hath God laid upon us
more than upon men in any other callings, that we, who have both the faith
of ordinary men, and the spirits and necessities of men, should yet depend
merely on free-will offerings ? I am sure, as this answers not our type, so
neither doth it take in the rules of justice whereon a minister's maintenance
is founded. 3. The minister's maintenance is not left to the wisdom of the
deacon ; for the distribution of the free-will offerings of the people among the
priests was by rules of justice, and according to equality of proportion, respect
and measure being had to their labours, 2 Chron. xxxi. 15, IG. And now
then, to make us wholly to depend on the people's free-will offerings, and
that the deacon should dispense them according to his wisdom, would be
to make our condition worse than that of the Levites was then, who had
treasurers that were faithful to their charge, Neh. xiii. 12, 13. 4. It was
necessary in those times that some should distribute the church's treasure,
because the tithes that were needful for the services of the temple were brought
into a common bank, and therefore it was necessary that some should be
ordained to distribute it. There was a necessity of doing it, and it was not
left to discretion. So here now in the times of the gospel the same ground
holds still, that so far as anything comes in by common collection for a par-
ticular use, the deacons ought accordingly to gather it for such a use, and as
the church's hands, to convey and distribute it. This office, mentioned in
that fore-cited text, was matter of needful order, not of type or significancy
only, as many things were in the ceremonial law, which, the reason of them
ceasing, the use of them is abolished. For (as Zepperus says) Ratio legis
si cesset ipsa lex cessaty non secus atque animd CAyirante, homo moritar ; ratio
eiiim anivia legis esse dicitiir : if the reason of the law ceaseth, the law
itself ceaseth, as the soul expiring^ the man dies ; for reason is said to be the
Boul of the law.
Nor doth any place or argument out of the New Testament evince anything
contrary to my foregoing assertions. There is mention indeed of sacrifices
to God, Heb. xiii. 16 ; but yet it is a question whether ministers' maintenance
be spoken of there, or if it is, it hath that name because it is a maintenance
given to uphold God's worship. And yet still it is given by way of human
justice to the minister, who is the person which performs that worship. It
is not given first to the Lord, and then to the minister or church, but to the
minister for the Lord's sake, and so it is an honouring God with our sub-
stance, and a sowing to the Spirit, and to spiritual ends ; for though it be
given to God first, yet that is not inconsistent with its being given to the
minister, but both may stand together, and it is still a debt in human justice
to the person, the officer. Paul calls it a gift, Philip, iv. 16, 17. But this
doth not import that he had no power to claim it, or that it was not due to
him, but he calls their offerings made to him a gift comparatively to the
omission of other churches, who, owing the same duty, yet had not done it.
VOL. XI. B b
886 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK VII.
Or he calls it a gift with respect to their free doing it ; and I think the nature
of the thing hath a mixture both of debt and of a gift ; and as the way of
saving us., in the gospel, is compounded both of mercy and justice, so this
maintenance of a minister is an act of justice and free love too, yet so as that
the free love of the persons, both in the contribution and distribution of it,
must come up to the rules of justice ; and we ourselves may claim it, and set
the due rate and value on it, and fix its right proportion : ' Have we not
power,' &c., 1 Cor. ix. 6-8, 2 Thes. iii. 8, 9, Thus to give to the main-
tenance of a minister is a mixed duty, for the apostle gives the rules and
urgeth the grounds and reasons both of common justice and also of love.
He urgeth the gospel consideration, that it is a sacrifice to God, and a sowing
to the Spirit, Heb. xiii. 16, Philip, iv. 17, 18. And so he calls it likewise a
sowing to the Spirit, Gal. vi. 6-8. And yet likewise he asserts a power to
claim it as a due, 2 Thes. iii. 8, 9. He urgeth both arguments, that if gospel
considerations did not move them, the plain reasons of common justice might
prevail, that they might consider the just right and claim that ministers
have to it, and might be influenced thereby. ' Have I not power ?' &c., says
he. He urgeth the duty upon them from the rules of common justice. We
are called by men, and if we are not justly dealt with by them, we have power
to leave them. The apostle's ease was otherwise, who was called by God,
and so was to trust God for means of livelihood, and to work with his hands,
and on all accounts whatever to preach the gospel, 1 Cor. ix. 16. 2. The
contribution of maintenance to a minister is left free, and it is fit it should
be so, 1, that it may be an exercise of grace in the people, and an ofi'ering
of sacrifice to Grod. And such a freedom agrees with the genius of the
gospel, and is suited to the nature of its services, which requires a willing
people. 2. This act is left to the freedom of the people, that they may have
an opportunity of exercising their love, to the increase of the grace of love in
them. Whilst the minister enlargeth their hearts, they stretch their purses for
him. 3. Hereby ministers avoid the reproach of preaching for lucre ; hereby
the calling of the ministry becomes more honourable in the eyes of men, when
they see that it is not mercenary, and that a minister hath not set fees as
others have. The performance of this act is left to the liberality of the
people, that they might have an opportunity of sowing more plentifully to
the Spirit, Gal. vi., even as men, when they would have more, they use to
leave it to t)he liberty of the giver. 6. It is free, that the duty might come
under a more transcendent rule than that of mere justice, though still the
act is to be regulated by justice. Thus, that children should maintain their
parents when poor, is a duty which nature and justice requires, and the relief
and supplies should be in proportion to their abilities ; yet justice ordinarily
sets not the rate and proportion, because the duty is also farther an act of
piety, and so left to the good nature and disposition of the person, 1 Tim.
V. 4, 7. In this diaty you are yet to have a distinct view of justice in your
eye. You must pay it in a just proportion, not only to the necessities of your
officers, but suitably to the dignity of their place, and the greatness of their
labour. Though you are free in communicating it, j^et a law of common
justice must run along in the distribution ; for if it be due by rules of justice,
the proportion in distribution is to be regulated by justice, for the proportion
is just as well as the thing. As the maintenance is due to the minister, so
you ought to give so much or so much, as by rules of justice his ofiice and
work are valuable, so that what you should give, as to the proportion of it, is
not left to your wisdom, or the discretion of your spirits, but must go by a
just rule. A double maintenance therefore is due to elders that labour in the
word, on account of the honour of their place, as the priests had more than the
Chap. IV.J the ohukches of christ. 387
Levites, and the proportion still must be with respect to the labour, Gal. vi. 6.
He speaks of proportioning out what they gave to teacher as well as pastor,
and to one teacher as well as to another, by a rule of justice. Thus, though
Paul less needed maintenance than Peter, who was married, and the apostle
could and did earn his living, yet, he says, he had as much power to exact
the same stipend in justice that Peter had, 1 Cor. ix. 4, 5. Paul's meaning
is, not that he would marry, on purpose to shew that he had the power to
put the church to more charges ; but his intent is to shew that, though
single and unmarried, he had power to require what might maintain a wife,
for he had the same right to the thing as Peter had. And suppose Paul
could live without it, yet his right and claim to it was not lessened thereby,
for * no soldier goes to war at his own charges.' His design, then, was not
to tell them of his being in a single condition, but to urge to them the
dignity of his place, and to lay before them the merits of it, and to remind
them of the good which he had done them, and what he had deserved at
their hands, and to draw up an account of his labours, as a thing in justice,
which they ought to respect in proportioning a maintenance accordingly; and
to convince them, that if they did it for other ordinary officers, they ought
rather to do it for him : 1 Cor. ix. 11, 12, ' If others have this power,' &c.
So that he measures it by justice ; and though he had no wife, and so had
not the same urgent necessities of a family as others had, yet he had a power
to require the maintenance that was due to his office and work, and might
exact the same which others did, whatever his condition was, 1 Cor. ix. 6.
So that it is not only the necessities of the minister's condition that is the
rule by which his maintenance is to be measured and proportioned, but the
rule of justice takes place here also as a rule of proportion, and it is to be
considered what his office and labour deserves. The measure of the main-
tenance is not therefore to be varied by men's necessities. No ; the main-
tenance of the minister is not thus to be determined by the wisdom of the
people, but they are to be regulated by a rule of justice in this case, and
the calling, the work, and the benefit are to be considered by them, as these
things are considered in all callings else. Let us take but the instance which
the apostle gives, 1 Cor. ix. 7 ; what soldier ever was there, though he had
a great estate, who would not require his pay, and when he ventures his life
for the public good, expect to live upon the public charge ? And the apostle
tells us it is but just that ministers should live of the gospel, 1 Cor. ix. 14.
They may, if they please, generously remit and forego their right, as Paul
did, and perhaps, in some cases, it may be their duty to do it ; but this, their
right, is no more subjected to any man's discretion to determine concerning
it, than their estate in the world, whether personal or real, is. For after
that rate, a minister who hath worldly means might be obliged to give more
than other men, and yet, besides, to labour for nothing ; but yet still, a
minister may, upon evangelical ground and reasons, forego his right, as Paul
did. Now, the proper way and means of raising a due and competent main-
tenance for a minister is next to be considered, and I shall deliver my
thoughts about it in a few words.
1. There ought to be set means of a competent maintenance established by
mutual covenant and agreement, that the pastor and the people may be
mutually engaged. And this will take place in a way of justice.
2. There ought, likewise, to be an enlargement of his maintenance by free-
will offerings. This is a natural way, and since the apostle urgeth this duty,
both from reasons of nature and justice, 1 Cor. ix. 7-12, why should not
both of them be observed ? Both these ways of maintenance were appointed
for the Levites, who, as they had cities for their settled inheritance, and
388 THE GOVERNMENT OP [BoOK YII.
fixed tithes, so they had free-will offerings from the people. And indeed,
these two methods joined together are advantageous to both parties, for as
the first secures a certainty of maintenance for the minister, so the other
makes him to have a dependence on the love and afi'ections of the people ;
and as by the one provision is made that the minister may have no cause to
complain, so by the other opportunity is given to the people of exercising
their graces, and of shewing their love and thankfulness.
CHAPTER V.
Whether the sacrament of the Lord's supper ought to be administered on every
Lord's day.
Acts ii. 42, 'And they continued stedfastJy in the apostles' doctrine and fellow-
ship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers,' compared with chap. xx. 7,
'And upon the first day of the tveek, uhen the disciples came together to break
bread, Paid preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow, and con-
tinued his speech until midnight.'
I will now but open the words so far as to give a hint to that point which
I mean to discourse of out of them ; which is this, whether the Lord's sup-
per be to be administered every Lord's day, for which these places use to
be alleged.
When Christ ascended, he bid his disciples teach those whom they con-
verted to do whatsoever they commanded them. Mat. xxviii. 20 Now this
book of the Acts records w'hat practices the apostles taught the churches,
and into what forms they set them. And therefore, what we find the churches
to have practised, upon ordinary grounds, that we take for a command of
Christ. Therefore is this preface on purpose made to this book, Acts i. 2,
how that after his resurrection Christ had given commandments to his
apostles, on purpose to credit the practices or acts of these apostles, as the
title is, as conformed to these commandments. And in this 42d verse of
chapter ii. you have the solemn standing worship, which the first church
continued in, as a pattern to all that should follow. Which standing wor-
ship consists of four ordinances, which are together reckoned up nowhere
but here, as all church officers nowhere but Rom. xii. : as, 1, apostles' doc-
trine ; 2, fellowship ; 3, breaking of bread ; and, 4, prayers. That by
apostles' doctrine is meant preaching, all do agree ; and that by prayers are
meant the public prayers, which, 1 Tim. ii., the apostles gives order for,
not occasional, but standing, is not questioned ; but only what is meant by
Mivojvia (translated fellowshi})) and breaking of bread is in question. For
the clearing of this,
1. It is certain that all the practices mentioned here are ordinances, for
three of them being so, it had been heterogeneal to mention a fourth thing
with them, which was not so ; and, 2, they are ordinances of a sort, that is,
of which for their continual practice there is like reason ; for it is said, they
all continued in them.
Now for a more particular explication of these two words.
1. The word koivojvIu, fellowship, refers not to apostles more than xXdaig
Tbv a^Tov, breaking of bread, doth, and therefore it is ill translated, apostles'
fellowship. I find the sacrament called zo/vww'a, communion, 1 Cor. x. 16;
and distribution to poor brethren is called xotvuvia also, or communication ;
so some render it, 2 Cor. ix. 13, a'^rXorriTi r^g xor^jjviag, liberality in com-
municating.
Chap. V.] the chubches of christ. 889
2. We find giving to the poor, called breaking of bread to the hungry,
Isa. Iviii. And the sacrament also is so called : 1 Cor. x. 16, ' The bread
we break,' &c. Now, what must determine which is which ? Surely the
manner of the use of the phrase. Now, though the Lord's supper be called
communion, j^et it is, cum hoc adjecto, still with this addition ' of the body
of Christ ' to distinguish it. But I find xo/i/wi'/a, when only and alone used,
as here you see it is, to be still put for distribution, and for that alone ;
thus, in three places, as 2 Cor. ix. 13, ' For your liberal distribution unto
them ;' Rom. xv. 26, xor^ooviav r;i/a i:oiriSa(sdat, ' to make a certain contribu-
tion ;' and Heb. xiii. 16, * To communicate, forget not.' On the other side,
I find breaking of bread, when simply and barely so expressed, put for the
sacrament, 1 Cor. x. 16, but never used for giving to the poor, but cum ad-
jecto, with an addition, as, break thy bread to the hungry. Hence, therefore,
xoivuvla, here trans]a,ted fellowship, is certainly to be understood of distribu-
tion, and so to be translated. And this fitly explains all, for then breaking
of bread is the sacrament of the Lord's supper ; and if phrases must deter-
mine it, the Syriac interpreter thus translates it the Lord's supper, and he
best knew the use of the phrases. And so you have all the four standing
ordinances in the church enumerated together, and no more, whereas else you
must want one, as not mentioned.
Obj. But the phrase, breaking of bread, as simply spoken, is used for
common eating together.
Alls. It is true, but it is not so here ; for that eating is not a church-
ordinance, and all the rest here are ; and where the phrase, breaking of
bread, simply taken, is used, it is not used for distribution to the poor; and,
therefore, even that breaking of bread which is mentioned (ver. 46) cannot
be so understood of distributing bread to the poor.
And if it be further said, that their love-feasts are there meant, and so
here in this verse, and so it may be taken still in distinction from breaking
of bread to the poor ; the answer is,
1. That their love-feasts were for poor and rich together, and taken up
and used as common signs of Christian love, and therefore so called ; and
not in order or respect to the poor only or chiefly.
2. Their love-feasts were no church ordinance, and so not reckoned up
here among church ordinances. Christians might privately feast, and pro-
videntially, as they met, eat together, as a sign of love, as in the primitive
times they often did ; but not in the way of an ordinance, or a standing ordi-
nance, as the breaking of bread here certainly is. When they came to make
an ordinance of their love-feasts, the apostle rejects them : 1 Cor. xi. 22,
* Have you not houses to eat and drink in ?' And ver. 23, * I have received
no such thing ;' and, ver. 34, he infers, ' If any man hunger, let him eat at
home.' And, ver. 33, he calls the Lord's supper eating together : ' When
you come together to eat, tarry one for another.' He speaks of it as the
only eating that was to be in a church as a church ordinance ; and so ex-
cludes common eating to slack hunger from being an ordinance, bidding them
in the next verse to do it at home. And therefore says he, 1 Cor. x. 16,
' The bread which we break, is it not the body of Christ ?' which is spoken
by way of eminency and singularity, rov a^rov, as being that bread, and only
that, which we break as a church ; as, in like manner, he had, in the 11th
chapter, called the Lord's supper eating together, namely as they were a
church. And therefore here. Acts ii., there is also an article put, breaking
rou ccPTou, of that bread ; so 1 Cor. xi. 26. Now then, come to Acts xx. 7 ;
the breaking of bread there is used in the same sense, namely, of the sacra-
ment also.
390 THE GOVEENMENT OF [BoOK VII.
1. Not of alms ; that is never called breaking of bread, but with distinc-
tion, to the hungry, &c.
2. Not of common eating ; for that not being an ordinance, no meeting
on the Lord's day could be denominated from that ; on which day all church
meetings are for ordinances only, as principally to hear the word. And to
have said, the disciples met to break bread, meaning common bread, is all
one as for us to say, the church meets to salute and see each other, when
principally we meet to hear the word, &c.
Now, then, breaking of bread being not here to be understood of alms, nor
of ordinary eating, it must needs be meant of the sacrament ; seeing there is
no other breaking of bread, especially as an ordinance of a church assembly,
spoken of in Scripture.
And, 3, this is there spoken, to shew what their custom was to do con-
tinually, ex more ; and therefore it is all one as if he had said, they met
every Lord's day.
For,
1. It is spoken of as a ground of Paul's stay seven days, that he might
preach to them, as knowing that they would meet on the Lord's day for this
occasion, as they were wont.
2. It being customary to meet on that day for other ordinances, as preach'
ing the word, &c. (for so it was in primitive times), he would rather have
mentioned that for which Paul knew they were of necessity to meet, than
what was used but one Lord's day extraordinarily ; if this had not been as
customary an ordinance on that day practised as any other.
3. This is written and mentioned, though but in an hint, to shew their
practice, and so the apostles' institution ; for they taught them to do what-
ever Christ commanded. And this we see they did on that day, and no
other.
The question which I shall discuss and handle upon occasion of these
words is this. Whether every Lord's day the sacrament of the Lord's supper
is to be administered ? My method shall be,
1. To prove by reason, that there is somewhere an institution for it to be
found.
2. Further to inquire into these scriptures, and see whether they do not
hold it forth. But, first, let us see what may be done by reason, in the point.
Before I come to those assertions which I would by reason establish, I
will, for explication's sake, premise something about the difiering rules and
ways that God hath ordered about the determining such circumstances of
his worship as this is ; the consideration whereof will be useful to this and
other like points.
It is agreed upon by all here, that no such circumstance is to be deter-
mined by the mere will of any man or men, and that God hath left no cir-
cumstance of worship so to be determined, especially not any so conducible
to edification as this must needs be. How often the Lord's supper is to be
administered. And, therefore, the prescriptions and laws of church gover-
nors, from will and authority, or of a whole church, in determining such cir-
cumstances, we reject ; as that for which the word gives no commission or
allowance, namely, not in such a manner to command a determination.
And in that sense only it is that we say, no circumstance of an ordinance is
left unto man ; that is, not to men's wills, or the authority of others.
Hence it is, that for all such circumstances we do inquire into other rules,
either prescribed in the word, or the light of nature and right reason
from the word ; and we find two sorts of rules given us to determine
them by.
Chap. V.] the churches of christ. 891
1. A direct word of institution, or example, •wliich we are obliged to fol-
low, as in the Old Testament, to sacrifice twice a-day. This circumstance
was an institution. So for us to pray twice a-day, I conceive an institution ;
and this circumstance is set by God himself. Now all such rules do pro-
perly belong to the second commandment, wherein God took upon him to
give us rules, by way of institution, which are by men unalterable.
2. The second sort of rules to determine circumstances of the times, &c.,
of an ordinance, are such as depend merely upon occasions and other cir-
cumstances, according as the various conditions of churches and the customs
of places do require ; which therefore, for the particularity of them, are unde-
termined by God, and left tO' the wisdom of every church to determine them,
as occasions shall alter or vary ; yet still, not by their mere will, but by
other more general rules given in the word, or the light of nature, to order
such circumstances, in all that variety of occasions that shall happen and
fall out. As, for example, that this congregation should meet in the day-
time, is more for the good and benefit of it, than to meet in the night; which
yet, for the primitive Christians, in regard of the circumstance of persecu-
tion, might be more convenient (as haply that meeting. Acts xx. 6-8, when
Paul preached so late, as he continued his speech until midnight), was (as
some think) in that respect.
Now the Scripture hath not determined the night of the Sabbath for pub-
lic assemblies, or the day-time, peremptorily ; because, according to variety
of circumstances, churches might meet on either, as their wisdom should
judge best ; yet so as their wisdom is to be guided by some general rule of
nature, or of the word, in. determining this ; such as is that rule, 1 Cor.
xiv.. 26, ' Let all be done for edification ;' that is, let all be done with such
circumstances, as with which the ordinances being accompanied, shall serve
best to edify the church. Now, as our case stands, the day-time seems best
for our edification by the ordinances, because our spirits are more fresh in
the day than in the night ; but to them whose meeting in the day costs
them their lives, and the loss of ordinances, and all, and though the night
was in other respects inconvenient, yet, better then than not [at] all, or than
in the day, wherein to have often met would have been for destruction, not
for edification.
So now for us, as to what hour of the day we should meet. About nine
o'clock is the best time, considering the time of preparation before, and the
weakness of many, and the due times of repast and meals to come after ;
and that the church should not meet in the afternoon presently after meals,
is the best also for edification, to prevent dulness, or hurt by indigestion,
&c. Now to these hours (as circumstances stand with ua) we are deter-
mined, not by an invariable institution, but by a general rule, ' Let all be
done for the most edifying ;' which falls out with us to- be these individual
hours, which haply to an individual church would not ; and sO' the deter-
mining it to this hour is not wholly human, for men are bound to determine
by rules ; yet not wholly or merely divine (as particularly pointing them
out, as by an institution other circumstances are), but divine in respect of
a generai rule, and also human in respect of the particular application ;
man's wisdom being left to consider these circumstances, and so to apply
these rules.
Now all such i-ules about such circumstances do belong to the third com-
mandment, which merely takes order for the manner of worship, and the
inward and outward circumstances of it ; that all be done (in respect of such
circumstances) for the best advantage, so that God's name be not taken in
392 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK VII,
vain, in the least degree. To give an instance or two in the same kind, one
in an occasional ordinance, and another in a continued :
1. For the time of administration of circumcision, under the old law,
which was an occasional ordinance, there were two rules given by institution :
(1.) How oft it was to be administered ; but once, and never to be reiterated.
(2.) There was the fixing also of a particular day whereon it was to be
administered, namely, the eighth day. But now,
(3.) If the query were made, on what hour of the eighth day ? that was left
to rules of the third commandment, which prescribe what was most convenient
in respect of outward circumstances. It was left to such rules as the third
commandment prescribes, and left to wisdom to apply.
So for preaching the word, which is a continual ordinance, the circum-
stance of time was fixed by institution, that it should be used every Sabbath
day. Acts xv. 26. But how much, or how often on that day? That the
particular occasion was to decide, as there were more or fewer men of gifts
to speak and prophesy, or as the need of the hearers variously required.
Now that you may yet farther understand with what difference these two
commands proceed, in the differing rules which they give, about such circum-
stances of time, I will, by way of further explication, give you it, in these
two particulars.
1. Concerning all such rules which come under the second head, and
appertain to the third command, take this general rule for certain, about
them, to the end you may discern them from institutions which belong to
the second command (I speak not now of such circumstances as the light of
nature dictates, which also belong to this third command), the rule is this :
That only such circumstances of the times of worship which would neces-
sarily vary through new and differing occasions, or various and several sorts
of outward circumstances which men's conditions are cast into, and so were
necessarily (as occasion should fall out) to be left to churches by wisdom,
and consideration of such circumstances to determine, that these, and these
only, are left to be determined by those general rules belonging to the third
command.
Thus, 1, the time of all occasional ordinances is (for aught I know) left
unto men to determine by those general rules. And there is no rule given
for them under the gospel, but this, when an occasion calls for them, that is,
their season, and that individual time which is the fittest in all circumstances
for the ordinance to be administered in. Thus, when to have a baptism, and
to fix the time, it is not now, as in the old law, fixed to the eighth day,
which was in a type, but is left to the church to determine ; only, it is not
to be deferred longer than circumstances do in wisdom require. Thus, in
admonition and excommunication, what the fittest season is doth depend on
circumstances, and the church is to judge.
2. This also is the rule, for set ordinances themselves, so far as they are
occasional, and setting aside their necessary fixed station. The word preached
is a set ordinance instituted for every Lord's-day ; yet, if the question be,
how much, how long, or how often in the day, or how often on the week
besides ; no rule can determine it, but as occasion and need of the hearers
require and call for, and their vacancy will permit ; so that such times for
any ordinances do only come under those general rules, which are capable of
new and fresh occasions, that shall call for them and make them seasonable
at one time more than another, and are not capable of a set rule.
I add unto this, this other distinction also, for explication :
That whereas refjula genera lissima, the most general rule and command
belonging to the third commandment, about the orderincj such various cir-
Chap. V.] the churches of christ. 393
cumstances, is that famous apostolical canon, 1 Cor. xiv. 26, * Let all things
be done to edifjdug ;' and whereas those other rules whereby God hath, by
an institution, fixed set times for worship, in the second or the fourth com-
mand, are said to be for edification also, yet, between that edification which
flows from God's institution of a circumstance, and that which follows upon
a prudent ordering outward circumstances, there is an answerable broad dit-
ference. The edification which follows upon God's institution of a circum-
stance, is such as is through God's appointment intrinsecally conjunct with,
and inseparable from, the ordinance itself, and immediately accompanying
it, from which we are to expect a special blessing, together with the blessing
of the ordinance ; and so it afi'ords such a kind of edification as the ordi-
nance itself does, in its measure, being as directly sanctified to edify, as the
ordinance itself. But that edification which follows upon the right ordering
of outward circumstances, which are left to men to determine by those general
rules, is but an edification extrinsecal to the ordinance, and but secondary
and subserving to it ; these circumstances being so to be ordered, that the
ordinance may give forth that edification which God hath appointed it unto,
with the most advantage in all outward respects ; and this is that edification
which the apostle means, when he says, ' Let all be done to edifying.'
Hence, by the way of corollary, I would have it considered, whether this
circumstance, to administer the supper every Lord's-day, be a circumstance
of that nature and rank, that if there be not a warrant from practice and
institution by God for it, yet any church may at all appoint, or determine
it for a standing rule, for edification's sake. The reason of my query herein
is this : because this is a circumstance which, for the administration of other
ordinances, God once made an institution of; and therefore for the church
to determine or appoint their circumstances for this ordinance without an
institution, were to make an image of those institutions of God. That God
made an institution of this circumstance in other ordinances, is evident in
the sacrifices every Sabbath day, and in reading and preaching the law (Acts
XV.) every Sabbath day, and, under the gospel, in the laying up for the neces-
sities of the saints the first day of the week, 1 Cor. xvi. 2. But now to
make an image or the likeness of God's institution, is that which is forbidden
in the second command ; and the prohibition of it is indeed the full scope,
and speaks the utmost extent of that command, and holds true in all insti-
tutions, from the greatest to the least. We may not make sacraments like
to his, nor days like to his (which was Jeroboam's sin, 1 Kings xii. 32), nor
a temple like his, which the Samaritans did, nor set our posts by his (Ezek.
xliii. 8), nor make the like oil that he ordained for Aaron. And as it holds
in greater, so in lesser, institutions of circumstances as well, for they difi'er
but in degrees, and when God hath once stamped his institution on a thing,
about his worship, man is not to stamp his, for it were false coinage, which
is against God's prerogative, as it is unlawful to coin farthings as well as
shillings ; so electively to make circumstances in worship every way like to
those which God doth, or hath made, as well as to make institutions like to
his greater ordinances. Anything, an institution once set upon it, is for
ever after, royal, and not to be imitated selectively in worship, by man, or
by his institution. We are not, I say, to institute anything formally like to
God's institution, nor for the same holy end, for which God instituted any
circumstance ; and therefore we must not appoint any ceremonies to teach,
or signify, or to put us in mind of our duty, because God ordained the phy-
lacteries, that they might remember the commandments to do them. Num.
XV. 39, 40. So, therefore, if God once ordained this circumstance in otlier
ordinances for edification's sake, for the church to appoint the same circum-
S04 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK YII.
stance for this ordinance for edification's salie, is to make the same image
formally which God once made.
Ans. This being a circumstance upon which an institution is passed for
edification's sake in other ordinances, it is thereby made incapable of being
subjected to the rules of the third command, which gives general rules to
men to order mere outward circumstances. Now to subject it to such rules,
were to debase it. It is of an higher rank, and thereby made free (as I may
so speak) of the rules by which men determine; God only, by institution of
his own, can nov/ meddle with it. As a nobleman is of an higher rank, and
so not subject to imprisonment for debts, &c., exeept by a warrant from the
king himself.
Obj. But you will object, and say, To have a sacrament (being a good and
holy ordinance of God in itself) administered every Lord's day is more for
edification ; for the oftener the more edifying.
Ans. 1. If the ground of this opinion be, that because the oftener an
ordinance is administered the more may be the edification, I answer. There
may be a deceit in that ; for there may be an often, which may be too much.
So in private prayer one may pray too often in respect of other occasions.
But the goodness of this circumstance, hoiv ofteUf depends upon a due
season, which either an institution designs, or special circumstances and
occasions, which indeed, if they fall out to be every Lord's day, then. I yield ;
but to do it setly, electively, and as a standing rule, that I q^uestion, so as
the edification that must answer to this so often receiving must either be
from an institution or special circumstance and occasion leading to it and
calling for it, which, varying (as they use to do), cannot infallibly be fixed
to every Lord's day as best. However,
2. That edification which would arise from such outward circumstances
and occasions, to make most and best for the edification of the church, to
have it every Lord's day, is but a circumstantial edification, and not such an
edification as flows from and accompanies this circumstance when it is an
institution. And so it is an edification that comes in upon this ground, that
because the ordinance is good, therefore the oftener administered the more
edification.
3. If this circumstance, to have this ordinance every Lord's day, haxl been
an institution of God for more edification's sake, he best knowing how often
any ordinance would be most edifying that way, would have appointed it
himself if it would be more for edification in such a respect, for he takes as
much care for the edification of his church in one ordinance as in another,
else he should have been defective in his care in some things, or have took
unnecessary care in others.
Obj. 2. But it may fall out in respect of mere outward circumstances and
occasions, that some church should have the sacrament every Lord's day.
I answer, 1, That then it is not an image of God's institution ; for if occa-
sions call for an ordinance every Lord's day (as suppose a baptism to be
administered), yet still because this is not made a set standing rule, whether
there be occasion or no (which is the obligation of a set institution), there-
fore such a providence that an ordinance should come to be administered, is
not an image of God's institution, which is only when in a standing way
men so appoint it.
2. That rule, depending upon varying cireumstances, can be made and kept
but from Lord's day to Lord's day, but we cannot make a standing rule and
canon of it. This assertion or consideration past would have this circum-
stance in the administration of an ordinance every Lord's day to be such as
is not determinable by human prudence or appointment. But I come unto
Chap. V.] the churches of christ. 395
two other assertions (which I more mainly intend) which do concern this
ordinance and the question more nearly.
1. The first assertion is, that the nature and sort and kind of this ordi-
nance of the Lord's supper is such as there must of necessity be an institu-
tion, either expressly or by necessary consequence, settled by God, and left
for the time of its administration.
The second assertion is, that according to the way and prescriptions of
the New Testament, that time can be no other than every Lord's day.
1. The first of these two I shall prove in general, that there is and must
be an institution for the time of its administration, and then I shall prove
that time to be every Lord's day.
I begin with the first, that for the time of the administration of this
ordinance of the Lord's supper, namely, how often it should be, there must
necessarily be an institution somewhere in Scripture left and to be found, or
one at least that may be drawn from Scripture by good consequence (for it
is an ordinance of that nature and sort as that, reason tells us, there must
be an institution left and found in Scripture about some set time for its
administering). This I would evince by such reason, as if there were as yet
no scriptures that we knew of to be found for it and to fix our thoughts, yet
they might set us all awork to find out one. Now, this assertion I prove by
these three main propositions laid together : —
1. That there are and ever were two sorts, and but two sorts, of ordi-
nances appointed by God in the church, and^they are either continual or
occasional. This proposition contains two things in it :
(1.) That there are ordinances both occasional and continual.
(2.) That there are and ever were but these two sorts.
(1.) I prove that there are two such kind of ordinances. I will here first
explain the teiTos.
[L] By occasional ordinances I mean such as, though they are in them-
selves to continue for ever in the church upon continual occasions, yet in
respect of their use they depend upon a particular occasion in providence to
call for the practice of them. Some ordinances were ordained for a single
occasion extraordinary, as the extraordinary sacrament of manna in the
wilderness, and the cloud, and the baptizing in the sea, &c., mentioned
1 Cor. X. 11 ; but such occasional ordinances I mean not, but only such
as are for their use in the church, or their essence in the church, con-
tinual, yet still the particular precise time when they shall be administered
is occasional. Thus in philosophy we distinguish of essence and exist-
ence, and say of several kinds or species of creatures, that their essence
is always in rerum nalura. So roses (and many other fruits and plants)
being a sort or kind of creatures, that have a station and rank among the
number of others that help to the making up of the world's perfection,
we in that respect say, the essence of a rose always is, nature having or-
dained such a creature always to belong unto the world, to make up the
perfection of it, but yet so as we say, that the existence or individual
putting forth of such flowers is but in some one special season of the
year, and not always. Thus in like manner some ordinances always be-
long unto a church, as parts of its perfections and privileges, and so the
institution of them is for ever and for all times ; and yet their use and exist-
ence is merely occasional, even as providence shall put them forth and call
them to stand up in their season. Such was circumcision of old, which,
though it was an ordinance for ever, and so continual in the essence and
being of it, yet the use thereof was to be but as children were born, which
made the existence merely occasional. So ofiering personal sacrifices, or per-
396
THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK VII.
forming a vow, were as occasion fell out, as upon occasion of uncleanness,
&c. ^ And so baptism is now, the use of which depends upon new occasions ;
so likewise are excommunication and admonition, which are church censures ;
and so likewise admission of members ; all which are to be used but as fit
matter in providence comes to be presented.
[2. J When I say occasional, the meaning is not that they are ordained
for occasions negative or permissive (as I may so call them), that is, when
the occasions of the church will permit, and so a fit spare time falls out for
an ordinance ; but when in this distinction and opposition to continual
ordinances we use the word occasional, the meaning is intended of such as
have a positive, peculiar, and special occasion directly and properly calling
tor them ; which occasion is affirmative : as when a child is born in the
church, this is an affirmative occasion for baptism, and the like.
Now, having explained what occasional ordinances are, I come to explain
that other sort of ordinances, which are continual. Such were the public
sacrifices of the temple, which were called a continual sacrifice (Jer.
xxxni. 18 and Ezek. xlvi. 14), because offered morning and evening in a set
and standing course, not at all waiting upon occasions. And it is not only
said there to be a perpetual ordinance, that is, which was to last and endure
in the church (and such even occasional ordinances may be styled), but it is
besides called a continual ordinance, because appointed to be every morning
by a set ordinance of course ; so vers. 14 and 15, it is said to be ' every morn-
ing for a continual burnt-ofi"ering.' So prayer now is a continual ordinance ;
* pray continually,' which is not meant of continual occasions, but that a con-
tinual course of prayer, or a set course every day (I do not say at set hours)
is of God's institution, as Paul says, 2 Tim. i. 3, that he * served God from
his forefathers,' that is, according to the manner of the godly of old, who,
auswerably to the continual sacrifice in the temple, off'ered up, wherever they
were, either in private or in their families, the sacrifice of prayer twice a day,
and were bound to do so, else the practice had not been general nor binding
unto Paul. But, says he to Timothy, ' I have thee in remembrance in my
prayers day and night,' that is, twice a day, every morning and evening.
Thus also the very entering into the holy of holies once a year, because it was
of course and setly, is said to be done continually, Heb. x. 1. And so the
passover, though but once a year, yet because of set course it may be called
continual. Thus all church ordinances which are of set course in the church,
and depend not upon occasions, may be called continual ordinances, though
not every week day to be administered. Such public prayer is by all con-
fessed to be, and such I take the word preached to be also. And so this
distinction of ordinances, occasional and continual, if it be not i)i tenninis,
in the same terms set forth in the Scripture, as to both the parts of it, yet
for the one part it is ; for the term continual is expressed in the places be-
fore cited, and that in opposition to occasional ; for there being two sorts of
sacrifices, some ordained by institution to be at set times, others as occasion
ot sin and uncleanness fell out, those which were set were called continual,
in a way of distinction from that other (as also those four ordinances here,
in this Acts ii. 42), and so must have another branch to answer to them,
which is this of occasional. However, if the Scripture useth not the very
terms, yet the distinction ariseth from the thing itself, namely, fi'om the
difierent use and end of ordinances, which are necessarily such ; only I add
this caution, that solemn set ordinances, though by divine appointment con-
fined to a time, may yet occasionally be commanded at other times besides ;
and then upon all such occasions they become occasional for that time.
Thus, though the sacrifices public were a set ordinance, yet sacrifice was an
Chap, V.] the churches of christ. 397
occasional ordinance also ; for when a man had personally sinned, he was
to bring an ofiering to the priest, &c. And so is the word preached,
and prayer now, which though set of course on the Lord's day, yet as occa-
sion is, they may be used on the week days also. And this is hinted to
prevent a mistake, lest upon this doctrine any should think the obligation
to administer this ordinance on the Lord's day to be exclusive, as if upon no
other day besides the church may have this sacrament or the word. For
this celebration of the sacrament on the Lord's day is so to be understood, as
that it may likewise be administered upon any day besides, though that day
be the more proper season of it, and no day to be chosen rather than it.
The gospel's privilege is in this more large than that of the law ; some ordi-
nances then they could not have, but upon certain set times ; and times were
so appointed, as all times besides were excluded. The passover could not
be at other times eaten (but only in case of uncleanness or a journey), but
at that set time appointed, the fourteenth day of the first month. So like-
wise circumcision was by institution confined to the eighth day ; and they
might not do it before, nor defer it till after, that precise time. And so many
other solemn ordinances are appropriated to their solemn feasts. But it is
not so now under the gospel, when, though God hath appointed a special
time for public worship, yet any worship may be performed at any time ; and
as in every place we may lift up pure hands, and celebrate church assemblies,
so at any time. As the word is to be preached ' in season and out of season,'
60 the sacrament may be administered in season and out of season. The
primitive churches are therefore supposed, in that first church of the Jews
(whose very calling, for a while at first, was only to hold forth all ordinances
of the gospel), to have met (as for the place) xar' olxov, at home, that is, in
private houses, for it is spoken in distinction from their meetings in the
temple. So for the time of their meetings, %aQ' ^jubs^av every day, Acts ii. 46 ;
and so to have celebrated this sacrament every day, even as, Acts v. 41, they
are said to preach every day in the temple.
This being premised and proved, I now come to prove the other part of
the proposition in hand, that there are but these two kinds of ordinances in
the church, occasional and continual. This I might prove by an enumera-
tion of all ordinances in the Old Testament, which may all be reduced to
these two heads. For as for vows and free-will ofierings (which seem most
free in man's liberty), they were occasional; and such as, when a just
occasion fell out, that called for them, they were not to be omitted, nor yet
were they made and ofiered but when a just occasion invited them. And,
indeed, it were a wonder if there should be a middle kind of vagous ordi-
nances, which were indefinitely instituted, and at random ; not fi!xed in the
main ground of their institution, upon proper occasions, or to set times by
institution designed under the New Testament. Let any man instance in
any other such, and it were strange this ordinance should be such alone.
Indeed, reason tells us, that there is not and cannot be any such middle ordi-
nance ; for if there be, the main ground of its institution must be, to serve a
vacancy from all other occasions of human business and ordinances, and to be
used whenever such a vacancy should happen ; that is (as I explained in my
distinction), that they would be instituted for negative occasions, as not being
affixed to any set time of course, as continual ordinances are, nor to serve a
special occasion, that calls for it one day more than another; but for such a
time it must be, when there is an opportune vacancy or empty space of time
that may fall out free from all other occasions, and all other ordinances, both
which in this supposition are to be served first. Now, I instance in this, as
a supposed middle between the two other ; for I cannot see how the wit of
398 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK VII.
man can invent any otber. I grant, indeed, that such vacancies of time may
fall out, and also, that those ordinances which God hath already, by a
primary intent, instituted for set times, and by rule affixed to them, he hath,
as an overplus, and an additional edification of his church, commanded to be
used at all such times of vacancy from human occasions and refreshments.
For example, he hath appointed the preaching of the word a set ordinance
for every Lord's day (as was said), and so it is a continual ordinance of
course ; he hath also appointed this word to be dispensed and preached upon
all special affirmative occasions that should require it, as a word in season
to the weary, &c. And these being the main foundations and grounds of its
institution, he hath enlarged the use of it unto all such negative occasions,
when all other occasions will permit, and there happens a vacant time to
hear sermons preached, and when no special occasion or time instituted doth
require it. But this was but a secondary enlarged ground of this ordinance,
for which alone it should never have been instituted, nor any else. This (as
I take it) may be the most probable meaning of that text, ' preach the word
in season ;' either instituted by God, as the Lord's day, or occasional, as
special need requires ; and not only so, but ' out of season,' in a mere
vacancy.
Now, to prove that there is no such ordinance instituted merely for negative
occasions, or vacancy from other hindrances, I urge these inconveniences
and reasons against it.
1. Such an ordinance would depend for its being and existence upon too
many uncertainties. But now, as a father would not venture any child to an
utter uncertain breeding, so neither can I believe that God hath done so
by any of his ordinances. Now see the several uncertainties in this case.
(1.) There is not an absolute necessity that such an ordinance should ever
be administered at all ; for it might be supposed never to come to have any
turn or vacancy spare from all other occasions for it to be administered in,
for it is not of absolute certainty that there should be such a vacancy, or at
least not often ; as this ordinance of the sacrament (if this should be said to
be such) is commanded to be administered.
(2.) Besides this, if such times should fall out, yet the celebration of the
ordinance would depend too much upon man's arbitrament, and that for its
only existence and being; which must be at such times, not only when a
whole church shall have no impediments by reason of other occasions, but
when they shall judge so, and call upon one another for it ; and how apt our
nature is to find out impediments, or at least in such cases to forget the ordi-
nances, God well knew. And this our obnoxiousness to forget our duty
makes it yet more uncertain ; for how apt is such an ordinance to be forgot-
ten, which hath no positive occasion to call for it, nor any fixed instituted
time to say to us, now it ought to be administered.
It is one reason, and it is a good one, which our divines give, why it was
necessary that the Lord's day should be fixed by God to a certain day, even
to the seventh, and with a memento in the command ; because, if it had been
left to men to judge when their vacancy would have permitted it, the public
worship of God would soon have fallen to the ground. And by the hke
reason any particular ordinance would have been easily forgotten and discon-
tinued, as many have been that yet were fixed, as the feast of tabernacles
was, Nehem. viii. 17, from Joshua's time till Nehemiah's. You may make
an observation, how great the neglective forgetfulness of man would be of
any such ordinance, by the difi'erence which was put in the administration of
this ordinance, and the observation of the Lord's day (which are the ordi-
nances we have last instanced in) by the papists, who alone bore the face of
Chap. V.] the churches of christ. 399
the church many hundred years. As for the Lord's day, because they
thought the institution thereof every week to be apostohcal (being sounder
in the point than many of our divines), therefore they have transmitted the
observation of it every week, down unto our times. But as for the time of
celebrating the Lord's supper, because they thought it to be left indefinite,
they therefore kept not to it, but thought once a year enough for the receiv-
of it by the people ; so rarely would men use am ordinance which they
thought was left to their liberty.
Yea, (3.) this ordinance of the Lord's supper would be made yet more
uncertain, seeing there is an allowance to fill up such vacancies with other
ordinances that are settled to fixed times by institution ; as to have the word
preached, or prayer, when there is a vacancy ; and so that vacancy might be
as well filled up with them as with this, and so it might still wait for a place,
as that man did at the pool, and another ordinance might step in before it.
And if we might suppose any other ordinances to be left unto man's sole
liberty, yet this least of all ; for it being instituted to remember us of Christ's
death, surely itself hath either some special occasion, or fixed institution, to
put us in mind of it.
2. As such an ordinance would be left to too great uncertainties for its
existence, so it would be cast too far below all other ordinances ; for not
having a brother's settled portion allotted it to live upon, it must wait upon
all other ordinances till they were all served, and live upon their leavings of
time, which is not beseeming nor compatible with the honour of an ordi-
nance. This must necessarily follow, for ordinances fixed in a set way to
the Lord's day, must be served every Lord's day ; for they are of the foun-
dation, and challenge it originally. And occasional ordinances that fall out,
which have a proper special occasion to call for them, must be also first
performed. And certainly God hath not debased any ordinances so low as
thus to attend all others, especially not so great an ordinance as this of the
Lord's supper is.
3. It stands with reason that every ordinance might have its proper root
for it to grow up upon, and so come to have its existence ; it was meet that
it should have a station, and season positive, as the main fundamental ground
of its institution, that so it might exist of itself, and be able to challenge
itself a place that cannot be denied it. And thus continued ordinances have
such a season by God's primary institution of them ; which, having an ex-
istence given them at fixed times, God, in a secondary intention, enlarged
the use of them to negative occasions (as I term them), as he hath that of
public prayer and the preaching of the word, which are continual ordinances
(in their proper root) for every Lord's day ; which yet God hath further
commanded to be engrafted upon occasions, but still so as this is the root
they naturally first grow upon ; and the Lord's day, and every Lord's day,
is their seat and their station by institution, and that set time their inherit-
ance which they may make claim to. Thus occasional ordinances likewise
have a proper root peculiar to them ; like flowers, that though they put not
forth continually, yet have their season which necessarily gives them ex-
istence ; and when their season is, they may challenge it (but whether their
season be necessarily or electively only the Lord's day, that I shall after-
wards discuss), surely God hath took as good order, and made no worse
provision, for the existence of his creatures of the new world (his ordinances)
than for the creatures of the old. Now eveiy species or kind of creature in
the old world hath a root ; a season, either continual and fixed, or special
and proper. God made no vagabond creatures, then only to have a place
and to exist when and where there should be a vacuum, a void emptiness of
400' THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK VII.
Other creatures. And surely God bath acted by the like measure in the
new world, wherein the ordinances are the creatures ; and either some
proper time and positive occasion, or else some fixed time, all the year long,
is their root of being.
II. The second main proposition is this, that for all ordinances, which
are not occasional, but standing and continual, there must necessarily be a
set time by institution appointed for them.
This proposition is a necessary corollary of the former, and follows upon
those particulars which I have brought to confirm the former.
Reason 1. For every ordinance that hath an essence, constitution, or being
in the church, must also have some existence, and therefore a time. All
creatures of the old world have two things allotted them.
1. A constituted essence, by which they are, and differ from other crea-
tures ; as the essence of a man is that he is reasonable, and a beast, that it
hath a sensitive being.
2. An existence, by which some individuals of each kind do exist, and
stand forth in the world, at such or such times and seasons. And there is
no essence nor kind of being but is appointed to have an existence, at some
time or other, in the world ; for else that being might be ordained in vain,
and have no being, and so it had as good continue nothing still. Therefore
Solomon says, Eccles. iii. 1, that ' There is a time to everything, and a
time to every purpose under the sun.' As to every purpose of man's heart,
which is a thing most contingent, so to every kind of thing or being, natural
and artificial, to all sorts of things under the sun (for he instanceth in things
natural, artificial, and voluntary), and he says there is a set time ; so the
word signifies, ternpus determinatiim. Time is a necessary circumstance of
being, and therefore was created when other things were, and is ordained to
be, when things are ordained ; for as nothing was in God's purpose that
should have a being, but hath a time for it also, which also, as Solomon
says there, gives it a beauty and a comeliness. Now, as it was with crea-
tures of the old world, so is it with those of the new world, and amongst
those, with ordinances, which are parts of it. If God hath given to any of
them an essence and being to be ordinances, you must suppose them to have
a time appointed them to come forth into existence. As no creature could
come to have an essence, a rank among creatures, but it must have a time
to exist, so nor ordinances could ever come to have had an instituted being
given them, but in relation to an existence, and a proper time for them to
flourish in. Now, such ordinances which are not occasional, and so have
no special occasions allotted in providence to call for their existence, that
they may stand forth, and call for a place, and be beautiful in that their
season, they must necessarily have an instituted time, a set time, appointed
them. And if providence and occasion do not set out this time, then neces-
sarily institution must.
2. The very purport or meaning of this name of distinction given it, when
it is called a continual ordinance (as in Scripture that phrase is used), doth
necessarily intimate this much, that that distinction is given it from its having
a set time fixed by institution for its existence. The word continual, as it
doth respect time in all men's apprehensions, so in the Scripture accep-
tion it respects a set, fixed, appointed time, that in the course of time comes
about again and again continually, whether it be every day, or every month,
or every 3'ear. That was called continual (as was said before), not only
which is done at all times, or every day, but of set coui'se ; so, 2 Sam. ix. 7,
Mephibosheth is said to sit at David's table continually, that is, not as a
stranger, com'ng in upon occasion, but at the set times of meals. And so
Chap. V.] the chueches of christ. 401
* praying continually,' in the New Testament, is taken not simply for praying
alwaj's, or upon all occasions, or continuing in prayer with fervency only,
but to pray setly, morning and evening (as I shewed out of 2 Tim. i. 8),
even as it is called the continual sacrifice, because it came about every day
by institution ; and if any were seldomer, yet, if ordinances, they had a set
time for them. Thus the high priest's going into the holy of holies, because
it came about every year once, at a set instituted time, is said to be con-
tinually : Heb. x. 1, ' Those sacrifices which they offered year by year
continually.' As, therefore, we say that time is concreated with all things,
so T may say of such ordinances, that their time is instituted together with
their institution, and by the same authority.
And, 3dly, if any continual ordinance had not a time fixed for it, obliging
the conscience by institution, that might call upon men now to practise it,
and challenge an interest in some time allotted it, it were cast below au
occasional ordinance, and made of an inferior nature to it, in its institution ;
for it would not have so much as a proper occasion to call for it, as those
occasional ordinances have.
4thly. This proposition is backed with this, that in the Old Testament all
ordinances, not occasional, had a fixed time by institution. It is true, that
some occasional ones also had a fixed time when once an occasion required
them, as circumcision the eighth day ; but it was because of some typical-
uess annexed to it. But now, under the gospel, all occasional ordinances
are left to their proper seasons, as providence calls for them, and so not
affixed ; as it became the gospel, wherein such types cease. But yet continual
ordinances are to be affixed to a set time by institution, else Christ were not
so complete in his institutions as Moses, but should leave things to man's
will, which, being as corrupt and negligent now as before, needed the fixing
of such ordinances to a set time as much as then.
III. The third proposition which I lay down is this, That this ordinance
of the Lord's supper is a continual standing ordinance ; it is of that rank,
and can be of no other.
And the reason thereof (which to me is undeniable) is this, because that
it is not an occasional ordinance ; that is, it is not an ordinance that hath,
or can have, any positive, special, peculiar occasion to call for it, and require
it one day or time more than another ; and therefore it must be a continual
ordinance, and so by consequence a set and fixed ordinance to a time by
institution, as the second proposition declared. Now the reason is founded
upon this, that there is no rank of middle ordinances, but every ordinance
must (as I shewed) be either the one or the other ; and therefore to prove
that it is not occasional, taking occasional ua that sense before explained, is
enough to prove that it is continual.
1. It is not occasional in its first fundamental institution. Indeed, some
of the popish divines would put it into occasional seasons ; for they allowing
a private communion at home, when men are sick, and also allowing in pub-
lic, that the church should receive not always necessarily together, but that
every day when mass is said, any one or two (though no more who have a
mind to communicate be present) may receive if they please ; for (say they)
some persons may have more special need of the sacrament of the Lord's
supper than others (in respect of tcntations), to be comforted by it, and some
have a more special mind to that ordinance, and are more peculiarly affected
unto it than unto any other, and so may occasionally be called to it ; they do
hereby evidently shew, that they reckon this ordinance to be occaiional.
But we know no such divinity, for we say,
VOL. XI. C C
402 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK VII.
(1.) This ordinance, of all others, is an act of the whole church. It is
the only proper badge of the church's communion ; and in this respect
church members are called * one bread,' as well as ' one body,' 1 Cor. x. 17,
and therefore they are to take it together, when their meeting hath the full
number of all that can come ; and this rather than any other ordinance is in
this manner to be celebrated. And therefore, 1 Cor. xi. 33, in this case, and
for this ordinance, if any come late, others are to stay for them, — ' Tarry one
for another,' — which in other ordinances they are not so strictly tied unto.
And if thus it be the ordinance of the whole church, then variety of such
occasions, as personal tentations, &c., cannot come to be any such peculiar,
special occasion to the administering of it to one man more than another,
for it is alike the act of the whole.
(2.) Indeed, and in truth, there can never be invented or supposed, any
such proper, special occasion, requiring this ordinance to be administered
upon this Lord's day or that, rather than upon any other, which might
more especially call upon the church for the practice of it. As for other
ordinances, there are such proper occasions, thus prayer for the sick, baptiz-
ings, and excommunication ; and even the prophesying of private members
is but an occasional ordinance, as God stirs up their hearts, and reveals
something to them, as the apostle speaks. There is nothing in the ordi-
nance itself to vary it, or make it more seasonable at one time than at another ;
but it is fitted to all believers alike, whether grown Christians or young. It
is milk and strong meat too, for it is the common Christ of all ; neither was
it instituted in any such more special manner for tentations, or victory over
lusts ; not peculiarly or specially, so as that you can say, it is good for one
thing more than another, or that it hath a special virtue for something, which
one Christian needs more than another; but it is an ordained 'K.ado'Ktxov, com-
posed of qualities to work upon all tempers, and in all seasons, upon all con-
stitutions of souls. If faith be never so weak, it strengthens it ; if strong, a
man is as much necessitated to take it, to grow in strength. Even as church
fellowship, the cause of ordinances, is alike necessary for all, in all seasons,
so is this ; yea, it is so uniform in its nature and working, that all churches
in the world, taken together, have as much need of it as one church, and one
church as all, and no more.
(3.) Neither can there be any variation in respect of any circumstance a
church can be in at one time, which it is not in at another. There may fall
out impediments, as if the not having an officer to administer it (but so there
may be also of such ordinances as are affixed to the Lord's day) ; but there
can be no proper occasions or circumstances that may vary it, so as to have
it administered one day, and not another. No man or church can say. We
cannot prepare to receive every Lord's day, nor that any occasions on the
week days do unfit us ; for they are bound to be in such a frame as always
to be prepared ; and if they be not prepared according to the preparation of
the sanctuary, yet they ought not to omit it, as the Israelites did not the
passovcr ; yea, let me add this, it is less subject to variation by occasions,
than the word, or public prayers of the church, or laying up for the neces-
sities of others, are, for which you have institutions for every Lord's day. For
the matter of the word, the subject of our sermons do vary with occasions, and
our sermons are longer or shorter, and they are composed for comfort one day,
and for reproof another day ; for as your needs are, so they vary ; yea, some-
times as a particular member's need is, they vary. A word in season is to be
spoken to the weary ; but here in the Lord's supper there is no such varia-
tion. The word, like the moon, though it be a standing ordinance in heaven,
yet appears in several shapes, and so the word too. But this, as the sun,
Chap. V.] the churches of christ. 403
is uniform, for the person of Christ (the ' Sun of righteousness' ) crucified is
wholly and entirely the matter of it ; and as he is the ' same to-morrow, and
to-day, and yesterday,' so is this ordinance. So the duty of alms varies ;
as God hath blessed a man, so let him lay up as the church, or other churches,
have need. But it is not so with this ordinance, and therefore this is capa-
ble of a more uniform rule, and fixed obligation and institution, than any
other.
I might in the last place shew, that it is a continual ordinance, from this,
Acts ii. 42, where all ordinances continual are reckoned up, which are four in
number ; and this, in the first church, as the measure of solemn set worship
for ever. But I leave that now, intending to argue it out in reasons.
Obj. But there is this objection, grounded on that speech of the apostle,
1 Cor, si. 20, 'As oft as you eat, you shew forth,' &c. The apostle seems
there to speak of it but as an indefinite ordinance, and not as a continual,
in that he says, toties qaotiea, so oft as.
Ans. 1. His scope there is not at all to speak of the time of this supper,
but only to inform them of the high end, and nature, and intention of this
ordinance, that when they took it they might know what they did (as we
use to say), and what they were about. You know they slighted it, and
took it in vain, and discerned not the Lord's body. He therefore minds
them of the institution, that they might know what they did. Know what
you do (says he), for as oft as you I'eceive this, you shew forth the Lord's
death. It is a manner of speech, used to shew what is the scope of an
action that is customary, when we would insinuate the great danger of some
action frequent, yet out of ignorance slighted. Thus, if we hear one igno-
rantly and ordinarily swear, as not knowing what it is to take an oath, we
use to say, Do you know what you do in so doing ? As often as you swear,
you give your soul to the devil ; so here (says the apostle), as oft as you
receive unworthily, you eat your own damnation ; and because they were to
receive frequently by Chi'ist's institution, therefore he minds them the more
of it, that they might know what it was to receive. As often as you receive
(says he), you shew forth Christ's death; and therefore tells them, that if
they receive unworthily, they eat damnation to themselves.
2. This phrase of speech was to shew the unvarying, constant, uniform
end and intent of this sacrament, which is constantly at all times to shew
forth Christ's death ; so oft as you do it, it is still for this principal end.
The word sometimes shews one thing, sometimes another, but this constantly
preacheth Christ's death : as oft as you receive, you shew forth Christ's
death.
The third general assertion is as the conclusion of the two former, and
inferred from them both ; and it is this, that
This being a continual ordinance (as hath been shewed in the first pro-
position), and continual ordinances necessarily requiring a time instituted,
or fixed somewhere (as was shewn in the second), the fixed time therefore
for every ordinance neither is, nor can be, other than the Lord's day, accord-
ing to the ordinary course and tenor of the New Testament, which imports
that every Lord's day is the instituted time for them.
I shall demonstrate this by reason first, and then examine Scriptures
afterwards. It is proved by reason thus, or by these steps.
1. Under the gospel you have no other instituted time set and fixed, for
any ordinance, but the Lord's day. I do not say you are to have no other
times for ordinances, but you have no other times fixed by institution. Oc-
casional times there may and ought to be upon other days, by virtue of the
command that bids us serve the season, &c., Rom. xii., and take the fittest
404 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK VII.
occasion for every work and ordinance occasional ; but yon have no other
instituted time appointed fixedly by God besides the Lord's day, which in-
deed is one of the diflerences betsveen the times of the law and of the j^ospel.
Under the law, God made special Sabbaths by institution fixed to set days,
for special 01 dinances to be administered upon, viz., for the passover, and for
the first fruits ; but now, there is no instituted time excrpt this. Now, then,
if this ordinance, being not occasional (as was said), must therefore have an
instituted time appointed it by God, set and fixed, this time can be no
other than the Lord's day, for there is no other time appointed by insti-
tution, under the gospel, except the Lord's day.
But it may be said, that this gains bat only thus much, that the Lord's
day is the time instituted for it ; and so also it may be said of occasional
ordinances, that the Lord's day is an instituted time for them too, inasmuch
as it is such for all ordinances in common.
Therefore, 2, I go a step further, and say, that continual ordinances, and
among them the Lord's supper, are not only to have a time that is instituted
for them to be administered upon, but further, there must be an insti-
tution to appoint a time for them, even a fixed, determined time, set apart
for them by virtue of an institution, which may determine the conscience to
them, and by virtue of a command call for them. And so it is not enough to
say, that the Lord's day is the time instituted indeterminately, indefinitely,
and at random for this sacrament of the Lord's supper, as for all othf-r ordi-
nances it is. But when it is said that the Lord's day is instituted for it,
the sense must necessarily be, that it is the time fixed and determinately set
by institution for this ordinance ; and so it difi'ers from the relation that this
instituted time hath unto ordinances occasional. It may be said that the
Lord's day is the only time that we find instituted, wherein they or any
ordinance may be administered ; but for other occasional times in the week
days, though there be a general rule that will oblige the conscience to them
as occasions are, yet they cannot be called instituted times. And therefore,
in that sense it may be truly said, that when occasional ordinances are to be
administered, the Lord's day is the only instituted time of the New Testa-
ment for them. But something more must be said of continual ordinances,
namely, that there is a time instituted that calls for them, and obligeth the
conscience by an institution to them ; and so these two sorts of ordinances
difler in their interest in this day. That occasional ordinances have, by
virtue of the institution of this day, but a remote, indefinite, undetei'mined
interest therein ; and for their determinate existence on this or that Lord's
day, there must come over and above some special occasion that calls for it,
on this or that week, more than on another, only the Lord's day presents
itself still, as a time blessed and instituted for such ordinances, in common
and at random. But if this ordinance of the Lord's supper be a continual
ordinance, as it is, and this the only time we find instituted, then this ordi-
nance must have, by an institution, some fixed determinate interest in it,
and that by a defining by appointment what Lord's days it must be ad-
ministered upon. And the reason for this is out of the former grounds
evident; of which now I urge only this, that otherwise this ordinance should
have no determinate existence allotted it, but were, in that respect, cast be-
low all occasional ordinances. For if its interest in the Lord's day be thus
imlimited, and but in a common relation ; that it is only a time instituted
for it, no otherwise than it is for all ordinances in general, and as a common
hall is for all comers ; and withal, that it hath no special set occasion to call
for it, and require its existence ; then it is still left in far worse case and
hazard for existing than occasional ordinances are ; for they, as providence
Chap. V.J the churches of cheist. 405
gives occasions, do call for time, and oblige the conscience unto a set time
for them. But this would be left like an individaum vagarn, that has nothing
to shew for it, why it should challenge a place or room in this instituted
time, more than vagrant persons have in common town houses. Yea, seeing
other ordinances can still challenge some peculiar, determinate interest,
either by occasion or institution, this might ever be extruded, having nothing
but an indefinite, common, vagrant interest to shew for itself. Therefore,
certainly if the Lord's day be the only time instituted under the New Testa-
ment, then must be found an institution to determine and fix on what Lord's
day this is to bo administered ; and this, not to be left to the wide world for
its subsisting and existence, but such as by law or inheritance it may call
for as its portion.
Now, 3, therefore add to this then, that if there must be found an institu-
tion for it on set Lord's days, they being the only time instituted, then
either the institution sets apart every Lord's day, or some special Lord's
days (which the word sets out and appoints for it, rather than others), I
would see a warrant for, however, some churches presume to single out
some special days, because their congregations be too vast (and so not ac-
cording to rule, which i?;, that churches should consist of no more than can
meet together in one place) to administer it to all every Lord's day ; and
others, by preferring one Lord's day before another, as Easter day, Whit-
sunday, &c., do appoint it to be only or specially then administered; yet
there is no word fur it, nor reason by consequence from the word.
Now, if there be no warrant of institution for special Lord's days, then
necessarily the institution must fall upon every Lord's day.
Yea, 4, let it be but granted in general, that there is no other rule to de-
termine this institution but this common maxim, that all ordinances, both
continual and occasional, are ordained for the Lord's day ; and that the
Lord's day is the only instituted time for all ordinances in this common
general way : let that be all that the word says for it, so as no special charter
or interest be produced by institution, yet this very common charter will
carry it, and this general, indefinite institution will serve its turn ; for when
each ordinance shall come to claim its right and particular allotment and
portion in these Lord's days, it must necessarily be set forth according to
the nature and kind of each ordinance. And then, look how occasional
ordinances will justly put in, and call for an occasional allotment for their
administration, as occasion is oifered and requires, so continual ordinances
will challenge a continual set allowance every Lord's day. For they must
have maintenance and subsistence, according to their rank and quality, and
end of being ordained. The common law and dictats of reason would and
must thus set out their portions. Continual ordinances must be continually
on the Lord's day, and what is that but to be every Lord's day? We say,
in the decision of another point of controversy and difficulty between the
Arminians and us, about the existence of things contingent, and the volun-
tary acts of man's will, that in respect of God's decree, all things do exist
necessarily, and by his determinate counsel ; yet in respect of second causes,
and their coming forth into actual existing or being, we say, that they all
exist according to their kind ; which is, that free agents, as, namely, man's
will, should, in respect of its own motion, work freely ; and contingent or
casual things, that fall out by chance, should, in respect of second causes,
fall out contingently, according to their kind ; but necessary and natural
actions, as, namely, the motion of the sun, should fall out necessarily and
constantly, according to its kind, and yet all act in their several kinds, by
the determinate counsel of God, that rules all their causes according to their
406 THE GOVERNMENT OP [BoOK YII.
kinds. Thus we illustrate also the several existences of ordinances for their
time and season, by saying that they are varied according to their several
natures and kinds. God hath took order in his word for the existence of
them all, but for occasional ordinances he hath not given set rules of insti-
tution for the time of their existence, to bring them forth in ; for that had not
been according to their kind, but indeed clean contrary to it; for they, being
in their institution intended for occasions, accordingly must exist but as occa-
sions are ; yet by a necessary command, when occasion is offered, therefore
as necessarily, when such occasions fall out, as continual ordinances to be
administered. But ordinances of continual and not occasional use he hath
ordained to exist, according to their kind, continually, and not occasionally ;
and therefore a rule of institution must determine their existence. And he
having declared that the Lord's day is the only time that is instituted by
him for all ordinances, suppose he had given no other rule, yet occasional
ordinances are to exist occasionally on that day, that is, as occasion calls
for any of them ; but continual ordinances are to exist, and be administered
continually on that day ; and what is that, but that every Lord's day they
should be administered ?
I will now, in the last place, as the coronis and conclusicm of all, and for
the confirmation of both these assertions, add only this, which shall concern
both, that it stands with the greatest reason, both that there should be an
instituted time for continual standing ordinances, and also that thei'e should
be continual ordinances purposely appointed for that instituted time, and as
much reason for the one as for the other. So as there is a proper, peculiar,
mutual relation between such ordinances and such an instituted time ; they
are mutually ordained for each other, these ordinances for that time, and
that time for these ordinances. It stands with the greatest reason that
may be.
1. That God should institute continual standing ordinances for his church
to meet together to celebrate, and so to constitute his public visible worship,
besides such ordinances as should be for occasions, that yet uncei'tainly
would fall out. For it became him who is the great God, the ever-living,
standing God of the world, who upholds all continually by a constant hand
of power and wusdom, to have a standing set worship whereby he should be
set up and acknowledged in the world, and rot be like the gods of the heathen,
nor the saints of the papists, who were gods for occasions, and are saints for
special occasions ; and as they had sacrifices, so these have prayers upon
particular occasions. But the standing God must have standing ordinances.
It was not fit for God, the great King, to stay and wait upon occasions for all
the public worship he was to have, which might have fallen out, or perhaps
not have fallen out. No ; it had been too, too little for him.
And, 2, that he should institute and appoint a set and solemn time for such
continual ordinances out of his own will, did become him also, and was as
necessary as the former ; for otherwise (besides other reasons proper to that
argument) he had waited upon a greater uncertainty for the celebration of
such ordinances than that which doth attend upon ordinances occasional, even
on men's wills, and their occasions and pretences, to put off" such worship ; for
occasions still as they had risen would have called for such ordinances as
were occasional.
But if God himself does not set a time and fix it, there would be nothing
io determine and call for ordinances, so as to oblige the conscience. And so
such ordinances, instead of being the standing continual ordinances of his
worship, should have become the most uncertain, and (through man's corrup-
tion) the seldomest administered of all other. And indeed fixedly to appoint
CuAP. VJ THE CHUKCHES OF CHRIST. 407
how oft they should be administered, and when, is that which makes them
to be continual ordinances, and the worship of God to be solemn and standing
in the world. And the determination of the circumstances of tim.e, how oft,
and on what day, was a matter of more moment, and more intrinsecally
, conjunct with the worship of God than the designation of a particular place ;
for though a place be as necessary as a time, yet from a set time appointed
doth arise a solemnity of worship, and it is as royal a property and attribute
of God's worship as any other, and serves to set it out and greaten it. And
the iteration of a time in a set course thus or thus adds to the worship a
greatness, both in multiplication of it that it is so oft, and also a solemnity
and a restraint upon men, and so bears an impress of God's authority ; but
thus it is not in the designation of a set place. Therefore often in Scripture,
when there is an institution of a set day for an ordinance, or mention of such
a day, it is called a solemn assembly, as the prophet calls the new moon's
feasts and sabbaths that were set, the solemnities of the house of Israel,
Ezek. xlv. 17, and xlvi. 11. And Levit. xxiii. 86, the eighth day of the
feast of tabernacles is translated a solemn assembly, which accordingly is by
Christ called the great day of the feast, John vii. 37. Solemn they were by
being set, and thereby greatened. And every snch day had its set ordinances
by institution appointed to fill up the worship of the day, and (as the phrase
is, ver 37 of Levit. xxiii.) God, speaking unto Moses concerning the ordinances
to be upon such feasts, says, that they must perform everything upon his day.
For every such set time had its set offerings and ordinances, and the days
were appointed for them, and they for the days. And therefore a standing
day must have standing ordinances, that have a proper reference to the day,
and the day to them, they being made for the day, and the day for them.
And this difference for God's instituting a set time for worship under the
gospel rather than a set place, they who are against the institution of the
Sabbath have not considered, when they argue that there is like reason of
place and time, between which, in this relation to worship, there is a broad
and manifest difference.
Now then, if under the gospel it was meet there should be continual
ordinances for a standing worship, that God might still be sure of being wor-
shipped (whatever occasions were), and that there should be a set instituted
time in these ordinances, then marry these two together, as being made one
for another ; these holy things for this holy day, standing continual ordi-
nances for this set and standing day, according to the proportion of that rule
out of Leviticus, ' everything upon his day,' opiis did in siio die, the day and
ordinance thereof being mutually made for each other. And thus a solemn
and standing worship shall be kept up in the world, under the gospel as well
as under the law, which also was prophesied of, Ezek. xlvi. 13-15, that
there should be a continual worship now, as there had been a continual
sacrifice then. For there Ezekiel prophesies of the worship of the gospel,
aud that under the type and notion of the continual sacrifices and Sabbaths.
Use 1. See the gracious provision that God hath made in the world for
his worship, and also for to feed his church.
He being a great King, for his own glory reserves a standing revenue of
glory to come in by worship of men to himself, as it became him, besides
that which comes in by occasions. You know princes have crown lands
which bring in a standing rent, that cannot be sold or alienated (in a legal
way), and they have customs and tributes which come in other ways, but the
other are their royalty. So God hath standing ordinances ns crown lands to
give him a set revenue of old rents, which must never be left unimproved, as
well as he has occasional customs from other ordinances.
408 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK VII.
Use. 2. See here the gracious provision made for the church, the family
and household of God. Here is a constant provision of no less than four
ordinances, the word, prayer, communication, and the Lord's supper. We
are not like to starve then. God hath kept to his own rule, to provide for
his family. As good housekeepers have some constant provision of store, as.
corn, heef, and the like, besides all occasional dainties that, like fowl and lisb,
come in to their tables, so God hath laid up all spiritual provisions for us ;
and to be sure you have Christ himself for one standing dish continually
served up to you, as some rarity useth to be served up again and again, and
goes round at last ; a dish that fills all, and serves all tastes (as they say
manna did), which is milk to babes, and to grown men strong meat ; ' all in
all, and unto all.' Many things in a sermon thou understandest not, and
haply not many sermons ; or if thou doest, yet findest not thy portion in
them ; but here to be sure thou mavest. Of sermons, some are for comfort,
some to inform, and some to excite ; but here in the sacrament is all thou
canst expect. Christ is here light, and wisdom, and comfort, and all to thee.
He is here an eye to the blind, a foot to the lame ; yea, everything to every
one.
Use 3. Hath God himself instituted both a time, and also standing ordi-
nances for that time, to keep up a constant worship ? What arrogancy is it
then in such church governors (whether popish or reformed) as assume this
power to themselves, saying that Christ hath instituted no set day for his
worship, but has left it unto them, it becoming the liberty of the gospel not to
be subject to days and times, as under the old law ; and that God hath not
defined out what set times should be for the Lord's supper, and so it falls
under their jurisdiction to appoint it ; and they do all this to enlarge their
power. I will never believe that God would trust officers with settling such
circumstances of worship, as he trusted not his own high priest with under
the law, but settled them himself. No ; God would never have left matters
of so great importance at uncertainties ; he would never have left even the
revenues of his crown lands to those landlords, of whom many would have
the vineyard to be theirs. And the fruit of their assuming this power you
may see in the Lord's supper, which is absolutely by them commanded to be
received at some certain times of the year, no oftener necessary to be received,
which is their poor allowance for that ordinance. And if God had left the
time of all worship to their appointment, and not more clearly fixed it, it
would have come to the same pass in process of time, and a Sabbath once a
month would have been well, which haply might have been but once a year.
And yet all this was for the church's liberty, to free them from God's yoke,
and to bring the consciences of men into a worse bondage of their own ; as
if God had made Christians free now from the like institution of a Sabbath
to that of the Jews of old, and which himself then enjoined, to leave room to
men and their power to determine the very same. Thus tliey exclude God, that
themselves may rule. But blessed be ithy name, God," that though other
lords besides thee have ruled over us, and would appoint us when to have
Sabbaths or sacraments, yet thou hast wrought all our works for us ; thyself
hast appointed our works and times of serving thee. Thy service is perfect
freedom, but theirs is bondage, which tbou in mercy hast freed us from.
That you may clearly see the goodness of God in it, I will add this, that I
find the papists themselves, and the best of their school, acknou-ledge, that the
Lord's supper, being a sacrament piven often to be administered, there must
necessarily be a defining by some divine authority how many times at least we
are to receive it, else, says Vasquez, the affirmative precept binding no man
so to any precise time to receive this sacrament, but that he might omit it,
Chap. VI.] the churches of cheist. 409
a man might forbear to receive it all his lifetime (as well as any time) with-
out sin. The like saith Suarez. Therefore they say that Christ indeed left
it indefinite, because he left power in the church to fix a set time how often,
which the pope, by divine authority (say Ihey), hath done, which, if he had
not, this precept, if indefinitely given, would not have necessarily obliged a
man all his lifetime. And therefore they say it is a sin not to receive once
a year, because the pope (in whom is divine authority) hath so fixed it, but
not oftener to receive is no sin. But now we, if we were left thus indefinitely
(whose consciences cannot acknowledge any such power in the church), were
left in a miserable uncertainty how oft at least we must receive or' we sin.
"We have no help in this case but the word itself to decide it. And this is
necessary ; for, as we say of a church, that the set number, how many it
should consist of, cannot be determined, yet there must ad vnnvuum be two
or three gathered together in God's name (as it is set down, Mat. xviii.), or
else it is no church, one saint alone not sutficing to make up a church, so
I say of this sacrament, though how often at most it may be administered
cannot be determined (for it may be administered every day, as it was in
the primitive times), yet how oft at leant it vimt be administered was to be
determined, so to set bounds unto man's neglect, and fix the institution.
Use 4. If the Lord's day be thus primarily appointed for these ordinances,
and they for it, you see then the error in appointing any other day electively
for the Lord's supper, as Christmas day, &c. Besides their misi-ing of that
blessing which attends the instituted day of this ordinance, they furthermore
set up days like God's, and prefer them to his, and yet thereby do afibrd
this evident beam of light to us, that such an ordinance honours a day, for
to that end was the sacrament appointed by them to be on those days cele-
brated ; and so does this ordinance and the like honour the Sabbath, which
is sanctified by them.
CHAPTER VL
Some cases concerning the time of the administration of ordinances resolved.
Upon what hath been hitherto treated of concerning the administration of
the Lord's supper every Lord's day, and the grounds thereof, there is a just
occasion, or perhaps a necessity, of propounding and of answering some
queries about other ordinances. Some cases of difficulty are to be discussed,
and which are indeed the greatest difficulties and knots in this question.
1. It is to be considered what interest this ordinance of the Lord's supper
hath in the Lord's day comparatively to other ordinances, and whether
by institution this ordinance is to be administered, whatever be done about
others ;
And, 2, if all have an interest also, then if the case should be that the
time and state of the congregation cannot permit that all should be admini-
stered, it is to be considered which of them should rather be cut short or
give way.
To resolve these cases. First, in general, to prevent mistakes, I premise
these two propositions :
1. That there is no such institution of any ordinance that all other ordi-
nances should give way to it, or that by institution this or that of necessity you
must have, whatever become of others. It is true, indeed, there is a general
ordinance that sanctifies all ordinances, as every creature is sanctified by
prayer, as Paul to Timothy speaks. We are to pray afore the administra-
410 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK YIT.
tion of every ordinance, as occasion is ; but such prayers came in but as
appendices and handmaids waiting and attending upon those ordinances.
They come to have a room, not upon their own title or interest primarily,
and ex se, of themselves, by a special proper institution that gives them this
substance, but, as adjuncts and attendants of those ordinances, that when
any of them is to be administered, then prayer necessarily must be before to
sanctify it. But this is but a dependent secondary title and interest that
such prayers come to have in the virtue of those other ordinances, as,
where the lady goes, the gentleman usher goes also, but for her sake only.
Thus, although prayers go before, yet in the right of that ordinance that
follows.
But otherwise, take these kind of public services (which you have here,
Acts ii. 42, and which are commanded, 1 Tim. ii. 1), as they make up an
ordinance instituted as distinct from all the rest, and that stands alone and
is a substantive ordinance, and so know that this ordinance so taken is
not of that absolute singular transcendent institution that this must be,
whatever be done with the rest. They are all second commandment insti-
tutions, and must have alike their turn. They are children all of one
father and of one rank. The eldest, which is prayer, is not ennobled above
the rest, that it must have a subsistence, whatever becomes of the younger
brethren.
2. The interest which by institution any ordinance hath, is not such but
that, in cases that may fall out, any of them may give way to another, or all
of them may give way to one ; for besides the necessity of the institution,
there may be a superadded necessity by circumstjinces, that either now a
particular ordinance must be administered, or it cannot at all, or not to that
full purpose, be administered as is meet, and so God's name would be taken
m vain. So it may fall out in the admission of or excommunication of a
member ; and so it may seem to have fallen out in that case, Acts xs., that
Paul preached out the time of the Lord's day, and administered the sacra-
ment at night when the Sabbath was ended.
For as he was an extraordinary officer, so therefore his preaching was
more than an ordinary ordinance. It had a superadded power of infallibility
went with it ; and though it was still but an ordinance of the second com-
mand, yet it was an ordinance extraordinary, and which they could enjoy
but once, and at that once receive a foundation to build their faith upon, and
raise other sermons upon that foundation all their hves. Yea, and it is to
be considered that they could seldom enjoy him in that way of God's insti-
tution, for his office was to go up and down. And it is to be considered
too that he was in the heat of preaching, and though he broke off in a case
of absolute necessity to restore a man to life, yet he would not break off for
another ordinary ordinance; for that work, as in his hand it was performed,
was greater.
And so that place (wherein he says, ' I was not sent to baptize, but to
preach') is to be understood, for his preaching was an apostle's, his baptizing
was but as an act of another man. The one was as an extraordinary ordi-
nance in his hand, the other was but as ordinary, yet it doth not follow from
hence that ordinary preaching is to be preferred to baptizing.
Now there may (I suppose) fall out cases wherein there may a circum-
stantial necessity fall out superadded besides that of simple institution, and
then an ordinance that hath place merely by institution may give way, as
ordinances instituted do to works of necessity as well as mercy. And there
may bo a necessity of mercy come to be annexed to the administration of an
ordinance by some special circumstances ; and then an ordinance that hath
Chap. VI.] the cnuRcnES of christ. 411
but the mere necessity of an institution must needs give way, as it dotli to
other works of necessity, but still not by virtue of any transcendent singular
institution.
The rule of no institution is such but an impediment may come in, and
no ordinance is so instituted but it may give way to another.
But to come nearer to the case, the question may either be made of this
ordinance in comparison with the continual ordinances, prayer, preach-
ing, &e.
Or, 2, the question may be of occasional ordinances, as baptism, admis-
sions, &c.
1. If the question be limited to continual ordinances, which of them hath
more interest ?
I answer, They have, by institution, interest alike ; but yet so as one may
have in order the priority afore the other, as, ' Let first of all prayers,' these
public prayers, ' be made,' &c., 1 Tim. ii. 1. He speaks of ordinary church
meetings, as appears throughout that chapter ; so that prayer hath the first
place by institution. And then the preaching of the word seems to challenge
the next place, and the administration of the Lord's supper the last ; but
whether after all other or no, I yet know not.
2. Some ordinances may, for the meet administration of them, require
more time, or else they are lamely administered. So preaching may be
oftener, and require more time. I observe the phrase used. Acts xx. 11,
' When Paul had talked a long while,' as we translate it; but in the Greek it
is £(p' ixavov. when he had said what was fit thoroughly to instruct them in
what their necessities required, when he had said enough.
It is certain that there is time enough for all standing ordinances and con-
tinual ordinances upon this day, and so as none of them will take up time, so
as to cause one to give way to another, and their interest by institution is
alike.
But, 2, the question will most fall upon occasional ordinances, and, if so
stated, I deliver my judgment with submission herein.
1. That the interest which continual ordinances have in the Lord's day is
(as I take it) more direct, immediate, proper, and constant, so as it is a more
native primary interest compared with that which occasional have.
I call it more direct and immediate, for there is no third thing that comes
between them to bring these two, viz., the Lord's-day and these ordinances
together ; but according to the ground formerly delivered, both being set and
standing, they were made on purpose one for another, these for the day, and
the day for them ; that so to be sure God might have a solemn standing
worship, and not occasional only ; so as the time, the Lord's day itself, by
institution calls for their administration and their existing. But as for occa-
sional ordinances, the day doth not thus immediately call for them, but
only as an occasion intervenes ; thus baptism is required when a child is to
be baptized.
Therefore the alliance between the Lord's-day and continual ordinances is,
as that of a man's own kindred, immediate and direct, and of themselves,
but that of it and the other ordinances but as of affinity by marriage, through
some middle thing coming between that causeth it. And as it is thus more
near, so more constant ; and the constancy of any relation and tie-mutual
makes a greater nearness than that converse that is by fits and times.
Men that stand in such a relation, one to another, that they must con-
stantly meet together out of office or a set constitution, are, and ought to be,
nearer one to the other in interest and respect, than those that use to meet
but occasionally and by fits, when such or such a business fulls out. Now
412 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK VII.
the Lord's day and other occasional ordinances meet but occasionally, but
those that are continual are standingly yoked together with it, and meet by
mere institution ; and so their interest comes to be primary and native, and
in the first place; for that God might have a standing worship at set times,
both this day and ordinances were ordained. But the day being thus or-
dained for this standing worship, and so founded, occasional ordinances are
administered also; and the church then meeting by institution, they are filly
administered then. It is as in founding colleges, where the founders build
chambers and places of public resort for scholars indefinitely, but between
the scholars the statutes do put this ditference, that some are scholars of the
house, as we call them, and of the foundation, which, that the college might
be sure to be upheld as a society, have a set pension and places of mainte-
nance, that the college may not be dissolved ; and others are pensioners, for
whom the statutes provide that such should be admitted also ; but yet the
primary, native, original foundation and interest, is that of scholars of the
house, who are therefore preferred to chambers, &c., before others ; and the
other is but the interests of strangers that are added to them, and have room
amongst them by the founder's will. And hence (as I take it) is the deno-
mination of your meeting and assemblies more frequently given to these con-
tinual ordinances, even by reason of their primary original native and constant
interest as the ground of it. Thus here it is said. Acts xx., ' When they
meet to break bread,' and, 1 Cor. xi. 20, their coming together in all those
places is mentioned as if only it were for the sacrament. Now the reason is,
because they are primarily and constantly to meet together for these ordi-
nances; and the Lord's day being first ordained for these, other ordinances
came to have a fit season also, by reason it is a sanctified time, and the
church is then to meet. This seems to be the way made for the administra-
tion of an occasional ordinance, as, 1 Oor. v. 4, for excommunication, when
ye are gathered together, then to deliver such an one to Satan ; but for the
sacrament, they meet to eat, and the meeting is denominated from it. Now
as an house is denominated theirs rather who are the standing dwellers than
occasional incomers, that for an occasion have a room in it, so it is here.
As the gospel and ordinances of it are called the heavens in Scriptures, as
Ps. xix. 1, Bom. X. compared, so these standing ordinances are appointed, a3
the sun and moon that divide and constantly rule this day ; and other occa-
sional ordinances are as the stars, that have their influences in their seasons,
Job xxxviii. 32.
2, The second thing whereby I express myself in the comparison of these
two ordinnnces' interest in this day is, that, answerable to this more direct
and primary institution of these, each for other, it comes to pass that a more
special blessing doth mutually arise from the administration of continual
ordinances. God, when he sanctilied and instituted this day, blessed it also;
which blessing is actually derived to us through those ordinances adminis-
tered upon it, as those whereby the day is sanctified ; and he, in like manner,
sanctifying these continual ordiminces for this day, blessed them by ordain-
ing a special blessing from their administration by this day. The day blesseth
the ordinances more, and the ordinances convey the blessings put upon the
day, which, I say, ariseth from this primary' fundamental institution ; so that
though you may have a sacrament of the Lord's supper on the week-day,
and so likewise the preaching of the word (as was said), yet there is a further
blessing on them may be expected on this day than any other.
So as, put the case you could meet conveniently enough for your occasions
for a sacrament on the week-day, and therefore would defer and put oft' the
Lord's supper from the Lord's day, yet you should choose rather to have
Chap. VI.] the chueches of christ. 413
it on the Lord's-day, for there is a special blessing on it that day, which,
through the mutual ordination of one for the other, is bestowed upon it, so
as that very reason should sway it rather to the Lord's day.
But now, for an occasional ordinance, I do question, and do but propound
it, whether there be such a special blessing that ariseth upon it, from this
day rather than another day, so as a congregation should rather put them-
selves to some inconveniences to have all such ordinances administered on
the Lord's day than on the week day, merely for the blessing's sake which
the day brings upon them. And my reason is, because they being occasional
ordinances, and occasions calling for them, receive their special blessing (if
any there be) from time or season, or from their occasions, and so as their
occasions give them existence, an esse, so also the fittest season that is suited
to such occasions in respect of occasional circumstances, gives them their
bene esse or viclius esse, their better being. So for baptizing a child, as when
a child is born to any of you, an occasion calls for the being of this ordi-
nance ; so those circumstances of time, whether on the week day or the
Lord's day, as shall suit best with the good or avoiding the hurt of the
child. The conveniency of the parents, who maybe to go a journey, and the
occasions of the congregation, do give the pre-eminence to the administra-
tion of this ordinance. And the same may be said as to admission of mem-
bers, &c. : we are not simply, for the Lord's day's blessing, to affect to have
these ordinances on the Lord's day, notwithstanding other inconveniences*
but we ought to insist on it to have the Lord's supper on the Lord's day,
for it is the work of the day, and the day is appointed for it.
But though baptism is an ordinance to be administered but once, and so
(if a greater blessing could be supposed to accompany it on the Lord's day)
it were much rather to be desired upon it than any other day, yet we see the
apostles in the Acts did baptize presently upon any day, as Philip baptized
the eunuch in his journey, and Paul baptized the jailor's family, &c. For
the deferring it was not worth any special blessing conve^^ed by the Lord's
day upon it, when all things else fell out to call for the administration of it ;
and therefore we are not bound to administer it on the Lord's day merely
for the blessing's sake.
Now then, to sum up the solution of the case.
1. If all ordinances, both continual and occasional, can be administered
on the Lord's day, as conveniently every way as on the week-day, they
should. The reason is, because it is sanctified time, instituted for ordi-
nances ; neither is any other time instituted.
2. If all ordinances cannot be administered on that day, then, I suppose
no one continual ordinance is in the frequency of it so far to be preferred,
as that it should be continually on this day, and another should give way.
There is here to be observed the same rale which the apostle gives for pro-
phesying of all. If many be in a church, and all cannot prophesy at once,
the rule is, that two or three should do it at one time, and two or three at
another, and that by course ; so, say I, let ordinances take their course in
their omissions, and no one be preferred to the rest, but let it go by a series
one by one, as the apostle there says, ' that all may prophesy.'
These arc rules given by command for ordering ordinances, and suit with
right reason (so ver. 37) when ordinances have a like interest.
3. Or, thirdly, that all may be administered every Lord's day, there must
be the less time given to every one. For that also is a rule to order pro-
phesying of brethren by, which have a like right and interest (so ver. 30),
let the first hold his peace, that is, so contract himself that another may
speak, to whom God may have given a revelation as well as to him, and
414 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK VII.
therefore he must not take up all the time. The like, I say, is to be observed
with respect to ordinances.
Or, 4, the assemblies may begin sooner ; and though some cannot come
so soon, yet when the most may, let them begin, and the rest come after.
For, though for a special reason ye are to stay each for other for the sacra-
ment (as 1 Cor. xi.), because it is a badge of the communion of the whole,
yet I know not whether we should always thus stay for all other ordinances,
for it is better that some few should want part and the beginning of the wor-
ship, that the whole may enjoy all.
Now, these things I speak in case the church cannot meet on other days
(as it seemed these in Troas, Acts xx., could not ; for Paul stayed seven
days for an opportunity to preach), which may also be the case of some
churches that are poor and numerous.
But in case the church meet upon other days, and occasional ordinances so
increase, as you cannot have all upon the Lord's day ; or the inconvenience
otherwise is such you cannot ; then,
1. For the reasons above given, you should defer occasional ordinances
(as you use to do) to other days, and keep up the solemn standing worship
by these continual ordinances.
As I apprehend it, the Lord's day is electively to be taken for breaking
bread, but not so for admission, excommunication, &c. ; and in that case you
are to defer occasional ordinances rather for this reason also ; for being to
be done but once for all, it is all one on what day : it is no loss to defer any
of them to the week day, or another Lord's day ; but if you omit a Lord's
supper upon this day, it is an irreparable loss. There is one Lord's supper
less in the course of Sabbaths in your lives, and the loss cannot be made up.
It is the loss of a good thought in its season ; but in the other case, omitll-
tur non amittitur, there is a delay, but not a loss.
And, 2, there may be such circumstances in occasional ordinances as will
make their administration much better on a week day than on the Lord's
day. An admission may require haste, through some journey to be taken by
the party, or the like. So, a man's sin may be so ripe and high, as I would
not have his excommunication deferred an hour longer, that so the church
may clear itself.
Ohj. But here comes in the objection, that there is no time under the
New Testament on which, out of duty. Christians are bound to meet, but the
Lord's day. There is no other time instituted, and therefore it is to be
supposed that the general rule that binds all churches is, that all ordinances
should be on the Lord's day only.
Ans. I answer. That, indeed, there is no other time singled out by insti-
tution to oblige them to assemblings together but the Lord's day. But yet
there is a command to meet upon other days when pressing circumstances
urf^e to it, and their occasions will permit. The same command that Hes on
Timothy to preach the word out of season, lies upon churches to hear out
of the proper season assigned by institution. Other circumstances may
press to a necessity of a duty as well as an institution may ; and so may
oblige to meet on the week days, as well as institution obligeth us to meet
on the Lord's days. And if still the condition of any church be such (which
yet ordinarily we see by weekly lectures general in city and country it is not),
that they cannot meet on week days ; but occasional ordinances multiply so
as that they, and all continual ones, cannot be administered on the Lord's
day ; then, say I, let some of the continual give way at such a time ; for if
the case be that an occasional ordinance may not be administered at all, if not
on that Lord's day, or that it will otherwise be deferred too long, then, rather
Chap. YII.] the churches of christ. 415
omit the practice of a continual ordinance rather than that occasional one
should be so hazarded. And the reason is, because that occasional oi'di-
nance is a thing to be done but once ; and rather than not have a child bap-
tized at all, and die ere baptized, it were better to lose a Lord's supper,
which you may have every Lord's day. The Lord's supper you have always
with you, but not the other.
CHAPTER VIL
Whether a c/ninh of Christ vimj lawfully make an agreement among them-
selves to divide themselves into several parts, and to have the sacrament of the
Lord's supper administered to one of those parts one Lord's day, and so suc-
cessively to every jJart of the church.
I need not prove the first principle of a congregational church, and its
being appointed by God as the seat of his public worship and ordinances. I
have already proved it, and may take it for granted by those who profess
congregational principles with difference from others.
The papists, professing a visible church catholic, &c., do allow the dispen-
sation of this ordinance of the Lord's supper vage and unlimitedly. Hence
they have private masses, and they think a priest, and one more, to be
enough for the performance of them, and also for the giving and receiving
the sacrament.
Our episcopal divines, professing a national church, allow a private com-
munion to a party that is sick, in case of that necessity.
Our presbA'terian brethren, that profess a national principle, and that
every ordained minister is a minister to the whole church, do assert, that if
several Chi-istians meet, and one such minister be with them, he may (espe-
cially in difficult times) administer the ordinance to them, though he'hath no
special relation of being a minister to them as a congregational church, and
though those Christians have no particular relation of members one to another.
In Scotland, also, a good and holy minister, in repute, cometh to a place,
and when thousands of people gather about him from far and near to hear
him preach, ordinarily such a minister useth to administer to them the sacra-
ment also.
That which is my design is to find out what of a church is the true and
proper seat of this ordinance of the Lord's supper.
The seat empowered for this, or any ordinance, is a matter of great mo-
ment, and it is not a circumstance such as a local place is, and as ' houses
to eat and drink in' are. This is but a mere circumstance of place, but (as
the apostle speaks) of this ordinance the church of God is unalterably the
seat, as the opposition there shews, 1 Cor. xi. 22. Such circumstances
the church may and doth appoint, but the proper seat of an ordinance insti-
tuted is another manner of thing.
The passover (which this ordinance doth succeed) had an whole family
appointed for the seat of it : Exod. xii. 46, ' In one house shall it be eaten :
thou shalt not carry forth aught of the flesh abroad out of the house,' &c.
Afterwards it must not be celebrated in any city, but in a family in Jerusa-
salem : Deut. xvi. 5, 6, ' Thou mayest not sacrifice the passover within any
of thy gates which the Lord thy God giveth thee : but at the place which
the Lord thy God shall choose to place his name in, there thou shalt sacri-
fice the passover at even, at the going down of the sun, at the season that
thou camest forth out of Egypt.' Unto which (as holy Ainsworth says in his
416 THE GOVEBNMENT OF [BoOK VII.
discourses of the communion of saints) a New Testament church answers as
the seat of ordinances.
Now that which I shall first do is, to find out whether this ordinance of
the Lord's supper hath not a proper seat for it, with difference from other
ordinances of worship that may be administered everywhere. I mean not as
to the circumstance of place, for that the apostle hath determined : 1 Tim.
ii. 8, ' I will men pray every where,' as to place, and so the sacrament
may be administered any where for place. But as the ordinances of disci-
pline have, beside the place and circumstance of place for meeting, a proper
seat of a church (' Do not you judge them within ?' 1 Cor. v., that is, within
yourselves, and that are of you ), so the inquiry is, Whether this ordi-
nance also hath not a neJes propria, a seat proper to it, with difference from
ordinances, and what that may be ?
This inquiry I shall manage by considering,
1. Our own commonly received principles hitherto; and see what they do
necessarily (if retained) drive us up unto.
2. I shall consider how the Scriptures will fall in to confirm and suit with
that, which by those principles shall be found to be the jnvjjria sales of this
ordinance.
We use to make a statue by cutting away of matter, as in carving a statue
out of freestone, and so in what is left a form ariseth, and it bears the image
of what we intend (as well as we do it by adding to of matter, as in making
a statue of plaster, &c.) ; and so here prmcindendo, or by cutting away
what will not serve for a sedes, the true form in such and such a matter will
discover itself.
Now, according to our congregational principles received, I believe, we will
agree in these particulars that follow, and if not, let the breach be made
where any one thinks meet to make it upon them.
I shall in the first place set them down by way of narration ; the use and
benefit of which narrative will be to help us to discern the special value and
tendency of this ordinance of the Lord's supper, which, when all is done,
must regulate this case. And also, by degrees, each of those particulars
added to others coming up so far to the conclusion, thereby both the state
of the question will be seen, yea, and perhaps some demonstration of it
spring out of all, at least to convince your judgments of the final conclusion,
which is this.
A congregational body to Christ or church, considered as such, and met
as such, is the proper sole seat of this ordinance of the Lord's supper, with
difference from other ordinances of worship and other meetings. Now to-
wards the proof of this I advance by these steps :
1. That if the whole congregational church were met, it must be a minister
who must dispense this ordinance, let the necessity of the ordinance be what
it will. Observe this, that in cases of the most absolute necessity, "none will
admit any other than a minister to administer it ; and your best ground for
that is (which I shall own), that we read not that any other but such ad-
ministered it, or baptism, in the New Testament; and everywhere we read,
that where the sacrament of the Lord's supper was administered it was by
an whole church, and so the argument for the negative is for this cause as
good as for that other, viz. that ministers only should administer it ; nay,
we have more instances of the one than the other. And this also shews a
manifest difference of the Lord's supper from other ordinances. For if we
consider public prayers or preaching, gifted brethren in cases of necessity
may administer them; and yet you will not say this is common to the Lord's
gupper, which none but a minister may administer. However, for this fixst
Chap. VII.] the churches of christ. 417
difference betwixt this and other ordinances, there must be some reason in
the nature of the ordinances themselves (for that it is the thing which in the
first place I inquire), that should require and admit such a difference.
2. The qualification of being a church member, or of being in the order,
as I may call it. Col. ii. 5, of that state, is also as requisite as to a person's
receiving the Lord's supper, as that the person administering it should be
in the order of preaching eldership. This is acknowledged also, insomuch
that the holiest man in the world (and who is known to all that society to be
such, and to be utterly remote from the least jealousy of scandal), who own-
eth not a relation to some church membership, would not be admitted to this
sacrament by any of our churches when met together.
3. The third case is this : if some members out of each or all congrega-
tional churches in England were met together in a town, and a minister of
that town were met with them (where some one congregational church re-
sides, but yet, where at that time that church he belongs unto as minister
are not met, but yet there is such a full congregation of such saints mentioned
with testimonials from their respective churches), he, according to our
principles, could not administer the Lord's supper to them, and yet they are
all qualified for it in this respect, that they are in the order of a church, and
in a church state as church members, so as the defect that it was in, in the
former case, is taken away also hereby.
And if it be said they cannot be administered unto, because he that is the
minister is not their proper minister ; but not because they are not capaci-
tated themselves for it, I add these steps more still by putting further cases
in the way of answer to this, and to shew that this defect is ultimately re-
solved into this, that, indeed, they are not a church, for that is the ground
of any man's being their proper minister.
4. If any apostle were present, he could not administer this ordinance to
them. We may make this supposition, for in the primitive times it might,
de jacto, have fallen out. Therefore, the above-mentioned defects doth not
lie in their not having a proper minister, for an apostle, having an universal
relation of office to all churches and saints, would be (so far as being a
minister of all parts therein lies) sufiiciently qualified.
5. But still there is a defect why this company of men could not have the
Lord's supper administered to them, and that, although qualified in being
each a member of some church ; and where lies the obstacle but in this, that
they are not one particular church, or members of one and the same church
amongst themselves ; so that an apostle's presence and power doth not ex-
tend to supply that defect, any more than to make a company of disciples a
church without their coalition first so to be. We use to say that a company
of elders met in a synod cannot have the sacrament together, if Paul were
with them, although they each do represent particular churches. So as still
(according to us), the administration of the sacrament farther depends upon
these being one in the same individual particular church fellowship, which
can be said of no ordinance else whatever.
6. If two or three of that church were met, and a teaching elder with
them, he might pray with them, preach to them, &c., but not administer
this ordinance. The evangelist Philip and the eunuch alone went together,
and he could baptize him, but he could not have administered the Lord's
supper to him ; so as still it is not sufficient that members of the same in-
dividual church be met with a teaching elder. Thus, still the administration
of this ordinance advanceth itself and climbeth up further and further to-
wards its having for its seat that company of believers which ought to be
accounted an whole particular church.
VOL. XI. D d
418 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK YII.
7. It is not a number of the members of the same church met with a
teaching elder which jour principles will allow capacitated for the adminis-
stration of this ordinance. Yea, though it be supposed a number of so many
and of such persons, that if there were a church to be begun, there were a
Bufficient number for to make a church (be it the minimimi quod sic of seven,
as Mr Cotton says, or of ten, as in a synagogue, or of eleven, as Christ's
disciples were when Judas was gone forth). Yet your principles will not
allow it. For,
1. Then any such number met with a teaching elder for other religious
worship might in the end say, Let us have the sacrament also in the close,
since God hath been with us in the other ordinances, and we are sufiicient
for number. But this you would not allow.
2. If there be a church of five hundred, and as many teaching officers as
were in the church of Antioch, Acts xiii. 1, who would accordingly meet in
so many several parcels as they had teaching elders over them (one teaching
elder meeting with one parcel of many of them, another with a second many,
a third with a third many, and so on), and would multiply their meetings
according to the number of their elders, this you would not allow neither ;
especially you would not admit such several meetings for the Lord's supper
at one and the same time. This yet is a case supposable, and it may be put.
Now by cases put, we having brought the matter thus high and thus near,
it is to be considered what is here yet wanting or to be superadded to capa-
citate and endow them with power for this, that the Lord's supper may be
administered in this case ! Let any man of us either make a breach upon
some or all of these principles, or assign wherein the defect lies ; and as
Peter said. What should forbid that these should not be baptized ? so let us
inquire what doth forbid or hinder why these should not be the seat of the
Lord's supper when so met, and where there are all requisites materially
for it.
1. Saints in the order of church fellowship.
2. In the same individual church fellowship, and members one of another
in that respect.
3. A teaching elder in proper relation unto them.
4. A need (perhaps) of edification of many of them ; yea, and an earnest,
spiritual, and special longing after it at the meeting, and" a great preparation
made by other ordinances unto it.
5. The common warrant (as for time) to receive this ordinance oft (' as oft
as ye receive,' &c., 1 Cor. xi. 2G), and so both season and time do meet also.
There is,
6. A sufiicient number as to the matter of a church to make an whole
church according unto that to which any principles of any profession amongst
us, episcopalian, presbyterian, or anabaptists, will say is required for a church,
and so it is in that respect equivalent unto an whole church. "Wherein should
the impediment lie ? I press any man to assign it ; but he that doth it must
assign such a ratio or condition of this company to be superadded yet to them,
as (taking into his eye all the fore-mentioned cases) shall carry with it a differ-
ence and distinct ground, founded in the nature of the things, and he must
compare them together.
1. With the case of many members of several otber churches so met with
an apostle, who yet may not receive the Lord's supper.
2. With the cases of two or three (but not arising to many) of their own
church met with their own elder, &c., who yet may not.
And yet, 3, all these may enjoy any other ordinance of worship, prayer,
&c., but not this.
Chap. VII.] the churches of christ. 419
And, 4, he must consider all these meetings to be of a distinct nature from
a church meeting of the whole church that is so acknowledged, in which not
the Lord's supper only, but any or all other ordinances of discipline, excom-
munication, &c., may be administered, which cannot be in any of the other
companies. Let any, I say, whoever,' weighing the pi'emises, assign what
notio, conceptus, or ratio (taking ratio for the modus, relation or respect put
upon a thing),, is a new or farther requisite to this company of many, &c.,
specified, and such a notio also as will bear warrant and afford a true ground
of difference of such a church, both from the other assemblies mentioned, and
will also state a difference of this ordinance of the Lord's supper from the
other ordinances, according to the variation of the cases put, and he will find
himself driven up to what I shall by and by assign.
For bring me two half-crown pieces, the one stamped, the other unstamped
(which yet for matter and all such requisites belonging to the matter, &c., is in
vulore, in value, equivalent unto an half-crown that is stamped), yet the un-
stamped piece is not constituted current as money to that purpose of payment
as the other is ; so it is in the present case.
The seventh case propounded presents you, with a many of members of one
and the same church, enough to begin a church, &c, and yet you would not
(out of times of persecution) in the modes of them propounded allow them
capacitated for this administration ; and yet they are in valore, in value, every
way equivalent unto a church which is immediately capable of this admini-
stration. Let any man now say what is the stamp that is to be superadded
unto such a company or companies ? Till others assign theirs, I shall pre-
sent what I conceive in abstracto this formal reason to be, viz., that a com-
pany of saints, &c., met, must be endued with this superadded formality,
with this nova ratio formalis iiistituta, that it is a distinct body unto Christ,
wherein the members are united to one another as such, with distinction
from other churches that are also instituted bodies to Christ. And this is
that company which, having an officer or teaching elder over them, are the
propria secies, the proper seat, for the administration of this sacrament ; and
unless this consideration is or can be justified to be in such or in any com-
pany, they are not capacitated for this ordinance of the Lord's supper. For
otherwise it is not their number, and their being members of one and the
same church, and their meeting with an elder, who is their own elder, that
will empower them for this ordinance.
1. In general, that there must be some {ariher formalis ratio, some con-
ceptus or notion superadded unto the materials of former instances (especially
that last put), is evident.
1. Because all things that go to complete the matter do meet in that last
instance.
There is, 1, a many ; 2, many of the same church ; 3, they are met with
their own teaching elder ; and yet they are defective, and are not the proper
seat of the Lord's supper.
2. Because there must some difference and distinction arise (besides
what ariseth from these persons as the matter in this company), whereby
they do and may become propria sedes of this ordinance, with difference from
all the former instances. Now, differences arise properly from the form, and
so it must be nova ratio formalis.
3. It must be something instituted, a ratio formalis instituta (as I said).
1. Because it is that which must make a difference and distinction from,
1. A company of saints in no church fellowship.
2. A company of saints in several church fellowships.
3. From two or three of the same church fellowship.
420 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK VII.
4. From a many of the same.
5. And so as that v/hereas any snch company of the former may partake
of any other ordinance of worship, yet not of this. That which must be to
put the diiference, must be ratio formalis wHtituta, as take as many men for
number and (every way quahfied and enabled, &c.) as are sufficient to make
a corporation fit to enjoy such or such privileges, yet they must over and
above be empowered by charter, and over and above have superadded the
eeat of their being a corporation by a civil institution ; so it is here.
2. Now, secondly, for the demonstration of that particular /o?-w?ct/is ratio
instituta assigned, viz., that an instituted body to Christ, considered as such,
is the only proper seat for this ordinance, I shall proceed,
1. By removing all suppositions I can think of or that have been suggested,
or what may be pretended to give the stamp or institution, so as it will still
remain that nothing else but such a company as I have before defined, may
assume and take on them to be an instituted body to Christ.
1. It is not & 'par ratio, a parity of reason. The church is said to have
prayed for Peter : Acts xii. 5, ' Peter therefore w^as kejot in prison, but prayer
was made without ceasing of the church unto God for him.' And this was
done by two several meetings at least, and so by parts of the church : ver. 12,
he came to an house where ' many were gathered together praying ;' and
another company was elsewhere, as appears from what Peter says, ver. 17,
' Go tell these things unto James, and to the brethren ;' and the words that
follow are, ' And he departed, and went into another place.' But yet all this
will no way come up to evince the matter we are upon, nor warrant that the
stamp of being a church may be put upon every assembly of many, nor will
it follow that the church may meet in parts for the Lord's supper,
1. Because prayer is such an ordinance as may be exercised by a church
by parcels, and those parcels may be fewer or more, whether their officer is
met with them or not, as in one of the former instances was alleged that one
elder meeting with one sick person may pray with him, whereas if all the
elders met with that person they would not be capacitated to administer the
Lord's supper to that sick person. For if this had been the manner then,
or an apostolical practice, the apostle James had as fit an occasion to have
made mention of it, and to have enjoined it to be administered also by them,
as well as to pray over them, &c. ; for the sacrament is as needful for the
soul of such a person as prayer, &c. is for their body.
It may also be said that any two of the church, and the whole church by
two and two, may rneet to pray for any business of importance, but you will
not say they may do so for this ordinance ; yea, they may do so without an}'
officer, as two or three may meet for prayer, but not so for this sacrament.
And one reason is, because this ordinance is a communion of Christ's body,
and of one with another therein ; but it is not so in the other ordinance of
prayer, so as there is disparitas, a disparity of reason. For it would be a
strange assertion to say that two may meet for a communion of Christ's body
as well as to pray, and thereby exercise the communion of saints, which cannot
be done apart as well as by all or many together.
Ohj. But the phrase of Acts xii. 5 is urged, that prayer was made of the
church unto God for Peter (which how it was done the 12th and 17th verses
shew, viz., that it was by parcels), and therefore the church may be said to
meet in several parcels, the reply is,
Ans. 1. A question may justly be made whether that phrase of prayer
being made of the church without ceasing, refers us unto those prayers that
are afterward instanced to have been made by parcels of the church, or whe-
ther that phrase is not intended to shew how the whole church had, during
Chap. VII.] the churches of cheist. 421
his being in prison, met and made prayers for him, for unto the former whole
time of his having been in prison doth that speech refer (view the words and
compare ver. 4), and those after-passages, vers. 12, 17, are but what fell out
to be that night afore he was to appear next morning, ver. G. But I will not
at all insist on this, but will suppose that during this time of persecution all
their meetings were by parcels as well as that night, though I believe that the
assertion in the answer given can never be disproved. But,
2. Prayer may be said to be made by the church in parcels, and yet it may
be affirmed that none of them were meetings of the church as a church, though
yet, if two by two had in such minute parcels met, yea, if privately only one
bad earnestly prayed, it might have been said that prayer had been made by
the church thus distributed.
For, 1, the word church in such a way of speech is taken materially for the
members of the church, whether singly or otherwise; and when a thing is done
by them generally either one way or another, it may be said the church prayed ;
and it cannot be inferred that they prayed together, no more than to say prayer
was made by the churches would argue they all met together for one prayer.
And that the phrase of church is so used in this book of the Actsis evident,
for when it is said. Acts viii. 1, that there waS' 'a great persecution against
the church,' the word church is materially taken. So the phrase, ver. 5, and
those compared with it, vers. 12 and 17, will in no way evidence that these
meetings were church meetings, or that they met qua church, and so they had
not the stamp which we seek ; they were barely meetings of several members
of that church; and so the whole church, indeed, might be materially in the
one and in the other, but still it was not there qua church.
2. The nature of the duty of prayer is unquestionably such as will admit a
chui-ch to perform it by parcels greater or lesser, yea, in its members singly ;
and how, then, can we interpret this phraseology in Acts xii. to serve that
purpose for which it is urged ?
Nay, 3, the Holy Ghost hath warily penned it to prevent such an inter-
pretation, for he styles the meeting of those in verse 12 (where it is said
' many were gathered together praying') in distinction from being a church,
or the church, or a church meeting, and so in reality comes up but to that
seventh or last instance we gave, of many of the same church meeting, to
whom yet you would not give the supper. And as for the other company,
who are called James and the brethren, we will suppose them met as these
many, ver. 12, were ; and yet so much is not said there, but the meaning
may be that Peter bid them to go to their several houses. They are but the
brethren with James, not the church, though James, their chief elder, had
been met with them.
Yea, 4, there will fall out this contradiction to what is said in the 5th verse,
if you say that these were each formal church meetings, for then it must have
been said that they met in distinct churches, and not that that church in
simjulari met in each of these meetings, ver. 5.
(2.) It is not the will or consent of that which we must call the whole
church (the <:ra,v7iyupig) that can have authority to set this new stamp of a
church upon such partial meetings of its own members.
For, 1, though in law estates or titles are conveyed, both by the will of
man in making his will, and by inheritance, yet here the adopting any or all
of these meetings apart into the privilege of a church goes not by the will of
man. But look what company is so met as by the will and institution of God
the inheritance falls upon, thoy only are the church. The church's will gives
not the stamp, but it must be such in the reality afore God.
2. If the will of the church had this pr^loudod authority, then the whole
422 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK VII.
church may say of any such few or many of the members at any time met,
that they are a church, and that others, though many, are not so. Yea,
3. Then it may be said of as many several companies that have each an
elder with them, that they are so many churches ; and if all these receive at
the same time the sacrament, they would be so many churches made by that
one whole church, and belonging to that one church, whereas an instituted
church consists in indivisibili.
4. It is not considered enough that the authority of being a church is not
potestas vicaria, nor deputata, a vicarious or deputed power ; therefore the
whole church cannot say. This shall be your church at such or such a time,
for such or such an end.
3. It is not a case of necessity for the ordinance that will be argument
suflficient for the administration of it to any such divided parcels of a church.
For, put this case, that many of the same church are in case of great discon-
solation, and therefore need this ordinance, or that they have not had this
ordinance of a long time administered to them, and one of their proper mini-
sters were with them ; yea, put the case of necessity, which the papists and
our episcopal divines put, that two or three or more are sick and weak in a
great family belonging to one church, and being near death in all view, they
as greatly long for, ye%, more need this ordinance, in agone mortis, in an
agony of death, than any other company of church members in case of per-
secution. Neither of these cases will be allowed to be such a necessity as
would make or constitute such a meeting to be a body unto Christ, insti-
tuted with difference from another part of that church.
CHAPTER VIII.
Whether, in case of apparent danger of life, loss of estate rationally foreseen,
or in case of violence and force causing ordinances to cease, there may not
be a prudent forbearance or secret avoidance.
The rule our Saviour gives, * I will have mercy and not sacrifice,' is our
measure and standard to forbear ordinances in the case mentioned, for it is
mercy which God would rather have. Sacrifice was the eminent ordinance
of the Old Testament in all the ages of it, yet, it being but a duty of the
second commandment or instituted worship, and not of the first, it yields
unto mercy, as also the duties of the Sabbath do, as our Saviour Christ
hath also declared and paralleled that with the duties of the second com-
mand, Luke vi. 1-4,
But I shall give instances of such a forbearance which confirm this, and
shew the extent of this rule :
1. I shall produce instances out of the Old Testament.
(1.) Jacob fled from his father's house when Esau had but spoken^ words
of threatening : Gen. xxvii. 41, * And Esau said in his heart. The days of
mourning for my father are at hand ; then will I slay my brother Jacob.
And these words of Esau, his elder son, were told Rebekah ; and she sent
and called Jacob, her younger son, and said to him, Behold, thy brother
Esau, as touching thee, doth comfort himself, purposing to kill thee.' Here
was but a hearsay and report of Esau's intention, and yet thereupon his
mother advises him to flee to Laban, to Haran, ver. 43, but to do it only to
avoid the present distress, hoping his brother's fury would be over, as the
word is : ver. 44, 45, ' And tarry thou with him a few days until thy bro-
ther's fury turn away, until thy brother's anger turn away from thee ' (that
Chap. VIII.] the ohukches of christ. 423
is, the fury of his anger be over), ' and he forget that which thou hast done
to him: then will I send and fetch thee from hence.' And he did accord-
ingly, and Isaac's blessing with him also (Gen. xxviii. 1-5), and was sent
away by his authority. And yet, consider the case how it stood : He went
away from his father's house, where Grod was worshipped and where sacri-
fices were oflered, for so in the patriarch's families they were and had been
from the beginning, from Adam, Abel, and Cain, and so on ; yet to avoid
this fury he tied to a family where a strange God was worshipped (for we
read that Laban did swear to another God than Jacob did, Gen. xxxi. 53,
viz. the God which Abraham and Nahor had worshipped before Abraham's
conversion : Joshua xxiv. 15, ' The gods which your fathers served, that
were on the other side of the flood.' That Laban was an idolator also ap-
pears by the said Gen. xxxi. 30, ' Wherefore hast thou stolen my gods '?'
compared with ver. 34), and his flying was but a matter of prudence, it
was but for a danger threatened ; he was not yet surprised, but it seemed
rationally impendent. And also it was but for a time, but not for always,
and his mother (as Ainsworth says) counselled him in feith ; yea, and far-
ther, Isaac sent him away with a blessing as from God. And there was this
farther in the case, that he, having bought the birthright of his brother
Esau, if his father (who was so old that he was stricken with blindness, and
Esau, in his speech, had implied that it would not be long to his death) had
died, it w^as he that should have officiated in the priest's ofiice in the family,
and have performed the worship of the family, as having bought the birth-
right, and so was the head thereof in that respect. How soon his father
might die he knew not, and yet he fled, and fled upon this occasion and
with this reserve, till his brother's fury should be over.
I might from hence urge an argument against what is ordinarily alleged
by people in our times, who, in the case of eminent danger, tell their teachers
and one another, You must trust God, and not avoid or forbear.
I reply. Why should not he have trusted God against such fears as these,
which were indeed but from flying speeches of his brother ? But because it
was rationally probable that his brother would indeed have killed him, he
therefore flies to avoid it ; but when, indeed, God really did call him to trust
him, as when his brother Esau came with four hundred men against him, he
then trusted God and prayed it out ; but in this case he was not called to
do it, but wholly to avoid it rather.
2. To sacrifice and to worship God together in assemblies had been the
religion of their forefathers, transmitted to them from before the flood, as
appears from the first in the case of Cain and Abel, Gen iv. and from the 26th
verse of that chap., ' Then men began to call upon the name of the Lord,'
that is, to call upon him together. But while they were in Egypt, the
people did forbear sacrifices and public worship : Exod. viii. 25-27, ' Pha-
raoh called for Moses and Aaron, and said. Go ye, sacrifice to your God in
the land. And Moses said. It is not meet so to do ; for we shall sacrifice
the abomination of the Egyptians to the Lord our God : lo, shall we sacrifice
the abomination of the Egyptians before their eyes, and will they not stone
us ? We will go three days' journey into the wilderness, and sacrifice to the
Lord our God, as he shall command us.' Yidetur colligl nonfuisse liberum;*
it seems to be inferred that it was not free, sacrificia offerre, no not in their
own dwellings for them to ofi'er sacrifices ; no, not in their own dwellings
in Goshen, or if they did it they did it but secretly. And it is for certain
that public sacrifices and meetings were not used ; for it is but now
granted as a special favour by Pharaoh : ' Go, sacrifice in the land,' as
* Rivetus in locum.
424 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK VII.
that which they had not done afore ; and they forbore upon a prudential
ground, when yet, according to the principles of trusting God in any case,
&c., and if they were true they ought not to have forborne ; they knew not
infallibly and certainly that the people would stone them, and yet thereupon
Moses says, ' It is not meet so to do ;' ver. 2G, ' For we shall sacrifice the
abomination of the Egyptians before their eyes, and will they not stone us ?
We will go three days' journey into the wilderness, and sacrifice to the Lord
our God.' Which argues further that they knew their fathers had ofiered up
sheep and oxen ; and so it was not out of ignorance that they forbore, as if
they knew not what God would accept.
From the transactions of Moses, this may clearly also be argued, that if,
in case any person be to enter into a state of church ordinances (which sacri-
fice was then more eminently in the room of), or to join with a set company
and with a pastor suitable to them, &c., which hitherto they have not done,
they may warrantably forbear and wait a due and fit season for it in a set-
tled way. Or if a man intended to remove for ordinances to another country,
he were not bound (perhaps for some good space of time) to enter presently
into them in the place where he is, or upon the next opportunity which will
present itself. Also in that case of a dangerous opposition from their re-
lations, such as, by reason of their spirits and principles, do threaten to
1 'reak all between them ; we do use rightly in such a case to ad%dse, that
wives and children are not so bound up to do it, but they may forbear, to
gain the consent of such relations. And our arguments we account strong,
because, for present enjoyment, we are not to hazard or prejudice a future
more settled and quiet enjoyment, which yet truly hath much of the case
afore us. For we only profess to forbear at particular times, wherein there
appefirs rationally a more certain danger, to preserve ourselves and our
estates to enable us to enjoy them more frequently at other times, and not
expend all our future enjoyments upon one present, and spend (as it were)
the whole of all at once. And this is truly mercy, and is the same kind of
sacrifice too, viz. for the future, instead of sacrifice at present.
Now all this is justifiably inferred from the case of the Israehtes in Egypt,
especially from the time that Moses presented himself as a deliverer unto
them ; for seeing deliverance was at hand, why did they not presently fall
upon sacrificing ? Why doth Moses defer the time, and not set upon it pre-
sently ? It was not that the duty of sacrifice was not in force, for it had
been (as Christ says of circumcision) from the fathers, and obliged them as
well as their forefathers, especially when Pharaoh had given liberty, saying,
' Go, sacrifice in the land.' No, but he defers it, to work about another
thing, viz. a total deliverance, and sacrificeth the present enjoyment they
might have had unto the attainment of a future settled enjoyment. He for-
bears at present, that the present performing it for once might not hinder
the future for a continuance.
3. During Saul's wicked reign, there was no frequenting the ark, which yet
was the ordinance of God : 1 Chron, xiii. 3, ' Let us bring again the ark of
our God, for we inquired not at it in the days of Saul.' I omit David's flying
from Saul, and complaining of his dwelling in Meshech, and his saying, ' Oh
that I were a sparrow,' a ' doorkeeper in the house of God,' Ps. Ixxxiv. 3, 10.
4. We have another instance in the case of the ten tribes all the days of
the kings of Israel. There was in Elias's time seven thousand had not bowed
to Baal, but the}' kept themselves from the defilement of idols conscientiously,
1 Kings xix. 18, and yet they went not into ordinances at Jerusalem, to
temple-worship, nor did not during all those times, which were well nigh
two hundred and fifty years, nor do we find them anywhere blamed for it.
Chap. VIIL] the churches of cheist. 425
Yea, and surely, had they been observant thereof, it would have been here
remembered by God for the evidence of their sincerity, as well as that nega-
tive of not bowing unto Baal.
If the objection be, that of Jeroboam and the rest of the kings, it is indi-
gitated that he made Israel to sin, namely, in their not going up to Jerusalem
as well as in worshipping his calves; —
I answer, 1, that the sin of Jeroboam, and the kings that imposed both,
did lie in both, viz. in restraining them from their going to Jerusalem as
well as in requiring their worshipping his calves, and the ultimate aim on
his part was to keep them from going to Jerusalem : ' If this people go up
to sacrifice in the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, then shall the heart of
this people turn again unto their lord, even unto Rehoboam king of Judah ;
and they shall kill me, and go again to Rehoboam king of Judah.' Yet the
sin imputed to the people is eminently if not limitedly said to be their
worshipping of their calves : 1 Kings xii. 29, 30, ' And he set the one in
Bethel, and the other put he in Dan. And this thing became a sin : for the
people went to worship before the one, even unto Dan.'
Ans. 2. The nation generally incurred the guilt of both, because they walked
willingly after Jeroboam's commandment, Hosea v. 11.
But, 3, still those godly people who kept themselves from the worship of
his calves (as certainly they did, as the prophets also did), and being under
this hard restraint which hath been spoken of, and mourners for it, to them
simply their forbearance to go up to Jerusalem was not imputed as a sin,
nor is anywhere found to have been so charged on them.
And that the greatest of the prophets themselves did, in that as well as in
other cases of danger, betake themselves to ways of prudence to secure and
save themselves after the most heroic darings, and durst not abide by it, you
have Elias for an example. Elias, indeed, once daringly offered a great
sacrifice, and gained thereupon the people to kill eight hundred of Baal's
priests, in the midst of Ahab's and Jezebel's reign, 1 Kings xviii. But when
he had done, he stayed not by it, but to save himself he betook himself to
his heels, and ran away, and went as far as his legs could carry him, clear out
of all Ahab's dominions and reach, forty days' journey, even to mount
Horeb, where the law was given, 1 Ivings xix. 8.
Some further objections may arise from the adventures and seeming
hazards of utter ruin, that many godly of the ten tribes at several times
made to come to Jerusalem to sacrifice. There were three special times in
which we read that many of that people, after the beginning of Jeroboam's
reign, went up to Jerusalem to worship.
1. Then when the division had been first made by Jeroboam during the
space of three years.
2. In the days of Asa of Judah, and Baasha king of those ten tribes, some
fifteen years after Jeroboam's death, another eruption out of some of the ten
tribes came unto Jerusalem, 2 Chron. xv. 9.
3. The third was just at the last, even but five years afore the final ruin
of the nations.
Of any other times we read not (that I know of) of any one's going up,
unless you will credit that which old Tobit says of himself : Tobit i. 6, 'I
went often alone unto Jerusalem to the feasts ;' and what the angel is
brought in to say (chap, v.) of two more that accompanied him at some of
those times. Yet there it is not he always went when it was duty as well
to do so, but only often, and that he alone did it, not others of the godly of
that nation in his days.
Now the circumstances of those three times specified, and the condition of
426 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK VII.
that people, are to be inquired into, that it may appear why then it was done
by the godly, and not at other times (that are recorded), as that which will
give a difference in the case, and give light to us in the point in hand, when
to adventure and when not, for it will be found that none of these three in-
stances, in the circumstances of them, will rise up to prove such an absolute
obligation unto instituted ordinances, but as may stand with mercy shewn to
ourselves in our lives, preservation of our lives, and of our famihes from
ruin. I shall therefore make a particular inquiry into the circumstances of
all these three.
1. As touching that first flush or breaking forth of goers to Jerusalem,
when it was but young tide with Jeroboam and his government, we read,
2 Chron. xi. 13-16, ' And the priests and Levites that were in all Israel re-
sorted to Kehoboam out of all their coasts. (For the Levites left their suburbs,
and their possessions, and came to Judah and Jerusalem ; for Jeroboam and
his sons had cast them off from executing the priest's office unto the Lord :
and he ordained him priests for the high places, and for the devils, and for
the calves which he had made.) And after them out of all the tribes
of Israel, such as set their hearts to seek the Lord God of Israel, came to
Jerusalem to sacrifice unto the Lord God of their fathers.' But the cir-
cumstances of the times and conditions of the persons must be therein
considered.
As, 1, that this was done at that time when this alteration, together
with the government, was first made, and (which is to be taken along) was
practised by the people but the three first years, as ver. 17 hath it; and
although Jeroboam was thus rigid from the first towards the priests and
Levites (of which by and by), yet it being the beginning of his government
(when politic princes proceed by degrees), it may well be supposed that his
being king depending much upon the people, he was a while more slack and
conniving at the people ; and indeed his first declaration (I call it so, rather
than edict) concerning the calves, and their going up to Jerusalem, was (as
to them) published in softer and milder, and but exhortatory terms, and
without penalties that we read of at first annexed, as appears, 1 Kings
xii. 28, ' Whereupon the king took counsel, and made two calves of gold,
and said unto them. It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem : behold
thy gods, Israel,' &c. It was but a presenting to them another worship,
and trying first how it would take with them.
2. The condition both of priests and people is to be considered, to put the
difference between this and other times.
1. Consider the condition of the priests and Levites, who began first, as
vers. 13, 14. It is apparent that their removal was total and forced, and
absolutely necessitated. They could not choose, unless they would become
priests to serve Jeroboam's calves, for refusing which it was Jeroboam began
with them. It was he and his sons had cast them off from executing the
priest's office, 2 Chron. xiv., and so their livelihood and maintenance utterly
ceased, for their portion always had been to live upon jura templi, upon the
revenues due by God's law to the priests as serving the temple, as you read,
Num. xviii.. Dent, xviii., and Joshua xviii., all which ceased in Israel then
with their non-execution of the priest's office. Only, it seems he left it yet
free to them to continue in their dwellings ; for it is said, those ' they left
their suburbs,' as ver. 14 ; for, alas ! what would that have conduced to
their maintenance, they having no inheritance or lot of lands ; but, on the
contrary, if they would remove to Judah and Jerusalem (which at this dawn
of his government it seems Jeroboam yet hindered them not from, but per-
mitted them), there they had a service at the temple waited for them ; for
Chap. VIII.] the churches of chkist. 427
in their courts they were there to serve. They had also a maintenance by
God's appointment set out for them, and the priest's self-denial in this was
but as that of priests and Jesuits now with us in England, who, if they be
banished from thence, have yet colleges, and monasteries, and universities, to
retire into, where they have employments and other service to do, and main-
tenance ready for them ; which ditferent case of theirs from others, who, if
banished, have mere nothing to betake themselves to, is not enough con-
sidered and laid to heart. Yea, as things stood, it was every way their inte-
rest and advantage in this distress to take this course of resorting to Rehoboam
out of all Israel.
Then, 2, for the people, who, after them (as it is said), both after that
time and after their example, came to Jerusalem also ; besides that (it was
said) they as yet had no positive prohibition to the contrary (that we read
of) further, it is not apparent at all that they did for these three years re-
move their stations from out of Israel, but keeping their houses and their lands
still, did only go up to Jerusalem to sacrifice at the usual times ; and so it is
only said of them, 2 Chron xi. 16, ' They came to Jerusalem, to sacrifice unto
the Lord God of their fathers ;' and because this is spoken with an observ-
able diflference from what had been said of the removal of the priests (vers.
13, 14), that they also left their dwellings, &c., and that the people here
are barely said to go to sacrifice, hence, therefore, it seems more than pro-
bable, that these people's going was only at the feasts for sacrifice, but they
returned again to their own dwellings and livelihoods in Israel, as in former
times they had been wont to do. And if so, then this clearly argues, that
Jeroboam's laws (if any concerning them were yet made) were not as then
so severe against the people's going up (that is, not for these three first years),
as afterwards they were, when by the experience of their going up during
those three years he saw that the kingdom of Judah was strengthened
thereby, ver. 17. And that but three years are mentioned, argues that then
they ceased any more so to go up.
On the other hand, if the case of this people had not stood thus free in
this respect for those three first years (as hath been argued), but that they
should be thought utterly to have quitted their station, it had been far harder
with them than with the priests and Levites, and indeed unsupportable. And
the vast difterence between the case of the priests and the people (if thus
stated) is very apparent ; for the priests and Levites left but mere dwelling-
houses, but had a provision for them, though perhaps less in Judah upon
their removal ; but the people, if they removed, were to leave inheritances in
lands, vineyards, orchards, &c., which they already possessed in Israel, and
that allotted them by God ; which if Jeroboam had been so severe with them
at first as is supposed, they could not have sold them neither, for he would
have prevented them in that also ; and if they had liberty to have sold them,
it had been but for the time till the year of the next jubilee by the law, which
to many would have been but little profit, for it was but twenty years at the
utmost that the bishop of Armagh reckons them, others but fourteen, between
Jeroboam's very beginning of his reign unto the next jubilee, which was the
tenth. And when they should have come unto Judah, they could not have
bought any other lands of inheritance there, for those that were that time
dwellers already, had their inheritances fixed to them by divine right ; they
were bona immohUia, immovable goods, which they could not sell longer
than the next jubilee, when they must have returned ; and so these poor
Israelites should have had nothing to have lived upon, no, nor to employ
themselves in, in the land of Judah, if thither they had removed.
Neither had they any ground (for aught I know that may be gathered out
428 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK VII.
of the story) to hope for any support or encouragement, either from that
people of Judah or Eehoboam, who was not a godly prince, nor sincerely
hearty to the cause of religion ; but, 2 Chron. xii. 1, ' After he had estab-
lished the kingdom (once), and had strengthened himself, he forsook the
law of the Lord, and all Israel with him.' And in that former place alleged,
it was but those three first years that he and they walked in the ways of David
and Solomon, upon which it may therefore well be supposed that the godly
people of these ten tribes ceased to go up to worship, though in the end he
humbled himself, and things went well again in Judah, 2 Chron. xii. 12.
But then, that after those three first years Jeroboam's severity inter-
rupted any from going up (as we read of that none did), is very likely and
most probable ; for of Jeroboam it is particularly said, that he began to use
iorce and violence to keep the people from going up to Jerusalem, as the
summary account which God gives why he removed that nation wholly at
the last shews : 2 Kings xvii. 21, ' Jeroboam drave the people from following
the Lord,' that is, from their going up to Jerusalem ; for, indeed, in that
did his main interest lie, and his calves was but a device to divert them to
another worship ; and that word, drave from, imports violence to have been
used. And this way of severity, begun by Jeroboam, was continued by other
of their kings, both by severe laws, as the statutes of Omri, mentioned
Micah vi. 10, shew, whose statutes are therefore mentioned, because he,
under more strict penalties than ever had been, enacted the observation of
the things which Jeroboam had first brought in. For unto the level of what
eleroboam had done, Omri's wickedness is hmited : 1 Kings xvi. 26, ' For
he w^alked in all the way of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, and in his sin
wherewith he made Israel to sin, to provoke the Lord God of Israel to anger
with their vanities.' And therefore those his statutes in Micah are to be
understood as more severely backing what Jeroboam had begun ; and this
Omri, who made these laws, began his reign not past thirty years after Jero-
boam's death, so that it did rise up to the highest severities very soon. And
as he was severe by laws, so also, by waylaying any that should go up to
Jerusalem, which the Jewish writers do affirm their kings did, and how they
set guards, and built watch-towers on purpose, at the passages and ways, to
take and kill them that attempted to go to Jerusalem, and confiscated their
goods ; and they do say that that place, Hosea v. 1, is an allusion to that
practice which their former kings had used upon mount Tabor and Mizpeh,*
whereon (says the Jewish writers) they had placed watch-towers and senti-
nels, as gins and snares to catch any that should attempt to go up to Jeru-
salem ;f these two places being outlets into the dominion of Judah from
some part of Israel. And that this was one way and course taken up and
continued by these kings, those scriptures do expressly relate. For of Baasha,
that succeeded but two years after Jeroboam, it is there said, ' Baasha, king
of Israel, went up against Judah, and built Ramah, that he might not sufler
any to go out or come in to Asa king of Judah.' Now Ramah was on the
borders of Benjamin, in the way to Jerusalem ; and one fresh occasion of
this design had been that (as 2 Chron. xv. 9 relates it), many in abundance
out of Ephraim, and Manasseh, and Simeon, had fallen to Asa, and came out
from those tribes to Jerusalem for the worship of God's sake. And Ramah,
which he attempted to build, was the direct passage for those particular
tribes to go into Judah by.
* See Rivet on Hosea v. 1.
t Jeroboam tit asseritur satis rationabiliter posnit cnsfodes in terminis regni, ne
quis de regno suo ascenderet in Jerusalem, et qui ascenderent caperentiir et occide-
leutur et coufiscarentur opera eorum. — Tosiaius on 2 Chron. xi. qnaast. 17.
Chap. VIII.] the churches of christ. 429
The second outbreaking over the banks which the kings of Israel had
raised up to restrain their subjects from inundations into Judah, is recorded
2 Chron. xv. 9-13, ' He' (viz., Asa) ' gathered all Judah and Benjamin, and
the strangers with them out of Ephraim and Manasseh, and out of Simeon
(for they fell to him out of Israel in abundance, when they saw that the Lord
his God was with him) ; bo they gathered themselves together at Jerusalem
in the third month, in the fifteenth year of the reign of Asa. And they
oifered unto the Lord, the same time, of the spoil which they had brought,
seven hundred oxen and seven thousand sheep. And they entered into a
covenant to seek the Lord God of their fathers, with all their hearts, and with
all their soul, that whosoever would not seek the Lord God of Israel should
be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman.'
Wc see this was a flowing in abundance, and there were two persuasives
of them to it : 1, God's prospering Asa ; 2, their desires to worship God.
Yet here in like manner the circumstances of that juncture of time, as also of
the persons (who and what tribes these were), are to be duly weighed, and will
still serve to contribute light to us in this great point, both as under what
rationally probable apprehensions men are called to adventure for the enjoy-
ment of ordinances in the times of such distress, as also in what cases and
circumstances they are to do it.
1. As to the persons (who and of what tribes), although the number of
them was in a great abundance, yet but three tribes only are specified ; and
so interpreters do much narrow it unto the godly of these tribes, Ephraim,
Manasseh, and Simeon. To clear which it must be further considered,
1. That a good part of Ephraim (called elsewhere in this story mount
Ephraim, 2 Chron. xv. 8, that is, the mountainous part of that country)
had been already brought under the dominion of the king of Judah since
Jeroboam's revolt ; first, some by Abijah, this Asa's father : 2 Chron.
xiii. 19, ' Abijah pursued after Jeroboam, and took cities from him : Bethel
with the towns thereof, and Jeshanah with the towns thereof, and Ephraim
with the towns thereof;' and those cities were not recovered again by Jero-
boam or their kings, as verse 20 shews. Then again more and other cities
had been taken by this king Asa himself, 2 Chron. xv. 8.
Other cities were taken by him, besides the former by his father, for it
would not have been first there, and then again so expressly over and again
said that Asa had taken cities, if they had been no other than those cities
his father Abijah had taken afore him ; and all these Jehoshaphat possessed
in his time also, as that 2 Chron xvii. shews. Now, this part of Ephraim
bordered upon Benjamin, which was in the tribe of Judah's lot, as in Joshua
xvi. and xviii. appears.
Then, 2, the tribe of Simeon here specified lay so near the tribe of Judah
as it had been anciently a part thereof, and reckoned within it, Joshua xix. 1 .
And then the three tribes, viz., Manasseh, Ephraim, and Benjamin, were
adjoining to one another, Joshua xvi. and xvii.
So all these being immediate borderers, and some of the cities being
already become the dominion of Judah, no wonder if many of those tribes
also fell in with Asa (especially if withal you take in the circumstances that
follow), and perhaps further many whole cities of these tribes, besides those
formerly taken by them, fell in, and not only particular persons out of them.
And the way lying so open and fair to go forth out of these three tribes unto
Jerusalem, it is the less wonder that they should in such abundance come up
thither, whereas others of the godly tribes among them, lying further otf and
remote, were cooped up and utterly debarred, disabled, and invincibly bin-
430 , THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK VII.
dered from so falling in with him as these did, and therefore none of them
are mentioned.
2. The circumstances of the time were exceeding promising and inviting
of them thus to fall in. And they were such as I believe that every man will
sny that if any godly, zealous Christians were environed with the same in the
like case, they would and ought to do the like in any age for the enjoyment
of the ordinances of God. Let but the face of the sky and of the times be
considered, with their difference from other times, as both by the prophecies
of the prophets of that age and providence concurring they lay afore them
then, and it must be said that it was in itself the best choice they could make
for themselves (according as was meet for them to judge) to fall in to Asa,
as things lay afore them, and to have done this, though there had not been
this superadded invitement (the greatest of all other), that they should have
the ordinances of God to boot. And this we may assert, although we sup-
pose withal that many of them had quitted their possessions, for all needed
not to do so in coming to Jerusalem, from which city, and the worship of
God there, their brethren in other tribes were utterly debarred.
The circumstances of these persons who thus came to Jerusalem, were
these :
In general, they had had many demonstrations and convictions from God
of his wrath against their kings of Israel, and against the people who will-
ingly continued to cleave to them, and who declared for this very thing of
their calves, and for the driving of Israel from the true worship.
1. They saw an instance of this wrath of God, by prophecy, and a miracle
accompanying it, at the very altar of Bethel, one of the new chapels, whilst
Jeroboam stood there to offer incense, the altar cleaving in two, and the ashes
falling out, and the prophet crying out against it, Jeroboam's hand dried up
whilst he stretched it out to lay hold on the prophet for so crying. You read
the story of this 1 Kings xiii., and this fell out within the memory of these
Israelites.
Then, 2, it would have amazed any man to have seen Jeroboam for ever
after so unfortunate, to have observed that fatal slaughter of five hundred
thousand men (a slaughter so great as was never read of afore or since any-
where in the world) out of an army of eight hundred thousand, and that but
by half the number of the king of Judah's men ; and this was done when the
issue and trial of the battle was in an appeal to God, put upon this very gage
and cause of Judah's retaining the true worship, and Jeroboam's having set
lip a false, 2 Chron. xiv. from the 4th verse to the end. To see these cities
taken from him, yea, and his Bethel too, and himself so weakened as never
to recover strength again.
Then, 3, it was an astonishing sight to see Jeroboam himself at last struck
to death by some extraordinary immediate stroke of God : the Lord struck
him that he died, says the text in the 1 Kings xiii. 19, 20.
Then, 4, it was an afirighting consideration to have prophecy upon pro-
phecy issued forth against his house, and one of the loudest of them, as it
were, drawn upon himself whilst he himself of his own motion would needs
send his wife incofinito and disguised to Abijah the prophet : 1 Kings xiv.
10-12, ' Behold, I will bring evil upon the house of Jeroboam, and will cut
oif from Jeroboam him that pisseth against the wall, and him that is shut up
and left in Israel ; and will take away the remnant of the house of Jeroboam,
as a man taketh away dung till it be all gone. Him that dieth of Jeroboam
in the city shall the dogs eat ; and him that dieth in the field shall the fowls
of the air eat ; for the Lord hath spoken it. Arise thou therefore, get thee
to thine own house ; and when thy feet enter into the city, the child shall
Chap. VIII.j the churches of christ. 431
die.' Of the certainty of the fulfilling of all which the prophet gave him a
present and as sad a sign. ' The child shall die,' says he ; and he names
the very time and hour of his son's death : ver. 12, ' When thy foot enters
the city.' And in the 14th verse he declares how it would be that God
would raise up a king, viz., Baasha, that should execute and perform all this,
and do it within a very small space. And when was it to be done ? ' Even
now,' says God, ver. 14 ; that is, I will not stay long, but make quick work
with them ; I will do it presently. And he performed all this accordingly
on Jeroboam's son and all his posterity within less than two years, some say
less than one, after Jeroboam's own death; and of this thing this people we
are speaking of, who here fell in with Asa, knew ; for these things, viz., both
the prophecies and these events thereof newly fulfilled afore their eyes, were
not done in a corner, and the people knew this very sin to be the cause of
all this.
Then, 5, it must needs have a great influence on these persons, to have
heard (which came home more to touch them) the same prophets with the same
breath, to have denounced a fatal captivity and destruction of that whole
nation of the ten tribes, as that which should be the end and issue of these sins :
ver. 14, 15, ' Moreover the Lord shall raise him up a king over Israel, who
shall cut ofi" the house of Jeroboam that day ; but when ? even now. For
the Lord shall smite Israel as a reed is shaken in the water, and shall root
up Israel out of this good land which he gave to their fathers, and shall
scatter them beyond the river, because they have made their groves, provok-
ing the Lord to anger.' And this is uttered indefinitely for time, for no
time is set or named when it should be ; for aught they knew, it might be
that or the next year ; and they having so signally seen the former part of
that prophecy, even now, fulfilled, they might well tremble to think that this
captivity and destruction threatened of the whole tribes might, they knew
not how soon, come upon them and their posterity, together with the whole
nation in common if they were found in the same sin.
Then, 6, another thing which had an influence upon them was, to behold
the kings of Judah (these two last of them especially), one after the other,
to be holy, good men, and every way to prosper ; yea, even the grandfather
of these two, Rehoboam (from wiaom God rent the kingdom), so to be favoured,
that in his last times things went well in Judah ; and after him his son
Abijah, a godly prince, to have so great a victory as was mentioned, and to
grow mighty thereupon (as in an opposition to Jeroboam's decay, it is spoken
of him, 2 Chron. xiii. 21) ; and then to see this Asa now reigning, the third
king, an holier man, to see how he still so prospered, as to have with a few
so great a victory against the Cushites, as to rout an army of a million of
men and more, 2 Chron. xiv., and to take all the spoil of them, together
with the spoil of all the cities about Gerar from their confederates the Philis-
tines.
And then, 7, it moved them when they saw, hereupon, a new prophet
sent from God to Asa, and all his subjects and complaints with him to revive
the memory afresh, and their ears to rehearse the sum of these thinas to
them, and so spread afore them the infinite vast difierence God had put
between him with them of Judah, and the others, the people of the ten
tribes ; and this done on purpose, to hearten and encourage them that God
would still be with them and reward their work, setting afore them what and
how great miseries had followed one upon the neck of another unto those
of the ten tribes.
Thus, in the beginning of this 15th chap. ver. 3, ' Now for a long season,'
saithho (namely, from Jeroboam's setting up), ' halh Israel been,' ver. 3-0,
432 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK VII.
' without the true God, and without a teaching priest, and without law. But
when they, in their trouble, did turn unto the Lord God of Israel, and
sought him, he was found of them. And in those times there was no peace
to him that went out nor to him that came in, but great vexations were upon
all the inhabitants of the country. Nation was destroyed of nation, and city
of city : for God did vex them with all adversity.'
The fourth verse Piscator renders, interpretinpf the whole round about it
of the time past, that if so be Israel (namely, the ten tribes) had turned,
when trouble was upon him, unto the Lord God of Israel, he had been found
of them seeking of him. The vulgar translation reads all this in the future, as
if the prophet laid afore them what for time to come would certainly be the
condition of those tribes, as thus, ' Israel shall be for a long season (yet to
come) without God, &c. And in those times there shall be no peace to him
that comes out or in, but great vexation shall be,' &c., ver. 5, 6. And the
original admitting either interpretation, I should take both to be intended ;
and I am sure that in the event and matter of fact, both had been the con-
dition of these ten tribes, and had continued to be so more or less until their
final captivity. But whether it be a narrative either of what had befallen
them, or should hereafter befall them, or both, it serves all fully to the main
purpose I cite the prophet for, which was to move and hearten them of
Judah (who both had had, and he promiseth should have, for the most part
clean contrary dispensations from God) to set up a reformation of the public
worship of God, and together with them to hearten also the godly of the ten
tribes (that possibly any way could do it) to come over unto them (as, ver. 9,
we read they did), and to leave their interest amongst those ten tribes, and
to give themselves up unto the Lord and his worship, as the most safe and
secure allotment they in those times could any way betake themselves
unto. And that the prophet speaks all this as of a diflerent condition of
Israel from Judah, is evident, both, 1, in that his speech was directed unto
Judah and Benjamin, and that Israel are the persons spoken of; neither, 2,
was it true that Judah had been for a long time without God, &c., but the
contrary ; and 3, the ten tribes were after their separation from Judah
oiiofji^asrizug, termed Israel ; as also, 4, he tells them that Judah had enjoyed
a clean contrary dispensation to this : the Lord (says he) is with you, ver. 2,
and will be whilst you are with him. And so indeed he had been, from that
first separation and rent made by Jeroboam from them until now. And
that speech also you may put either in the time past, ' He hath been with
vou,' or in time to come, ' He will be with you ; ' the original hath left it
fife for either, or for both, in saying only, ' The Lord with you,' only the
following words do carry it to the time to come.
These were the circumstances of this juncture of time, and after all these
things thus related and urged by this prophet, thereupon that followeth imme-
diately in the story, which also had foUowed as the consequent (at least) of
this his exhortation, which surely was divulged by Asa in his gathering them
together; ver. 9, ' And he gathered all Judah and Benjamin, and the stran-
gers with them, out of Ephraim and Manasseh, and out of Simeon, for they
fell to him out of Israel in abundance when they saw that the Lord his God
was with him.' So as this second ebuUition and inundation of these three
tribes in such abundance was etfected in the view and intuition of all those
things that have been mentioned ; yea, and also in the virtue and strength
of them it was that Asa did gather such numbers, which must have been by
sending unto all Judah amd Benjamin, and these tribes, inviting them to
come in and to worship God at Pentecost at Jerusalem, ver. 10, and to enter
into a covenant so to do, &c.
Chap. VIII.] the churches of cheist. 433
Now if we look round about the coast and face of these times, and view
the posture of aifairs, it will not be much material to inquire whether all
these of the three tribes or others of the ten that could remove, had quitted
their own possessions of lands, &c., in their respective tribes, and removed
to Judah and Jerusalem to dwell therein.
It is most likely that many of these persons were necessitated to abandon
their present possessions, by reason that the people of their respective cities
that continued still under the king of Israel's dominion would see to it, that
those who went out from them, should no more return to possess what they
had amongst them, especially seeing those that went are said to fall into the
king of Judah as unto their prince, and not only to have come to him for
the present ; yea, and to have entered into an oath and covenant to continue
to worship God, &c. vers. 12-14.
It must still be withal remembered and carried along with us, that these
three tribes were near borderers upon Judah ; and so, although they had been
inhabitants in some of the cities and towns under the king of Israel's dominion,
yet, being borderers, they had a fairer and shorter passage to slip into Judah,
or any of the cities in these tribes in the possession of Judah, It was but
a day, or day and a half's, journey. Yea, and that a passage was at this
time somewhat open for them so to do, may be argued from this, that Baasha,
the present king of Israel, afterwards, upon this very occasion, did attempt
to build Ramah to obstruct this passage (as the first verse of the next chap-
ter hath it), which passage for these tribes therefore afore (and so at this
time), lay more free for them to pass.
But this was not the present condition of the godly, their brethren in the
other ten tribes, who were distant many days' journey, and who, if they
would remove, must adventure far greater personal dangers of being taken
and intercepted. Would not (think we) those hundred prophets, whom
Obadiah hid in Ahab's reign, have much rather run away unto Judah, unto
the good king Jehoshaphat, then reigning there, than to have lain hid in a
cave, and live barely on bread and water? 1 Kings xviii. 4. As the times
were harder, so the distance made the difficulty to have escaped far greater.
These in the heart of those dominions, or utmost parts thereof, were more
strictly watched, and encompassed, and hedged in, and utterly disenabled to
remove whole famihes.
And the consideration of this difference between these three tribes and those
others doth aflbrd a great light unto the case in hand, viz., what hazards we
are to venture, and what not.
But that which I urge and insist on in the case of those three tribes (that
did remove, and had opportunity, without such dangers to do it), as to the
solving uny seeming objection that may arise therefrom, is, that supposing
the loss of their estates at home (for that we will suppose), yet such a
removal was simply 'and absolutely in itself best for them, and the bett
choice that possibly could be made by men, considering all those circum-
stances forementioned, and they needed not to have much debate or hesitance
what to do.
The experience of so many former miseries which they and their country-
men had run through, like one wave treading on the neck of another, the
foretelling that the same, or worse, would continue for a long season (as
indeed they did), and then the certain prophecies of a final captivity at last,
to dispossess them of all, and remove them to heathenish countries, which
continueth even unto these our days, were considerations sufficient to make
them change their abode, when they saw such changes of princes, usurpers
VOL. XI. E e
434 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK VII.
over them, made, and like to be made, as the curse of their revolt from the
house of David ; when they saw so unstable a government, unhinged, and
like a reed in the water, tossed this way and that upon every alteration, so
as they must needs make account to hold nothing that was their own in any
certain way, but to tire out a dying life in fears and expectations of they
knew not what calamities, nor how soon to come upon them ; and when in
the mean time they knew this to be certain, that the oppression of their con-
sciences in matters of religion would continue as long as the nation.
These thoughts were enough to make them weary of their dwelling, and
it was best for these men, in this case, to quit all, and come into a settled,
stable government, secured by a succession of kings of the seed of David, to
which the promises were made for aftertimes, whom God, afore their own
eyes, had prospered hitherto unto wonderment, and to whom the promise
was, that he would continue still to do great things for them. It was best
for these men to remove into a place where a defence was upon all the glory ;
3'ea, and they had this farther encouragement, that they had seen two such
kings, father and son, one after the other, so truly godly and zealous of God's
true worship, and lovers of their brethren, the godly Israelites ; whereof the
latter now reigning was holy to an eminency ; and farther, thej' were en-
couraged to cast themselves upon the brotherly aid and assistance of their
brethren of Judah, and Benjamin, &c., and upon the bounty of so holy and
large-hearted a prince as this Asa was, and who, through the blessing of God,
was newly enriched with so great spoils (unto a consecrated part of which
they came to join in the sacrifice, ver. 10), and so was abundantly enabled
to provide for them out of this abundance that fell to him, besides the other
ordinary ways of doing it ; who also had lately won cities to put them into
(if need were), especially considering that this king and this people had
invited them to come, and gathered them together upon the sermon of a
prophet sent from God to that end, to worship God, and proposed unto them
to join in a solemn oath and covenant afore God mutually, and also unto
God so to do. For, by their access, the kingdom of Judah would be (as it
was) greatly strengthened, and grow in reputation and honour thereby. Yea,
and finally, God had by that last prophet promised this king, and those of
Judah, that their work should be rewarded, ver. 7, and to unite and gather
together, and so to support these strangers, their persecuted brethren, in
their sufferings, or to help any others who had afore voluntarily come in to
them, was one and a great part of that work the promise was made unto,
that it should be rewarded. Now, upon all these grounds, these persons
had reason to judge that this king and this people were in the highest mea-
sure engaged and obliged hereunto. Since, therefore, they were in these
circumstances, and were rationally possessed with these and such like appre-
hensions, it was most eligible for them to leave their d\yenings, &c. Though
indeed in itself it was a hard and difficult trial, yet when they were so
necessitated on the one hand, and their way on the other side was so pro-
mising and sweetened, and on both hands rendered the only way to secure
and preserve themselves and their posterity, an appeal might be made unto
all men to judge if these alone were not simply motives sufficient to render
it every way most eligible ; yea, and to make them so to rejoice in the good
providence of God, that had so wisely and so graciously contrived such a
juncture, and opportunity, and season of advantage for them. And indeed
their removal is put upon this very thing, as part of the reason of it, in the
text : ver. 9, ' They fell to him (viz., Asa) in abundance when they saw that
the Lord his God was with him ; ' so wonderfully with him, as hath been
related, so as the outward prosperous condition of him moved them.
Chap. VIII.J the churches of christ. 435
Sir Walter Raleigli liath shewn himself as deep-sighted, and apprehensive
to sp3' out of the stories and imperfect narrations of times, what the face or
scheme of things in any age was, as any historian whatever that hath under-
taken to set forth matters of that nature. And he gives this judgment of
that juncture of time during Asa's reign, and puts not only this remark upon it,
that it was the eminent sole time of advantage (for he could find no such other
during the whole 250 years) for the whole people of Israel to have taken
the opportunity to have set themselves free from that idolatry, &c., and to
have united themselves to this Asa, king of Judah, their natural prince, and
the people of Judah, their brethren ; and he spends two whole sections upon
the debate thereof, and that chiefly upon politic and prudent considerations.
He begins his fifth section thus : In the reign of Asa, the kingdom of Israel
felt great and violent commotions, which might have reduced the ten tribes
unto their former allegiance unto the house of David, if the wisdom of God
had not otherwise determined. And the sixth section begins thus : Any man
that shall consider the state of Israel in those times, may justly wonder how
it came to pass, either that the whole nation, wearied with the calamities
already sufiered under these unfortunate princes (from Jeroboam until now),
did not return to their ancient kings, and reunite themselves with the mighty
tribes of Judah and Benjamin.
And therefore give me leave not to wonder if, at such a season, multitudes
of particular godly persons of those three bordering tribes, zealous of the
true religion, did thus choose to break from that yoke for a time, when
withal this course was presented unto them to be the only probable way of
safety, and so invited them thereto ; and the opportunity lay so fairly open
for it, especially when the enjoyment of the ordinances of God was con-
nected with it, and cast into the bargain to their present security.
3. There was a third going up of these tribes in Hezekiah's time,. but five
years afore the final ruin of that people as a nation, which was occasioned
and drawn in by an invitation of Hezekiah (as that of Asa's had also been),
upon which it is said that divers of Asher, and Manasseh, and Zebulon
humbled themselves, and came to Jerusalem, 2 Chron. xxx. 11, when the
generality of that people laughed at the message and messengers, ver. 10.
But then, withal, let the case and condition of this people at that juncture
of time be considered also, and it will be found the people then had a far
greater freedom than any formerly had.
Their condition at that time, in 2 Chron. xxx. (not to insist on that which
was before mentioned in the case of that second removal) was this ; that there
were many cities of the ten tribes that had continued all along subject to the
kings of Jerusalem, from Abijah's and Asa's days, even to Hezekiah's, whom
Hezekiah could command as well as invite to come (read for this 2 Chron.
xiii. 10, and xv. 8) ; yea, and it would seem that the cities of Manasseh,
and others of Ephraim, had upon the commotions and miseries that had
fallen out in Israel, given up themselves unto Hezekiah, or formerly, unto
some of the kings of Judah; for it is evident Hezekiah had dominion therein,
from what is said, 2 Chron. xxxi. 1, that after that passover, the people went
and brake down the images in all Judah, in Ephraim also, and Manasseh,
which being done by Hezekiah's subjects, and with his authority, these cities
also must have been under his dominion.
But that which I principally consider and urge in the case, and which
will carry all afore it, and defend it from objection, is this, that God, in his
gracious providence, had so disposed of this nick and juncture of time, that
all of the ten tribes that would, had liberty to go to Jerusalem to worship
by the permission of their king who was over them ; which was a mercy and
436 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK VII.
privilege never afore vouchsafed for almost two hundred and fifty years.
Hoshea was then their king (and the last king of their own over them) when
Hezekiah sent this invitation to the ten tribes, and the power of their kings
had been afore (as appears by 2 Kings xv. 19, 29), and was (as it remained
in this king's time) much broken ; insomuch that the first nine years of the
time from the vacancy of the former king, whereinto this Hoshea succeeded,
is reckoned by interpreters as a time of confusion and anarchy of the people.
After those nine years, when he is reckoned to have become a settled king, it
was by his having been made but as a tributary unto Shalmaneser, king of
Assyria (as 2 Kings xvii. 3 expressly tells us), and who, as many think, had
set him up king, and bj' reason of this dependence on a foreign prince, his
interest was changed from that of those former kings who had prohibited the
going of people to Jerusalem, out of a fear which they had of their making
a party among them for the kings of Judah ; and hence, as for other reasons,
which the circumstances wherein he was led him into, he, of all the other
kings, gave this liberty unto the people to worship as they pleased ; and this
that passage (which the Holy Ghost, as on purpose, hath inserted), 2 Kings
xvii. 2, seems to signify and point to us : ' And he did that that was evil in
the sight of the Lord, but not as the kings of Israel that were before him.'
Those latter words, but not as the khu/s of Israel that were before him, do,
notanier, remarkably give a different character of this king from all the fore-
going kings, and that in respect of that sin which had been common and
universal to them all afore, and not of some particular personal sins only.
Now, what had that been, but that sin which is noted all along to have been
Jeroboam's sin first, who was the father of that abomination, and who led
the round to all that succeeded, and which sin is heedfuUy, all along from
Jeroboam downward, affixed to them all, that they made Israel to sin, as
Jeroboam had, in worshipping the calves at Bethel, and who withal severely
prohibited any of their subjects to go up unto Jerusalem to worship ; for that
was the main intent that the calves were set up for. This was general to
them all ; whereas heathenish idolatry (which some would have to be the
difference) was but the sin of some of them.
Many interpreters, from hence, do plainly collect, and, in terininis, in
express terms affirm, that this Hoshea did give liberty to this people, his
subjects, to go up to Jerusalem to ofler there. The true reason whereof
was, that the proper interest of those former kings was broken, and he, hold-
ing of a foreign prince strong enough to uphold him, scrupled not to quit
this so long continued a law, viz., that prohibition about going to Jerusalem ;
and thus Jewish writers themselves have understood it. Say they. Though
Hoshea himself did worship the calves, yet permitted he his subjects that
would to go up to Jerusalem to worship in the temple, which the rest of the
kings of Israel had not permitted ; nay, did use to set watchmen and guards
at all ways whereby their people should go up to Jerusalem, to stop and
hinder them from going to worship.
And there is this further evidence for that, in 2 Chron. xxx. 6, where that
serious and solemn invitation of Hezekiah's is made by letters and posts unto
the cities of the ten tribes in these words, ' So the posts went with the letters
from the king and his princes throughout all Israel and Jndah, and accord-
ing to the commandment of the king, saying. Ye children of Israel, turn
again unto the Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and he will return
to the remnant of you that are escaped out of the hand of the kings of
Assyria ;' where you see the king is twice mentioned, and the first mention
doth evidently refer unto Hezekiah and his princes, who were the writers
and senders of the letters, together with the posts, and who were at the
Chap. VIII, j the churches of christ. 437
charge of it ; but the second mention in these words, and accorduirj to the
coiainandineiit of the kind, do refer (says Deodati) unto the command or per-
mission of the king of Assyria himself to them, who was the supreme over
them, and had assented to give them liberty. Bat, I should say, those words
refer rather unto this Hoshea himself, who, though a tributary king under
the Assyrian, was yet left to rule them as to their religion, &c., as he should
order, or else suppose him a king made by the people, and independent on
any other ; yet still so it fell out, that to gratify all sorts among the people,
he had given allowance by an edict, that they who would should go up to
worship ; and so it was according to their own king's commandment that this
was done, as well as by Hezekiah's invitation aud letters. And truly it can-
not be rationally thought that the letters, as written in Hezekiah's name,
should run in the style of a commandment from him, as sent unto the ten
tribes of Israel (whom what follows there doth particularly concern) ; for
they were no way under his command or jurisdiction, but subjects of another
king ; and therefore I take the whole of it up thus, that Hezekiah, the king
of Judah, indeed wrote and sent the letters, the contents whereof are speci-
fied, ' saying, Ye children of Israel,' &c. But yet withal there had been an
edict of granting freedom by their own king promulged, which is termed his
command ; and whereas that word sai/inr/, immediately following the word
commandment, seems, according to our translation, to carry the contents
that follow, as if commanded by that king, we must know that in the Hebrew
this word, being in the place of a gerund, may and doth refer to the letters
Hezekiah sent, and shews what they contained, and not unto the command ;
for indeed these words, ' according to the command of the king,' are best
read by way of parenthesis, as signifying a coincident matter with the letters,
as if he had said that these things were done by Hezekiah, not against, but
with an edict of their own king himself concurring, and declaring for leave
to his people, which Hezekiah took the advantage of.
Indeed, if this Hoshea, their own king, had not thus far aforehand some-
way declared this, it may well be thought that the entertainment of them
that went with the letters into his dominion would not have been a mockage
in word by the common people, but would have ended in blows rather, or in
their having been intercepted at least, seeing the people were so highly and
generally spirited against them for their message (which their mocking
shewed), and for their- coming into their kingdom under the jurisdiction of
another king, and that boldly to invite them unto what in former times had
been accounted treason and rebelUon. Certainly, unless king Hoshea had
some way promulged and made publicly known so much as might quiet and
hold the hands of this people off from violence unto these single persons, the
messengers, they would have fallen upon them. But in that they only
mocked, and went not about so much as to excuse themselves for their
refusal, which excuse had been easy and ready, if so be they had been under
the old wonted restraint in this king's days, which had been in force, all this
put together would argue that they were indeed really at a liberty to have
taken Hezekiah's invitation if they had pleased, but that out of their owa
innate profaneness of heart they contemned it (having been for a long time
disused thereto) ; which frame of heart (where it was let thus free to their
arbitrament) God suffered to forerun and make way for the filling up their
own and their forefathers' iniquity in this particular sin, and for justifying
that fatal, final captivity that followed upon the whole nation specially ; and
to this purpose, further, the Lord guided Hezekiah in his letters to write iu
this manner to them, vers. 7-9, ' And be not ye like your fathers and like
your brethren, which trespassed against the Lord God of their fathers, who
438 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK VII.
therefore gave them up to desolation, as ye see. Now, be ye not stiff-
necked, as your fathers were, but yield yourselves unto the Lord, and enter
into his sanctuary, wliich he hath sanctified for ever ; and serve the Lord
your God, that the fierceness of his wrath may turn away from you. For if
ye turn again unto the Lord, your brethren and your children shall find com-
passion before them that led them captive, so that they shall come again into
this land ; for the Lord your God is gracious and merciful, and will not turn
away his face from you, if ye return unto him.' Wherein he prompted to
them that their captivity threatened might hereby be prevented ; and not only
so, but that their brethren that had already been led captive might yet come
to have that compassion from the kings of Assyria, who had led many of
them away, and that God would incline their hearts so, as even they also
should come again into their own land. So good and gracious is our God, as
for the repentance of some part of a nation to be moved to shew mercy unto
others of that nation thereupon, which is a very great instance to encourage
the people of God in a nation to turn to him, and seek to him for themselves
and their brethren.
One thing, by the way, I must here note, that whereas of these present
inhabitants (to whom those letters were sent) it is said, ver. 6, ' They were
a remnant that had escaped out of the hand of the king of Assyria,' this
passage is not to be understood as if the present king of Assyria had not
been at this time supreme over them, and they and their king Hoshea tribu-
tary unto him, as was noted ; but it is only to be understood that, by God's
goodness, this small remnant had escaped from being carried captives as the
rest had been by Pul and Tilgath-pilneser, 1 Chron. v. 26, 2 Kings xv. 29 ;
and that these words, ver. 26, are spoken in relation unto captivity, the
comparing of ver. 8 and ver. 9 shews.
There is one appearance more of an argument that they had such a free-
dom granted them by their king Hoshea, in that the passover having
been ended, 2 Chron. xxxi. 1, ' All Israel that was present brake down the
images,' &c. ; and after all was done, ' Then all the children of Israel returned
every man to his own possession, into their own cities.' This being so
indigitatively said, all the children of Israel, carries this with it, that those
of the ten tribes that had come out of all Israel, returned every man to his
own city from whence he had come, and where his own possession lay, which,
if they had not liberty from their king Hoshea to have come up, such as in
former times had not been granted, they could not peaceably have presumed
to have done, or to have again enjoyed their possessions ; which also that
passage in 2 Chron. xxx. 25, confirms : ' And all the congregation of
Judah, with the priests and Levites, and all the congregation that came out
of Israel, and the strangers that came out of the land of Israel, and that
dwelt in Judah, rejoiced.' Where we see that the congregation who came
out of Israel, are distinguished from the strangers that formerly came out of
the land of Israel, and then dwelt in Jerusalem ; so as the most of that con-
gregation that had at that present come, returned to their own homes. And
yet I cannot but think that God did persuade and guide many of their hearts,
either at that passover or some of the next, that for five years followed, to
stay at Jerusalem, and so they escaped that lamentable captivity, which,
after those years ended, fell upon those fore-mentioned mockers in that
nation.
You have seen how many instances the Old Testament holds out, either
for forbearance, or a prudent management of enjoying ordinances, or avoid-
ing the case of danger.
Ohj. There is no objection of moment in the Old Testament to the con-
Chap. VIII.] the churches of cheist. 439
trary, tliat I know of, but that of Daniel, chap. vi. 5, 7, 10, Where « all the
piesidents of the kingdom, the governors, and the princes, the counsellors,
and the captains, having consulted together to establish a royal statute, and
to make a lirm decree, that whosoever shall ask a petition of any God or man
for thirty days, save of the king, he shall be cast into the den of lions. Now
when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house ; and
his windows being open in his chamber towards Jerusalem, he kneeled upon
his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God,
as he did aforetime.' And this indeed is a great objection, in appearance,
for he neither forebore altogether the practice of the duty, nor used any
avoidance, or so much as a concealment. For if he would have prayed, he
might have prayed secretly, and performed the inward worship of prayer,
which God regards, or he might have performed the outward jpriratehj ; as
for time, he might have done it in the night ; as for jAace, he might have
done it in another place, in a privater room ; he needed not to have opened
his windows ; but yet we see that he chooseth to use an open and an avowed
profession: says the 10th verse, ' Now when Daniel knew that the writing
was signed,' that is, knew full well the nature of the decree, that it was irre-
versible ; knew his enemies' manner of getting it, and their design in it;
knew full well the danger that he should incur, viz., that the instant after he
should have done it, death must follow ; for he knew the king, though he
favoured him, could not pardon him ; yet, he never so much as deliberates
at all, whether he should, or he should not, but went immediately into his
house, and down upon his knees, with his window open, and, as some read
it, did every way do as he had wont.
The argument from hence is this, that when the supreme magistrate for-
bids any part of worship of God, public or private, every Christian is bound,
after Daniel's example, to continue to practise it with boldness, openness,
yea, in all circumstances as he had wont ; there being the hke reason of all
worship else as there is of prayer.
Ans. 1. This is perfectly contradictory to all the former instances, and in
a special manner unto that last : Ezra iv. 23, 21, ' They made them cease by
force and power, then ceased the work of building the temple.'
Ans. 2. That this example of Daniel should extend unto all duties of re-
ligious worship when prohibited by the magistrate, whatever the case be,
cannot be ; for neither were all these former instances sinfully acted, nor
was Daniel the only valiant man in the Old Testament, whose example should
reprove all the rest. The Scriptures, as our Saviour Christ says, cannot be
broken, and therefore of necessity there must be found out a reconciUation,
And those that are of that opinion of an absolute obligation in case of
such prohibitions in any part of public worship, without any relaxation,
ought not to run away with one part, as yet men use to do, but are obliged
soberly to seek to reconcile these things, as well as we of this other opinion,
and to do otherwise is a great contempt unto Scripture ; and this reconcilia-
tion is no way done but by finding out the clear ground of the difference
from the nature of the duties and the cases. Our Nonconformists, in the
case of the oath ex officio, in which a man was put upon it to accuse him-
self in matter of fact, had Christ's instance urged upon them, that Caiaphas
the high priest by an oath did adjure him : ' I adjure thee by the living God,
that thou tell us whether thou be Christ the Son of God ; Jesus said unto
him. Thou hast said.' And it was inferred from thence, that therefore every
man was bound to answer by oath unto what he should, by the ecclesiasti-
cal power, be put upon. The non-consequence of this did easily appear
from a contrary practice of our Lord, as that when false witnesses came and
440 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK VII.
said in the words afore, ' This man said, I am able to destroy the temple of
God and to build it in three days ' (which yet in the substance of it, was what
he himself had indeed spoken in relation to the temple of his body), yet unto
this 'he answers nothing.' Was it that he had an oath put upon him in
the one case, which put the difi'erence ? No ; he might have chosen whether
he would have accepted of that oath or no ; yet he thought himself bound
to answer to the one, but not to the other.
There was, therefore, in this case this ground of difference suggested by
those good men between the one case and the other, that the subject matter
whereabout he w^as asked was difiering : the one was matter of fact, but
the other was matter of confession ; a point of absolute necessity to declare
himself the Son of God, which was necessary at that time, or else for ever
his testimony ceased, for his enemies were resolved to put him to death ; it
was necessary, especially for the matter of it, it being that great point, both
of his concernment and our faith, that he was the Son of God. And the
diflference of these two doth give a rational ground why he answered to the
one and not to the other. The like may be observed when they asked him
concerning his doctrine, he refuses to answer, John xviii. 20, because it was
matter of fact in what he had preached, of which afterward.
Things that are thus like in all appearance, have j^et, in the foundation of
them, a vast difference, and so will this case of Daniel's be found to have,
from the former instances.
1. There have been some who have denied that it was well done of him,
but that he was simple and foolish in it, and needlessly exposed himself to
death ; for he might have prayed, say they, 1, inwardly, and so have per-
formed his duty, at least ; 2, if he would pray with bodily worship, he might
have done it privately, or at night, and in another place.
But this opinion is confuted, not only because the Holy Ghost hath re-
corded this great act of his, and also that it is witnessed unto by so great a
deliverance from God, which shewed God's acceptance ; and also that Darius.
a heathen, did witness upon it to Daniel's integrity, in those words : ' Thy
God, whom thou servest continually, he will deliver thee,' ver. 16 ; but also
because Daniel himself, ver. 22, puts it upon this reason : ' Forasmuch as
before God innocency was found in me ;' and, ver. 23, ' No manner of hurt
was found upon him, because he beheved in his God.'
2. Others say it was an heroic, extraordinary act, that is not to be drawn
into ordinary example. But we have no warrant to think so, and I shall not
have recourse to extraordinaries whereby to difference it from the former
instances.
3. It yet must be acknowledged to be a special act in a special case,
whereof perhaps, such another instance is not, in all points, to be again
found in the Old Testament.
4. I will tell you what the good old Nonconformists' principles were in
this case. Their practice is known, that when they were silenced from
preaching by the magistrate or bishops, they forbare preaching all their days ;
and afterwards, when the way of going to New England had been started,
some that were but in danger of the High Commission, removed unto New
England, and so avoided the storm, as Mr Cotton did, leaving the bulk of
his church here, and when this instance of Danfel was urged, Mr Cotton gave
this account of it ; —
He used to produce that example of Ezra's ceasing the building of the
temple, constrained by force, for justification of the Nonconformists' forbear-
ance, and suffering themselves to be silenced and then being silent ; so in
an&wer to this place of Daniel, and reconciliation of both, and for the cleaiing
Chap, VIII.] the churches of christ. 441
of either, he put this substantial difiference between the one and the other,
that Daniel's came under an immediate duty of the first commandment, which
was personal praj^er unto God, as also under a duty of confession to be made
of the true God, in which case there is no room for mercy or preservation of
a man's self; but he is called to ky down his hfe in that case. Bat that
other instance in Ezra and the like, was the forbearance of an outward, insti-
tuted worship, and such an one temple worship was, sacrifice and the like,
parallel to our ordinances of preaching by ministers, and to our churches,
sacraments, &c. ; and that of these latter, with diflerence from the other,
Christ's rule holds true, ' I will have mercy rather than sacrifice' (which was
the temple worship), sacrifice being the highest instance of instituted worship.
I shall enlarge this notion, and prosecute it farther.
I shall, 1, consider the nature of this fact of Daniel's in the substance of
it ; and,
2. Insist on the difi"erences of other cases.
3. I shall remove objections that may be made from his retaining of out-
ward circumstances, kneeling openly and toward Jerusalem, as he had wont
every day to do.
1. The substance of the act is a complex of many things which, when stated
and first considered apart, and then put again together, will aflbrd a clear
difference from the case of other outward ordinances. Calvin insists on two
things, as I observe out of his comroent, as Mr Cotton also hath done.
That the object of the prohibition was that none should pray to God
for a month together, and then he further adds that it came under the nature
of the case of a confession of God. Now I will not lay all the stress of the
whole weight upon each of these apart singly (though each would bear a
rational ground of difference from the former instances), but on the whole
complexion of all together.
(1.) The object of the edict was that none should pray at all unto God; for
it runs thus : * To establish a royal statute and to make a firm decree, that
whosoever shall ask a petition of any god or man for thirty days, save of thee,
King, he shall be cast into the den of lions.' Calvin first makes a gi-eat
matter of this, that prayer should be thus forbidden,^'' because that in the
worship of God, prayer is the top and the chief worship, and the highest
sacrifice of all other ; and it is at large urged by him that it is that we owe
simply to God in all conditions, a duty whereby we are to witness God to be
the author of all good to us, to acknowledge our dependence upon him for
all benefits, either to come, which we obtain by prayer, or past and present,
and therefore in Daniel's practice here, ver. 10, as he prayed, so he gave
thanks before his God. It is by prayer that we ofier up our desires and
vows unto God, and cast all our cares upon him, which, if we forbear, we
shew we can be without God, without his help, his aid ; whereas if he with-
draw, we perish every moment ; and this we are to do every day. Now to
make a decree that whatsoever a man's distress be, if he be sick he must not
pray, if under lusts, if he were near unto death (as a man might think), he
must not pray or- call upon his God for a moment together, would be to
make an edict against all religion.f And othei's also urge it unto such a
* Cum in adorations et cultu Dei- primas partes obtineat precatio — ne quisquam
oraret erat manifesta et crassa nimis abnegatio pietatis — and again tbat it being ^ros-
cipuxim sacrificium, hence says Calvin, Cum Rex vetaret usque ad totum mensem
ullam precationem concipere, hoc erat exigere a singulis ut Deum abnegarent.
t Edictum Daj'ii pugnat cum jure naturae. Quod enim quemque docet et convincit
esse Deum ac proinde colendum. — Polanus. Again he says, Infringeret Daniel jus
omnibus homiuibus innatura. Also, Willet on Daniel, cap. vi. qutest. 10.
442 THE GOVEENMENT OF [BoOK VII.
purpose as this. We further put it, it was against nature, the law of nature
(as the Dutch Annotations say), for the heathen mariners in Jonah's ship,
when in danger of death, called every man upon his god.
1. Hence then there is this difference between Daniel's case and that of
instituted worship ; that in this case of Daniel, prayer in the general universal
nature of it was prohibited, not family worship or assembly worship, but all ;
and prayer thus taken, is immediately natural, and needed no superadded insti-
tution, but it is essentially worship ; it is cultns essentialis and not medium
ciiltas, as to pray in a congregation and the like are ; and so it doth differ
wholly from instituted prayers in a church, and as put up by one man as the
mouth of the rest. Such were temple sacrifices, synagogue prayers, and
preaching, which are parallel to ours.
2. Add unto this, tlaat it was not only commanded that thus prayer in the
general nature of it, and then simply considered, should be forborne (though
that had been an horrible impiety against the immediate law of nature, the
highest law of nature that is for the worship of God) ; but further, this act of
Daniel's, in the circumstances he stood in, rose up to be a confession and
profession of the true God as God, which he must have renounced if he had
forborne ; and Calvin makes that a second ground of this act of Daniel's.*
Some interpreters put it upon that, though they extend that profession unto
too great a latitude, and leave the reader at an uncertainty about it. Calvinf
himself makes a distinction of two sorts of profession, excluding the one as
not binding us, and in the other he speaks limitedly and uncertainly in
saying quantum necesse est in cultu Dei, as much as is necessary ; he doth not
say what is absolutely necessary, but that in the worship of God we should
not give any sign of a perverse and perfidious dissembling, as if we cast off
godliness, which I would say too.
To explain this head, I shall distinguish thus : confession is taken indeed,
1. Largely, for the manifestation or holding out of any particular practice
or duty, point or truth of religion, of any or every command of God what-
soever ; for in holding forth of these there is a profession (as we call it) runs
along with all these. Now there is no man will say that a man is bound to
hold forth every truth he believes, although he is prohibited to speak it.
' Hast thou faith ?' (says the apostle) ' have it for thyself,' which is also the
thing that Calvin asserts, that as there are many truths which a man may
forbear to speak, as not being bound to do so, so many practices in
which it is meet to forbear ; and yet in all these there is a profession runs
along, for in these cases their not professing is not a denying such a truth or
practice, but a concealing it, and forbearing to hold it forth at such and such
a time, which at other times and in other cases we would do and were bound
to do. ' Therefore the pradent shall keep silence in that time, for it is an
evil time,' Amos, v. 18 ; and this holding forth of duties, or truths, or prac-
tices in this general nature is rather profession than confession : and here
there must be found a right joint or rational ground of difference to judge
what we be bound to profess and what not, and at what times and seasons.
2. There is confession strictly and properly taken, which is not at large a
profession only, but an absolute confession of God, wherein we must deny
* Quod ad professionem spectat necesse fuit, &c. — Calvin. Externum jus cultus
turn fuit loco coufessionis veri Dei. — Polanus.
t Duplex est pvofessio ; neque enim dico (says he), quicfjuid sentimus passim vul-
gandura esse, ita ut statira rapiaraur ab hostibus, ad mortem. And secondly, Quantum
necesse est ; and thereupon he speaks uncertainly, limitedly, Sic nos contineamus in
cultu Dei, ut nequod siguum perversse et perlidaj simulationis demus, acsi abjiceremus
pietatis studium.
Chap. VIII,] the churches of christ. 443
God if we don't affirm him, if we conceal ourselves and onr faith. And
confession so taken is a transcendent thing, and comes up into the first com-
mandment, and is all one as to avouch God to be a man's God, and to love
God or to fear him.
This is called in Scripture confession, with this additament, and a not
denying of him, John i. 10. When the Jews sent priests and Levites from
Jerusalem to ask John the Baptist, Who art thou ? as supposing he might
be the Christ, it is said, ' He confessed and denied not, but confessed, I am
not the Christ,' and (says he, ver. 27) ' He it is, who coming after me, is
preferred b'^fore me,' whom afterwards he pointed unto.
This must not be extended to every forbearance of a truth or of an ordi-
nance, though prohibited by a magistrate's command. When therefore the
point of absolute confession is urged as absolntely necessary, the question
still must be, and consideration must be had, of the nature of the duty, and of
the truth, which in such and such cases to forbear or conceal, would be truly,
and plainly, and really a declining it.
It is not barely, and hand over head, that every man is bound, by the
law of confession, presently to perform any or every practice, or any or every
truth that the magistrate shall interdict for the present ; for concerning
things of such a degree, there may be some other rule from God, who may
warrant me to the contrary, as that which hath been instanced in, of mercy
and not sacrifice. Our Baviour Christ would not tell the Jews by what autho-
rity he did these things ; but he made a positive answer, when he came and
was put to it, whether he was the Son of God, or no, by Caiaphas, the high
priest (and as it is said), by all the assembly : Luke xxii. 70, ' Art thou then
the Son of God ? And he said unto him, Ye say that I am. And they said.
What need we any further witnesses ; for we ourselves have heard it out of
his own mouth.' When they asked him of his doctrine, as preached by him, he
would not directly answer : John xviii. 19-21, ' The high priest asked Jesus
of his disciples, and of his doctrine. Jesus answered him, I spake openly
to the world ; I ever taught in the synagogues, and temple, whither the Jews
resort : and in secret have I said nothing. Why askest thou me ? ask them
which heard me, what I said unto them : behold, they know what I said.'
If any honest, godly preacher were questioned, by an adversary that had
power, what he had preached at such a time, and should refuse to give in a
copy of his sermon, and the like, they would be apt to cry out upon him, and
upon others also perhaps who are godly, Are you ashamed of what you have
preached ? Do you go from your doctrine ? which, if you don't confess openly,
or forbear to tell it, you do, would they say. Yet, but take it as it had been
preached, and then it is matter of fact, and he is not bound to confess it.
Our Saviour Christ's example warrants it, referring them unto witnesses ;
but when they asked our Saviour Christ, whether he was the Son of God or
no, and what his faith and conscience in that point was, he answers roundly,
and without hesitation, though he knew his life lay upon it ; and this is that
good confession which he witnessed, that Paul speaks of to Timothy (1 Tim.
vi. 13), which, whether it include not also that confession of his to Pilate
himself, that he was a king, and that for this end he came into the world,
may be a question, for the words will bear either sense, that he witnessed
before Pontius Pilate, or under Pontius Pilate as governor.
I come now to the point of Daniel's act of his praying in these circum-
stances, and in this manner, and to consider it, as it was a point of the
highest sort of confession, strictly and properly taken, so that if he had not
60 confessed, he must have denied God, and if he had forborne, he must
have renounced religion.
444 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK VII.
1. The command (as was said) was to suspend all prayer to any God for
a whole month's space, which was to bring in total atheism for so long a
time, and to take away all worship that Daniel had left him, or was capable
of performing ; for there is no worship can be performed without invocation
of God. Prayer was by their synecdoche signally all worship ; yea, and it was
so according to their own principles that procured this law, for themselves woi--
shipped some god or other, which they did under the common notion and
acknowledgment of a deity and a godhead ; and therefore, to suspend
prayer to him for that time, wp^ to make a law that there should be no
acknowledgment of God in the world during that time, according to their
own principles ; and therefore I see most interpreters do state it upon the
whole of religion, that forbearance of praj'er would have been the abnegation
of it, and therefore Daniel, by such a total and visible forbearance (having
been accustomed to such a confession), must thereby have given, by a
visible withdrawing and concealment, a visible profession that there was no
God extant to be worshipped. And his opening of the window towards
Jerusalem, in this case, became a visible profession that the God that he
worshipped was the God that dwelt at Jerusalem, and had seated himself
there between the cherubims formerly, and kept the same place still.
And, 2. In this decree not only God and all his worship is taken away,
but a king, and a mortal man, was set directly up in the room of God, and
unto the denial of this God, for so the decree runs, not to ask a petition of
any god or man for thirty days, save of the king.
This king was exalted above all that was called God, the true God, and all
gods else (in opinion such), by this injunction to pray to none other god but
unto him. For this was to ordain that during that time he should have all
the respect, and homage, and reverence to be brought in to him instead of
worship to God ; and so, though such petitions put up to the king in the
mean lime, were but in civil things for the matter of them, and such usually
were presented at other times, and so the petitioning was in itself but a civil
act, as petitioning to a king is ; yet in this case, that all petitions to any
god or man must be forborne, and none put up but unto the king, this was
interpretatively a worship of that man, because he was addressed unto, in
lieu and instead of all addresses, or worshipping of God, and because it
was to be to him, with exclusion of God, as thereby acknowledging no other
god but him all that while. In this case, therefore, further, for Daniel to
have concealed himself, invisibly worshipping the true God, had been a ma-
nifest denial of God, and in a visible manner^
These corollaries may be drawn from the former examples.
1. We may admire the good and gracious providence of God, that in the
times wherein his wrath was so high and great upon the generality of the
ten tribes, during two hundred and tifty-four years, and in the times of such
great distresses as these were upon their consciences ; he should yet work
out a liberty for any of them through a special providence at such several
seasons ; yea, and the advantage which God did cast into the second, as
also the third season of liberty, upon their removals for the ordinances, is
very remarkable in the event and success thereof.
1. As for the second company that removed, in Asa's time, they first
came to live under the prosperous reign of Asa, who reigned after this their
falling in to him many years, and Jehoshaphat, his son, a godly man, suc-
ceeded him, and reigned many years ; so as these, in the event and success
by coming into Judah, enjoyed an age of rest and prosperity, and a fulness
of ordinances with it.
Then, 2. They escaped very great miseries, which the ten tribes fell into,
Chap, VIII.] the churches of cheist. 445
as Benhadad's invasion, and the change of government and governors, Zimri,
and Omri, and Tibni (Sir Walter Raleigh reckons seven of their kings in
Asa's time) ; and, besides that, they escaped the heathenish tyranny in
Ahab's time, which was the worst time the ten tribes had.
Then for the third company, who removed in Hoshea's time, if it fell out
that they removed their stations altogether (as some think they did, because
of that, 2 Chron. xxx. 25, where it is said, ' All the strangers that came out
of Israel, and the strangers that came out of the land of Israel, and that
dwelt in Judah, rejoiced. So there was great joy in Jerusalem : for since
the time of Solomon, the son of David, king of Israel, there was not the like
in Jerusalem'); or if any of these strangers were of those that came up unto
the passovor, upon Hezekiah's invitation, in the former part of the chapter,
and placed their dwellings in Judah, then God in his providence did gra-
ciously guide them unto a great preservation of themselves and their poste-
rity ; for, five years after, Sennacherib came and carried the generality of the
nation away captive ; and the escape of this calamity was the good which
they got by removing for ordinances, according to Ahijah's prophecy given
iu Jeroboam's time ; and beside that these strangers are twice said to be
those that came out of the land of Israel, which argues that they were of the
ten tribes.
Further, if you compare the style that is given the former second com-
pany that came out in Asa's time, 2 Chron. xv. 9, you will find, that they
are said to be the strangers out of Ephraim, and Manasseh, and Simeon, so
as God owned and highly rewarded this their practice of a removal for the
enjoyment of the ordinances of God in a continuance.
2. These things were written for our example, that we thereby might have
light to guide us : and all these instances shew, that as for any absolute obli-
gation to instituted ordinances (that fall back, fall edge, we should be bound
to them), that assertion (whoever would maintain it) will come to nothing
afore these examples.
1. They fall short, and no ways rise up to any such proof, for,
(1.) All these three instances shew that those godly Israehtes came up to
Jerusalem upon opportunities and advantages aftbrded them in the providence
of God, and not simply upon the absolute obligation unto these ordinances ;
for you read of no more such coming up in the interims, but only these three
times, which how they were circumstantiated you have seen.
And (2.) thousands of others out of other tribes, as godly as they, did not
remove when these did, and yet are blameless, and this because of the ditie-
rence of the case, as hath been explained. I will allude to what James says :
Go take ye all the prophets of those tribes for an ensample (the enumeration
of whom that were during those two hundred and fifty years doth arise to a
great number) ; take also the seven thousand that had not bowed to Baal,
and the one hundred prophets hid in the caves ; take also Obadiah and his
case, who is said to fear the Lord greatly, who, being governor of Ahab's
house, could not be supposed to have removed to Jerusalem for ordinances
in those times, though no man had more opportunities to get away than he,
if he could have removed once for all, for he had the liberty to go through
one part of the land by Ahab's appointment, 1 Kings xviii. 0, and at other
times could, by the authority he had at court, have taken the liberty to have
gone out at any time, but being in a great calling of trust to Ahab, and doing
service to the people of God in hiding so many prophets, &c., ho forbare.
And Elijah that met him reproves him not at all for it, yea, he hath the com-
mendation of the Holy Ghost himself, that he 'feared God greatly.' And
446 THE GOVEKNMENT OF [BoOK VII.
for Elijah himself, the Lord commands him expressly to hide himself, and
names a safe place, 1 Kings xvii. 23.
(3.) We read not of any in the interims of these three times and sea-
sons that did remove, which is to be put upon this supposition, that the
oppressions of the times hindered them, as it did the former, and that
there should be but these three times mentioned only, and a silence in all
times else for so many years, argues that they ceased in the interims be-
tween.
(4.) The rule and measure given at first, * I will have mercy and not sacri-
fice,' was the ground of all this, and cuts off any alleged absolute obligation ;
for if they were bound at all times, and in all cases, then they were not to
forbear at any time for mercy's sake, for then there were no room at all for it ;
the equity of which rule was then extant, as it had been in all ages, and must
be to the end of the world ; and one of the prophets of these ten tribes of
those times did first utter it, Hos. vi. G, and Jesus Christ applies it unto
the breaking of the Sabbath, in case of mercy, by plucking the ears of corn,
as also in the case of eating the show-bread, which David did, and then of
the priests' toiling as much as men in any calling do, which Christ calls a
profaning the Sabbath, and yet says that they are blameless. Mat. xii.
(5.) Nay, the omitting of an instituted ordinance for mercy's sake is far
less than the breaking of it, and this is but a forbearance for mercy's sake
of which we speak.
Obj. But you will say that mercy to our souls is to be considered, and it
is mercy to our souls to enjoy ordinances, and they are to be preferred to all
things else.
Ans. 1. I answer. It is true ; this will go a great way, and weigh against
many difficulties ; but yet we are to consider this, that mercy to our souls by
ordinances depends upon our edification by them, and what that will prove
to be, and that edification depends upon God, as he will make them to be
profiting ; and so now, if God comes in between and says, I will have mercy,
he can make such means as we have (in the want of these other means)
edifying to us, when as thus he calls us to shew mercy to ourselves. And
he that hath given us this rule out of his mercy and grace, will be sure to
perform the other part, of edifying us, when he thus calls us out of the same
grace.
Ans. 2. Instituted ordinances, though they have power of obligation over
us for our edification, yet not when it is to apparent destruction, as the
apostles themselves had power for edification, but not for destruction.
Ans. 3. There is some mercy to be shewed to the magistrate, that we ought
not daringly to meet in so open a way as we know beforehand will provoke
and irritate them to persecute us.
Ayis. 4. The ordinances in the performance of them require quietness and
rest, in men's spirits at least. We cannot pray when we are alone with-
out distraction, much less can we worship God when we are rationally
under certain fears: Deut. xii. 9-11, 'Ye are not yet come to the rest
and to the inheritance which the Lord your God giveth you. But when
ye go over Jordan, and dwell in the land which the Lord your God giveth
you to inherit, and when he giveth you rest from all your enemies round
about, so that ye dwell in safety ; then there shall be a place which the
Lord your God shall choose to cause his name to dwell there : thither
shall you bring all that I command you ; your burnt-offerings, and your
sacrifices, your tithes, and the heave-ofi'ering of your hand, and all your
choice vows which ye vow unto the Lord.' And they forbare many ordi-
nances in the mean time, as in ver, 8, ' Ye shall not do after all the things
Chap. VIII.] the churches of christ. 447
•whicli we do here this day, every man whatsoever is right in own ej-es,'
the equity of which may be drawn from the apostle's example. Paul, though
he had an open door, yet, having no rest in his spirit, left Troas. And
it will in a great measure hold, that men should not meet in the midst
of fears and terrors, when they are full of fears within and terrors with-
out ; it being also a dishonour to the ordinance when the assemblies are
by force broken up, and the like ; therefore men should so meet, both as
to time and place, as it is rationally probable that their j^resent meeting
may be in some safety through secrecy and privacy. And God did, by
his special promise, secure his people under the Old Testament when they
went up to appear before the Lord thrice in the year, that no man should
desire their land at those times, Exod. xxxiv. 24, which he hath not done
to us in the like case.
Obj. 2. But you will say, Yea, but the glory of God is interested in our
use of these ordinances.
Alls. I answer, That if God will be so gracious to us as to quit that con-
sideration of his own glory for mercy to ourselves, as we have cause to be
thankful to him for it, so to conform ourselves unto this exception which
himself hath made.
2. Men yet are to put themselves to much loss, inconvenience, and diffi-
culties, to enioy the ordinances, as this people of the ten tribes did.
1. In the best times it was a weariness to the people of the ten tribes
so remote to go up to Jerusalem three times a year, though to the next
tribes it was not much labour ; and Jeroboam used this as an argument,
upon the experience which the people had had, as what he thought would
move them the more readily to forbear. ' It is too much for you (says he)
to go up to Jerusalem,' 1 Kings xii. 28. It was an argument ad populwii ;
he spake to their hearts, and that which was hke to take their hearts, and as
what had been a burden to carnal spirits among them. And truly do vou
measure it now, you that have country houses ; how do you excuse your-
selves from coming up to ordinances ! And if 3'ou had been put to it so
much as they were to travel so far, you would grudge at it much more. It
was also grievous to suffer great reproaches, to be made gazing-stocks (which
those that went in the first three years of Jeroboam must needs be supposed
exposed unto from the generality of the people), and to be accounted next
door to traitors in going unto the quarters of a prince whose yoke they had
cast off.
But more expressly it is said in that third remove in Hoshea's time,
that the messengers and message of invitation by Hezekiah was mocked at,
and laughed to scorn by those tribes sent to : 2 Chron. xxx. 10, 11, ' The
posts passed from city to city, through the country of Ephraim and Manas-
seh, even unto Zebulon: but they laughed them to scorn, and mocked them.
Nevertheless divers of Asher, and Manasseh, and Zebulon, humbled them-
selves, and came to Jerusalem.' Of these it must needs be judged that they
were mocked and laughed to scorn to purpose as they went out, or went
along, and the word ripverthejeas imports that they went, maugre those
reproaches, and despised the shame, despisings, and scorns.
Then, 2, the priests, in that first of Jeroboam's times, removed unto their
great loss as to their outward estate, for the revenues and perquisites of the
temple, which the priests lived much upon, were (as Walter Raleigh says*)
* Sir "W. E., p. 452. Tlie poverty of the tribes of Levi must needs have been ex-
ceeding great at this time, all their lands and possessions in the ten tribes beino-
utterly lost, and the oblations and other perquisites from those ten tribes by which
they lived being now cut oH'.
448 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK YII.
very small. And as for the people, those of thera that came up and lost their
inheritances of lands, must needs suffer much more loss, as hath been argued,
and enjoy a mean livelihood in comparison to what they had in their own
country. Yet we see in what cases they did remove for ordinances ; much,
therefore, is to he allowed of loss this way to enjo}^ the means for our souls,
yet so as to look as nature is the foundation of grace and the exercises of it;
and if that should fail, the exercises of religion w^ould fail also, as we see in
sickness, &c. ; so it is here, that there must be a subsistence laid as a founda-
tion for the enjoyment of ordinances, which, when tbere is, though it be
with much loss and abatement, we are to rejoice in that as in a great por-
tion: Isa. XXX. 20, ' The people shall dwell at Zionin Jerusalem.' To dwell
in Zion at Jerusalem is to enjoy the ordinances at Jerusalem ; for Zion was
the seat of them, and unto such it is said, ver. 20, ' Though the Lord give
you the bread of adversity, and the water of affliction, yet shall not thy
teachers be removed.' Bread and cheese, and the gospel, was said (in time
of old) to be good fare.
3. The consideration of the circumstances these stood in, both those that
went up to Jerusalem, and those that forbore, may instruct us, and give us
light into our duty and practice.
(1.) It instructs us w^hat proportion of mercy to our outward condition is to
be weighed with ordinances, upon which we are to forbear, or not to forbear.
(2.) It directs us that, upon the rational foresight of the same or like ex-
tremities, we should know how to guide ourselves in our adventures to enjoy
ordinances where the like hazards are run, and the like vigilances to hinder
them are used, and soberly and conscientiously to consider of every oppor-
tunity we adventure to take, how probably secure it is, and not rashly, band
over head, rush upon and adventure upon all or any dangers, come what will.
4. As for the case of the removal altogether to enjoy them elsewhere, if it
be said that this we ought to do as they did, go take the same state and cir-
cumstances, and so it ought to be, I answer,
(1.) When it is to the ruin of families we are not obliged, as these were
not, that could not remove themselves and families without ruin.
(2.) Parallel, put our case with theirs in those times, and it will appear far
dift'erent, as will appear especially in the second instance, when many of
them removed for altogether: I, They removed out of a land over which
the wrath of God hung, and was denounced against it, unto a land where
they saw that God was with them, and that is made one ground of their
remove, 2 Chron. xv. 9 ; 2, they removed to strengthen the cause of God,
which needed them in the land they removed to; and, 3, they were invited
by a potent and able prince and his people, who thereby were obliged to
provide for them ; 4, there was a final captivity threatened in the end, by
God, unto that land from which they removed. And, in this case, for men
to remove for ordinances, was as if protestant borderers upon any popish
country where the inquisition reigns, which country they also knew was
designed to ruin, should remove, being invited unto a neighbouring nation
where the cause of God is, and all the advantages mentioned. But to
remove,
1, From a nation where there is a bulk and body of saints that need the
strengthening of their brethren, which is made one argument in the case of
them that went in Jeroboam's time, that they strengthened Piehoboam ; —
2, Where there is hope of a resurrection of a good cause, which was no
way their case, but the contrary ; —
And, 3, to remove from ordinances to a place where the wrath of God is
more impendent, or at least, no less ; —
CriAP. VIII.] THE CHURCHES OP CHRIST. 449
And, 4, where tliey can promise themselves no provision for their families,
but must put themselves out of their calling and serve God with distraction,
and are like to starve with their families ; in that case they are not obliged
to a remove elsewhere, merely for the ordinances' sake, but to a forbearance
rather, and waiting upon God.
I shall now give instances out of the New Testament ; and here, first, let
the prudence which our Saviour Christ used in case of appearance of danger
be considered.
Before I give you the particular instances, I premise these few things.
1. Oar Lord was wholly free of any the least tincture of sinful fears,
therefore what he did is to be resolved into prudence, applying itself to the
providence of God ; and he, being God as well as man, could have preserved
himself until his hour came, without any hidings or withdrawings, therefore
his example herein must needs be for our instruction, to guide us in the like
cases.
2. When his hour to suffer was come, as himself speaks (which had been
by a set compact and agreement between the Father and him, made known
to the Son ; for, John xviii. 4, it is said, he knew all things he should suffer,
and elsewhere, that so it was appointed), then he avoided not.
These things premised, I come unto the particular instances of his avoid-
ing danger, and the occasions of them, which we shall find to have been but
prudential fore-seeings and warinesses to preserve himself till indeed the
hour appointed by his Father, and consented to by himself, should come :
' Go tell that fox,' said he, ' I do cures to-day and to-morrow, and the third
day I shall be perfected.' But before that time he was managed by the ordi-
nary providence of God, as to what would befall him, and accordingly applied
himself thereto. And hence he becomes an example unto us in two things.
1. How we are to manage ourselves under the ordinary providence of
God, which we are always under, not knowing what will be the event of
things.
But, 2, when we are called to suffer, then we should, after his example,
not withdraw, as in case we are necessitated to suffer by providence, we
should then arm ourselves with the same mind as he did.
Ohj. An objection is and hath been made by some, that the reason of his
avoiding was, that he was to go and preach over all the cities of Judah, and
therefore it was all one to him when and whither he did withdraw, since he
still was not out of his way, which is not the case of ordinary ministers, that
are bound to a certain place.
Ai^s. 1. The answer is, 1, that be it so, that whither ever he went he still
had an employment to wait upon him ; yet still it is evident that the cause
of his remove from that place where he was afore, was matter of prudence and
avoidance, and that instances will shew ; and therefore that remains still as
an example for us.
Ans. 2. Ministers who are by the like providences (as Christ was) taken
off, may wait, that in some other places unto which they may remove, they
may have such employments as the providence of God shall call them to for
the exercise of their ministry ; as the disciples that were scattered by perse-
cution in Acts viii. went up and down preaching, chap. xi.
Ans. 3. That was not the ground why Christ did remove, who had not 3'et
gone over the cities of Judah ; for we read it expressly said, that he went again
to the same place that he was at afore.
1. The first instance that we have of Christ's avoiding danger is in Mat.
iv. 12, 13, • Now when Jesus had heard that John was cast into prison, ha
VOL. XI. F f
450 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK VII.
departed into Galilee. And leaving Nazareth, he came and and dwelt in
Capernaum, which is upon the sea-coast, in the borders of Zebulon and
Naphtali.' That Galilee that he went into was not that part of Galilee
which Herod had, who was of a persecuting nature, but which Philip had (as
Grotius* out of Josephus shews) ; and the occasion of his avoiding was but
only when Jesus heard that John was cast into prison, namely, by Herod ;
and so it was time for him to look to himself, and thereupon he secured him-
self. It was but upon hearing that John was cast into prison, no more ; only
rationally thinking his turn might be next.
2. In like manner we have an account, John iv. 1-3, ' When therefore the
Lord knew how the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more
disciples than John (though Jesus baptized not, but his disciples), he left
Judea, and departed again into Galilee.' Here again, though Christ knew
only that the pharisees had heard (which is remote enough from this) that
Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John ; and although he had a
plea for himself that he baptized none, yet upon this occasion he left Judea,
and departed again into Galilee. It was that he knew that such a report of
him would contract an envy upon himself, and an odium from the pharisees ;
and so he avoided it, and breaks off, when he was in the midst of an em-
ployment, with as much success as any he had at any time elsewhere, afore
or after.
3. We have another instance : Mat. xii. 14, 15, ' Then the Pharisees went
out and held a council against him, how they might destroy himt but when
Jesus knew it, he withdrew himself from thence,' &c.
4. There is another instance: Luke iv. 29-31, 'And they rose up, and
thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill whereon
their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong. But he pass-
ing through the midst of them, went his way; and came down to Capernaum,
a city of Galilee,' &e. ; and not only went his way for the present, but removed
to another place.
6. We have another instance : John viii. 59, 'Then took they up stones
to cast at him : but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple, going
through the midst of them, and so passed by.'
6. There is another instance : John x. 39, 40, ' They sought again to take
him, but he escaped out of their hand, and went away again beyond Jordan,
into the place where John at first baptized; and there he abode.'
2. We have also instances of the apostles,
1. Who after Christ's death until his ascension met secretly, with the doors
shut, and in the night : John xx. 19, ' Then the same day at evening, being
the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were
assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus, and stood in the midst, and saith,
Peace be unto you.' And again a second time, after eight days, ver. 26, the
doors being shut : ' And after eight days, again his disciples were within, and
Thomas with them : then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the
midst, and said. Peace be unto you.'
2. After Christ's ascension, the church by flying avoided persecution: Acts
viii. 1, ' And at that time there was a great persecution against the church
which was at Jerusalem ; and they were all scattered abroad throughout the
regions of Judah, except the apostles.' And although the apostles stayed,
because they were extraordinary officers, and had not a commission yet from
God to depart from Jerusalem, which afterwards they had, yet the church
was so lessened by the disciples scattering abroad (for which the disciples
had warrant by reason of persecution), that the apostles might safelier stay.
*■ Grotius in locum.
Chap. IX.] the churches of christ. 451
And we read that for praying and preaching in the like cases they met in the
night, and by parts : Acts xii. 12, * And when he had considered the thing,
he came to the house of Mary the mother of John, whose surname was Mark,
where many were gathered together praying ;' James and others of the bre-
thren being in another place, ver. 17.
CHAPTEK IX.
Two cases resolved : whether a person, who is not a church member, may be the
subject of baptism ; whether a minister, who is not a pastor, may administer
baptism.
I resolve the cases propounded into these two questions :
1. Whether one that is not a church member may be the subject of
baptism ?
2. Whether one that is not a pastor, in a particular relation to persons that
offer themselves to be baptized, may baptize them ? And if he administers
it, under what consideration he doth it, whether as a minister, or otherwise
as a private person '?
Quest. 1. Unto the first question I say these two things :
1. The examples in Scripture do clearly hold forth that persons that were
not in church fellowship were yet baptized.
1. The first instance is of the eunuch baptized by Philip, Acts viii. If it
be said that he was a proselyte, and so of the Jewish church, and upon that
ground a subject capable of baptism, the reply is, that his being of the Jewish
church did not make him capable of the gospel baptism, of the ordinance under
the gospel which we call baptism.
1. For when John Baptist baptized, he bid them ' say not, they had
Abraham for their father,' which yet was a ground for circumcision as under
the old covenant administered ; but he requires repentance and regeneration,
which is the gospel initiation into the kingdom of heaven.
2. Again, Peter, Acts ii., being to baptize Jews, baptizeth them, not upon
the account they were the seed of Abraham, but upon faith and repentance,
which he calls them to. He only tells them that if they would turn to God,
then God would renew the promises unto them and their children, yet in a
gospel way, namely, by virtue of their being called, as the 39th verse hath
it. So as the ground upon which men were members of the Jewish church,
and circumcised, was not the ground upon which they were baptized ; and
therefore the eunuch was not baptized upon any such account. The dispen-
sation of the covenant was altered, and the application of the ordinances had
accordingly an alteration. So then if he were not baptized as a member of
the Jewish church, and when he was baptized was a member of no gospel
church instituted, then it necessarily follows that a person who is not a member
of an instituted church, or a particular congregation, may be the subject of
baptism.
2. The second instance (which also is an answer to the former objection)
is of the jailor and his household, and of those baptized by Paul, 1 Cor.
i. 14. They, to be sure, were not of the Jewish church ; for the jailor was
a perfect heathen before, to the instant of his conversion, yet he and his
household were baptized before morning.
If it be said that Philip and the apostles were persons extraordinary ; I
answer, that still the extraordinaries of their ofiice did only enable them with
an extraordinary power over all churches, and over all persons with an ex-
452 THE GOVERNMENT OP [BoOK VII.
traordinary authority, but could not convey a requisite qualification unto an
ordinary person, which was still required, however, in the subject that was to
be baptized. They could not administer the Lord's supper out of a church,
nor never did ; and although they had extraordinary power over all churches,
yet that did not make all churches one church, but there remained churches
distinct according to that ordinary capacity of them as Christ had instituted.
And so it must be supposed in this case,
2. The apparent difierence that is between baptism and the Lord's supper
in their several intentions, doth shew that the one is properly the ordinance
of a particular church, and the other of the universal.
1. Because baptism is a baptizing of a single person into Christ, and con-
sequently into the body of Christ, as 1 Cor, xii. 13 imports, and is but an
act of a single person unto a single person (as the instance of Philip and the
eunuch being alone shews) ; and it belonging not unto a particular church,
as the former instances declared, it must necessarily belong unto the universal
church, as Ephes. iv. 4 seems to hold forth, ' One Lord, one God, one
baptism, one body.'
2. As for the Lord's supper, it is as evident that it was properly the ordi-
nance of a particular church embodied together: 1 Cor. x., 'The bread
which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ ? ' It is the
bread which we break, so that there must be a number of persons to cele-
brate it. For these we must be many, for, says he, ' We being many are
one bread, and one body,' ver. 17. It doth not hold forth the union of
single persons with Christ, or any engrafting into him, as baptism doth in
the first initiation, but it holds forth a joint and a common participation.
It is the nature of the ordinance itself, for the institution is, ' Eat ye all of
this, and drink ye all of this.' Insomuch as the apostle says, ' Tarry one
for another,' 1 Cor. xi. 33. Insomuch also, as it had the denomination from
the meeting or gathering together of many, and therefore was called 'Eum^ig.
Therefore, to come together into one place, and to eat the Lord's supper,
are put, as it were, mutually one for the other.
Quest. 2. I come now to consider the second question, whether the child
of a person truly godly, not in fellowship with you, may be baptized by one
who is not a pastor, and under what notion, whether as a minister or no ?
1. I suppose that infant baptism, of parents godly, is warrantably in
itself required.
2. I suppose that the judgment, whether the person is godly, yea or no,
whose child is baptized, properly belongs to him who baptizes it. There is
this difference between baptism and the administration of the Lord's supper,
that it is a single act of him that baptizeth to the person baptized ; but the
act of blessing the bread and wine, — ' which we bless,' — it is a joint act
together with the church, and the minister doth give it to the whole as Christ
did. And therefore the judgment of the church, that a man is godly, may
satisfy the minister's conscience for his administering the Lord's supper
among them, he not applying it to this or that person ; but in the point of
baptism it is otherwise, as is clear.
3. If it be (as by reviewing the first question it appears) the right of men
out of church fellowship, as well as in church fellowship, to be baptized,
this must be done by somebody, and the judgment that is to be passed con-
cerning the person, is not incumbent upon a whole church only or chiefly,
but upon the single person that is to baptize. So as for a warrant of his
judging such a person to be godly, and the child to be godly, it is not abso-
lutely necessary that he have the judgment of a church for it. And if there
were not a lawful way or means by which, after the apostles' times, those
Chap. X.] the chueches op cheist. 453
out of church fellowship, which were converted, might be baptized, then
Jesus Christ had not made provision for all times of the gospel as well as for
the first, in so great an ordinance. If, therefore, it does lie upon some, those
must either be ministers or others ; if it lies upon others, 3'ou know the in-
conveniency that will follow upon that ; if it lies on the minister, the ques-
tion is, whether as a minister or no ? To that I shall give this clear answer,
That a man that is set apart by his own vow to God, professed by his accept-
ance of that calling, when he was called to be a minister in a church (and
it hath the nature of a vow on his part, and is so accepted of him by God),
by virtue of that public consecration and dedication of himself unto the
service of Christ as a minister, he is to be looked upon as a minister, not
only unto them of his own church, but occasionally also as he shall be called
to such an act of the ministry as he singly may perform, as to preach or to
baptize, which, when he does, he docs it as a minister, and with the bless-
ing of a minister, and with the promise made to a minister. If one come
to him with a case of conscience, as to a minister of Christ, he hath the
blessing of a minister, and the promise of a minister, and the guidance of a
minister to resolve it; and by like reason, if any one come to him and call
him to baptize, he hath authority to do it. And this does no way prejudice
our congregational principles ; for it is a single act of the ministry, and but
occasionally put forth, as he shall be called thereto. But the matter of ordi-
nation, and of governing the church or ruling, it is not a single act, but is to
be performed with others, for it is an act of authority or power over others,
but it is not an act of power above others, or which others have not. Our
presbyterian brethren fail in their practice and in their argument, in that
they, because they are ministers, therefore associate themselves together,
and take power over the churches, to rule them and govern them, whether
the churches do call them or no. And call them to it as churches they
cannot, unless they give away thereby and prejudice that power which is
seated within themselves, as in a body, and ought to be exercised among
themselves, and not without themselves in a judicature that is without them.
If I were seated in a parish that had a church in it, gathered out of it, and
the rest of the parish came to hear me, I should not look upon myself to
preach as a private man to all these that are not in my church, and as a
minister only to them that are of the church, but as one set apart to the
work of the ministry ; to preach as a minister to both, as to the matter of
preaching ; and that (as I take it) by virtue of what is said, Ephes. iv. 12,
' He gave pastors and teachers as well, T^og rhv Karagriefchv ruiv ayici."), for the
jointing in of the saints,' which is conversion, as well as for the edifying of
the body of Christ.
CHAPTER X.
Whether a church may depose an officer for a crime which deserves not ex-
communication.
That a church may not disclaim an officer for an offence which is not
worthy of excommunication, appears to me evident from this reason, because
you are to exercise the same patience towards an officer, as an officer, in
matter of crime, that you are to use to a private member ; and so you are
not to disclaim him from being an officer on a lesser account than you would
excommunicate him ; according to that rule (which nature dictates) to en-
treat an elder as a father (and this in case of censure). This is a main duty
454 THE GOVEENMENT OF [BoOK VII.
of a church to a minister, and by a rule of equity grounded on nature, in the
duty of children to a father, not to renounce him for that fault for which
they would not renounce a brother.
Ohj. All this runs upon a false supposition, viz. that an officer may not be
displaced for a crime cleaving to the administration of his office.
1. Because what crime may be cured by a lesser censure, needs not a
greater ; but crimes that cleave to the administration of an office, may be
cured by the displacing of the officer, which is a lesser censure; therefore
there is no need of excommunication, which is a greater.
2. As an officer cannot be chosen out of the body, being guilty of some
crimes, so the same crimes may be just matter of his displacing after his
being chosen.
Ans. The objection seems to intimate a distinction between sins cleaving
to the administration of his office, and such as are otherwise common to him
as a brother, and that for such he may be disclaimed as an officer, when he
could not have been so as a brother.
But, 1, I do not see that the Scripture putteth any such distinction be-
tween these two sorts of sins, that for the one an officer should be displaced,
when not for the other. I am sure that other sins than such as cleave to
the administration of his office, are promiscuously put together with the
other, and alike forbidden in him :* 1 Tim. iii. 2, ' A bishop then must be
blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given
to hospitality, apt to teach.' And so Titus ii. 2, ' That the aged men be
sober, grave, temperate, sound in faith, in charity, in patience.' So as the
case of any such crimes is all one with those cleaving to the administration
of his office.
2. This your distinction doth run upon a false supposition ; as if the sub-
ject to be considered in your treating with an officer in matter of crime were
not the person, and that as he is a saint and brother, as well in sins of his
office as in other sins ; for though he is invested with a relation of office (by
virtue of his gifts and your choice), yet the discharge of his office faithfully
is from his grace ; and the neglect of it (for which in such a case you would
disclaim him) is but a fruit of his sin from contrary corruption, and a fail-
ing as he is a saint, so as in matter of sin you cannot distinguish his being
a saint and his being an officer. Surely it is in this as in other relations :
a brother being a husband as well as a brother, a brother being a master as
well as a brother, and he being an officer as well as a brother, all these rela-
tions do obhge them to several duties, which, if they fail to discharge, you
are to deal with them all as saints failing in duty, seeing they are defects of
grace ; and you have not in church-fellowship one way of deahng with a hus-
band if he sins against his relations, another with a master of a family if
against his, and so neither a peculiar one for an officer if he sin against his.
All the duties of the dispensation and of his office are but the duties of his
particular calling and relation, wherein, if he fail (through corruption) he is
to be dealt with as another brother who fails in his relation, or neglects the
duties of his calling, and no other than the same officer should be if he sins
in any other state. And though it be a sin against the church more imme-
diately, yet it being but a sin, God's ordinance is to have it reclaimed the
same way that all sins are, Mat. xviii. 15-17. You cannot shew a warrant
that God hath given this peculiar power in this case over an officer, to dis-
claim him as an officer, in way of an ordinance, till he grow so hardened as
he deserves excommunication.
* Ubi Scriptura non distinguit, ibi nee nos distinguere debemus.
Chap. X.] the churches of christ. 455
Your first reason for it is, because such crimes may be cured by tliis as a
lesser censure, and so needs not a greater.
In this your reason, if you view the expression, you will find that you
again speak upon a false supposition, as if W6 had affirmed that crimes in the
dispensation of his office did always need the excommunication of the officer.
But our exception lies in this, that when his crime needed not excommuni-
cation in your own judgment, but you thought that to be too great a cen-
sure, you should disclaim him as an officer, whenas on an officer there is
no such censure to be inflicted for matter of crime in his office until it
comes to that height as it deserves excommunication ; and that therefore it
was violence in you to be so hasty to proceed so severely till he had
deserved it.
1. It is true that simply disclaiming an officer (if for insufficiency) is less
than excommunication ; but then it is not a censure, for that respects crime ;
but to disclaim an officer in case of crime and sin is interpretative as much
as excommunication ; for if dispensed according to the word, it should not
be done till he were past cure, and so should be joined, or rather included,
in excommunication.
2. The fault we find lies in this, that you make this invention of disclaim-
ing an officer a church censure, and so an ordinance of God coming between
admonition and excommunication to cure a man, which we affirm you have
no warrant for ; so that though it be a less punishment than excommunica-
tion (if he had deserved it) would be, that being a delivering up to Satan,
yet you must take on you to invent other punishments, as you are a church,
than God hath ordained. You have your p'ower, your honour, your lives
from Christ, and your punishment (as 2 Cor. ii. 6, excommunication is
called) from him also. In a college, you might invent twenty less punish-
ments than expulsion, but in a church, you must invent none that God hath
not ordained. And you have not the power that men's courts have of vary-
ing their punishments, who, having law to warrant them, use less violence
under that consideration than you who have neither God's law nor man's to
justify your proceeding herein. And whereas you think, because it is a less
punishment, it may cure him, and so he should not need excommunication,
I answer,
1. That which must cure must have Grod's blessing and promise of bless-
ing annexed, and so be his institution ; but that this is such we desire a
warrant. It may cure him as a cross (as an injustice done in a civil court
may, and an unlawful s^ispension may do the man much good), but that is
an accident, and no warrant for you to inflict it.
Yea, 2, what is it in him you would cure ? Would you cure him as an
officer, or cure him as a saint and brother ? If as an officer (as would seem
by inflicting punishment answerable to his sin, he sinning in his office you
would punish him in his office to cure him), how improper a remedy is this
for his cure, which casts him off, destroys him as an officer, lames him for
use and exercise of his office, puts him out of it for ever ! Doth that sur-
geon cure a hand, that in going about to make it sound, makes it as a hand
lor ever unuseful, though he leaves it a member still ? Doth any man
punish his members so for failing in their office ? Will they cut off till
there be no hope ? Would you cm-e him as a saint or brother ? Then you
must forego that distinction of punishing him as an officer for crimes in his
office, when not as a brother, seeing he is considered by you as a brother in
the time of his office.
And therefore you are to proceed with him for sins in his office as with a
brother, if he have committed sins, and use the same means for his cure
456 THE GOVERNBIENT OF [BoOK YII.
that you would do to a brother for his sins ; you must use admonition and
patience, till his sin comes to that height that it deserves casting oil" as a
brother by excommunicating of him ; yea, you ought to treat him with more
patience in this kind than you would do a brother, for he is more ; entreat
him as a father.
Reason 2. Your second reason, drawn from the instance of Abiathar, who
remained a member of the Jewish church when put from his priesthood, the
only warrant from Scripture you allege, how remote is it from the case in
hand !
For, 1, it was not an act of ecclesiastical, but civil power. The text says,
Solomon thrust out Abiathar from the priesthood ; it was the king did it,
1 Kings ii. 27.
And, 2, not for a sin in the dispensation of his office, but for high treason.
So it serves not your purpose at all.
3. For which treason he was ' a man of death,' ver. 26 ; and that he
remained alive, and so in their Jewish church, was from the king's pardon ;
* I will not at this time put thee to death,' ver. 26. He only thrust him
from the priesthood, which he forfeited in forfeiting his life, and so was part
of the punishment included in that other death.
Yea, 4, it was done to fulfil a particular word of prophecy, and no way as
a standing ordinance to cure him ; so ver. 27, ' That he might fulil the word
of the Lord, which he spake concerning the house of Eli.'
And, 5, in respect to his office, Solomon was so far from heightening his
punishment more than to another brother, that he therefore spared his life,
' because he had borne the ark of the Lord,' whereas he put Adonijah and
Joab to death, being in the same treason with him.
Ohj. 2. As an officer cannot be chosen out of the body, being guilty of
some crimes, so the same crimes may be just matter of displacing after his
choosing.
Ans. 1. If you have those crimes mentioned, 1 Tim. iii., in your eye,
take them but as eminent infirmities, that stand with sincerity, as there the
apostle speaks of them, yet if eminent, such an one (if other supply may be
had) is not to be chosen ; yet consider,
1. That those sins and infirmities there mentioned are not only such as
are found in the dispensation of his office, but others also, as was said afore.
So that you must say, that not only for sins cleaving to his administration,
but of any other kind, he is to be disclaimed.
And, 2, those infirmities are mentioned as rules for the choice of officers,
not of casting out one chosen, as also to shew what an one a bishop ought
to be after choice : so, ver. 1, ' If a man desires the office of a bishop,' and
so is to be chosen, ' let him be blameless,' and it respects choice. So of a
deacon, ver. 10, ' Let him first be proved, then let him use the office of a
deacon.' The rule, therefore, respects choice : chap. v. 9, * Let not a widow
be taken into the number under threescore years,' &c. ; still those rules were
intended to direct choice. But if, after choice, these as infirmities were
found in them, he says not they are to be cast out unless obstinate, and so
it proves more than infirmity ; so as those places will no way afi'ord a ground
for this.
And for your inference thence, that if he may not be chosen, being guilty
of such crimes as are there mentioned, that therefore, after choice, when
guilty, they are just matter to cast him out.
The answer, is, 1, we grant it, if obstinacy be joined to them, and so he
deserve excommunication; but simply, the guilt of them as infirmities (and
Chap. X.] the churches of christ. 457
they are no more till obstinacy and impenitency be added to tbem), is not
just matter to cast out after choice and ordination.
r 2. If you mean otherwise, that the sole guilt of them should require it,
there is not the same reason for not choosing at first and disclaiming after-
wards ; there is a vast dilierence to be put.
For, 1, in and before choice there is an arbitrariness and freedom, and
no obligation to choose this or that man ; but after he is chosen and ordained,
there is an obligation by a solemn covenant, the covenant of God ; and by
ordination, the separation of him unto the service of Christ in that church.
Hence, therefore, because their choice is an act, wherein they are free, and
wherein they give so great a testimony to the man, to be qualified according
to the apostle's rules, they become partakers of his sins, if they choose him
with those infirmities, and so ought not to choose him, because it is a sin.
But when he is once chosen, and so great a covenant passed, and so great
an ordinance as separation passed upon him, then those his infirmities,
though sins in him, are not approved of by you, though you disclaim him
not ; if you use the means God hath appointed for the cure of him, which
is admonition with patience, yea, and by virtue of your covenant, you are to
bear with them, if they be but infirmities, though in the administration of
his office, because that covenant cannot he so arbitrarily broken as it was
made, as your rule would make it, but binds, as all other covenants do, till
some other rule warrants a disclaim. The same rule for choosing and dis-
claiming is not commensurable each to other.
Which, 2, appears in this, that not only those crimes here mentioned, but
some circumstances also, though no crimes, are given as rules to divert from
a choice, which yet, by reason of the covenant passed, ought not to procure
a disclaiming after choice. For, ver. 6, he is not be one newly come to the
faith, though never so well gifted (for that he supposeth, and so in those
days it sometimes fell out, through the eflusion of the Holy Ghost at first),
lest he fall into pride ; but if chosen once, should that have put him out ?
Or if he is one against whom after he was chosen, those without had raised
ill reports, should this necessitate a disclaiming, because this, if it had fallen
out afore, should have diverted his choice ? ver. 7.
3. See this in other covenants that pass. Marriage is a covenant of God,
which, until made, many infirmities, and circumstances, &c., may and ought
to divert one from choosing such or such a person, which after cannot be a
warrant for a divorce, for it is the covenant of God. You must divorce in no
case, but such as God in his word gives power and warrant for,
4. See it in another instance more near the ease. A private Christian
that seeks admission, being found guilty of any crime, without repentance,
the rule for his admission is, that he must testify repentance, and so satisfy
the church of the truth of his grace and repentance of those sins. But if he
be once admitted, and in covenant with you, you ought not presently to dis-
claim him as a brother till he doth repent, but to admonish him as a brother,
2 Thes. iii. 15, and with patience bear with him, using not only one admo-
nition, but a second also, ere you reject him, Titus iii. 10 ; and this in case
of heresy, the most dangerous of sins to church fellowship, and not indeed
to reject till it comes to obstinacy, because now he is in covenant with you.
Now the proportion as strongly holds between the choice of an officer, and
his casting out as a ofiicer ; and the admission of a brother, and his casting
out as a brother ; the covenant that binds to the ofiicer being as strong as
that which binds unto a brother.
5. Upon commission of such crimes, he is made uncapable for the present
of choice, until repentance, but not so for the same sins after choice, unless
458 THE GOVEBNMENT OP [BoOK VII.
you would make him fall in his office, ipso facto, and make him uncapable of
admonition, &c. Therefore there is no way par ratio, before and after
choosing.
Again, G, if a man had been guilty of such crimes, yet if he had repented,
he might be chosen ; then, especially after choice, if he be guilty of them,
upon repentance he might be continued in his place; why otherwise would
you have received him in again ? And for his repentance, why should not
all the same means and patience be first used, as is used for a brother's, and
so not a casting off, as there is not the casting off a brother ?
Yea, 7, if an officer should be thus disclaimed, he would not be under all
those ordinances that a brother as a brother is under, but in a worse case
far ; for towards a brother, Christ hath appointed admonition upon admoni-
tion with patience, till such obstinacy be added, as it justly calls for excom-
munication, which, as it were, they unwillingly pronounce upon him, as
means to reclaim him ere he be renounced as a brother ; and should it not
be thus to an officer ? An officer is capable of sin in his office as well as
a brother; for he that is most spiritual may be tempted, Gal. vi. 1, 2, and
so is capable of reproof in his office : Col. iv. 17, ' Say to Archippus, Fulfil
thy ministry ;' and also of public rebuke for sins proved by two or three wit-
nesses that are public, 1 Tim. v. 19, 20. For, as appears by the coherence,
those rules concern elders, yet so as in these proceedings they are to exer-
cise not only the same, but more respect and patience than to a brother.
For, ver. 1, they are gentle unto him as a father ; and, ver. 19, they are
so far from censuring him hastily, that they are not to receive an accusation,
or listen to it, but upon the testimony of two or three approved ones ; surely
then, the case is evident, they are, as ver. 20, to rebuke them openly, but
no more. Till it comes to excommunication, you find not a tittle for dis-
claiming.
Ohj. That less admonition ripens an officer's sin sooner than a brother's,
for displacing him as an officer.
Ans. 1. The rules by which you must judge of the ripeness of his sin, must
be in the word ; now, shew that the limits of proceeding against an officer
are more strict than against a brother.
2. It is true, his sin is aggravated more, but still not ripe for rejection,
until such impenitency and obstinacy be added to it as would procure ex-
communication.
Last of all, we add this, that if he were obstinate and impenitent in his
sin, and deserved excommunication, yet it doth not appear that thereby he
fell from all future right to his office, so as that you are free instantly to
send for another. From the Scripture we have not learned that the relation
is utterly broken and made void, as that of a brother is not by excommuni-
cation ; but if upon that ordinance he repented, as you are bound to receive
him as a brother, so as your officer again, for you cannot shew a ground
that the one relation should be more evacuated than the other. Excommuni-
cation is not a casting off but in order to repentance, which restores him ad
priatinum statum, to his former state.
CHAPTEB XI.
Of anointing with oil.
Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church ; and let them
pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord : and the
Chap. XI.] the churches of christ. 459
prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up ; and if
he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him. — James V. 14, 15.
The anointing spoken of in this text, is not the anointing spoken of, Mark
vi. 13, by which the apostles healed those that were sick through a miracu-
lous gift ; but it is a standing ordinance to confirm the promise of healing
unto church members, as will appear from the following arguments.
1. The first argument is taken from what anointing with oil is here joined
with, viz., the elders' prayers, which are a standing ordinance to this pur-
pose, even for the cure of the sick.
2. All the precepts besides in this epistle, are about things which con-
cern the church for ever. And that which this anointing is joined with,
namely, the prayer of the elders, is such also ; it were strange, therefore, if
this alone should be extraordinary.
The second argument may be taken from the persons that are to be sent
for, who have the power to administer it, namely, the elders of the church.
1. It is not said, send for men who have healing gifts, but for elders.
2. Who were standing officers, and that of a church, which was to
continue.
3. The elders in every church had not then such miraculous healing
gifts.
4. The gifts of healing, and those of prophecy, by wisdom and know-
ledge, which enable men for eldership, were in those times variously dis-
pensed ; and not both to the same persons, excepting extraordinary officers,
as apostles and evangelists, but to one was given the gift of healing, to
others a word of wisdom and knowledge, that enabled them to be elders,
1 Cor. xii. 8, 9, 11.
The third argument is drawn from the persons to whom it was to be
administered.
1. They were sick persons, or infirm. If it had been extraordinary heal-
ing, it would have extended further, even to the blind, the deaf, and the
dumb ; but this healing reacheth only to those who were sick of diseases
curable, it being no miraculous ordinance. 2. They were members of the
church, not unbelievers ; for the expression is, ' If any be sick among you :'
and therefore the elders of that church are to be sent for.
Now miraculous healing did,
1. Extend to all sorts, unbelievers as well as believers.
Yea, 2, to them chiefly, as all miracles did, as, 1 Cor, xiv. 22, it is said
of tongues.
Therefore, 3, the apostles themselves, who had gifts of healing, seldom
wrought any cure upon believers that were sick : so Paul did not heal Epa-
phroditus, Philem. 1, 2.
The fourth argument may be taken from the generality of the extent of
this ordinance, even to all persons in a church. ' If any among you be sick,'
which argues it not to be extraordinary ; for when any was healed by an
extraordinary gift, it was by a faith of miracles concurring, which was never
general to heal any, or all, but particular, reaching only to such a person as
God would heal, and who was presented, and his faith stirred up. There
was no universal rule given for extraordinary healings.
The fifth argument is taken from the means commanded upon all such
occasions, which generally is oil. Now, the extraordinary gift of healing
was not confined to oil, but might be applied without means. It had been
enough to have said, ' Kise and walk,' So likewise some were extraordi-
narily healed by other means, as napkins, the apostles' shadow, &c.
460 THE GOVERNMENT OP [BoOK YII.
6. Another argument may be taken from the generality of the command,
which enjoins every one that is sick to send and seek out for this cure.
Now, if extraordinary gifts were meant, then in those times men should not
have died ; for extraordinary gifts of healing failed not to eft'ect the cure
where there was a warrant to apply them, as here there is unto any. Every
one is to send, and they are to come and anoint every one.
It is therefore intended as an ordinance to confirm the promise of health
unto church members, for the words of the text are, ' They shall be healed.'
And because his promise to dispense this outward mercy is not absolute, but
indefinite, therefore the seal is to be taken as such also. For this seal is to
confirm faith, and faith is to be answerable to the promise, and the seal to
both. And yet it is of use ; for though this seal assures not the party unto
whom it is applied, that he shall be healed, yet it gives a more certain evi-
dence of God's seriousness and faithful care over the bodies of his saints, to
preserve them in sickness, than to confer on them any other outward mercy :
their bodies being most dear to him, next their souls, and their lives pre-
cious in his sight, and it being one of his attributes to be the God that heals
them, he therefore hath shewn and confirmed that this is so by a seal an-
nexed to the promise of healing, when he hath annexed a seal to no other
outward mercy : so that it seals up to our faith the certainty and faithfulness
of that promise itself in its indefiniteness, though not of the infallible ful-
filling it unto this or that party, yet so as to raise the heart of every one.
Obj. 1. This is to make more sacraments than two.
Ans. There are no more than two seals of the covenant of grace ; but for
other ends, and to seal other promises, there may be more. As that of the
rainbow is in force unto this day to confirm the not destroying the world by
water.
Obj. 2. But this seal is for remission of sins, as it was then used ; for it
follows in the text, ' If they have committed sins, they shall be forgiven :'
and so there was an extraordinary healing, at which their souls were often
converted.
Ans. The remission of sins there spoken of is not that general and eternal
forgiveness of all sins promised in the covenant of grace ; nor is this the
sacrament of such a remission, but of the remission and taking oif of that
temporary guilt which might be in any particular sins committed by the per-
sons provoking God to lay that sickness upon them ; which is evident from
the apostle's speaking hypothetically, ' If he have committed sins,' which
argues it not meant of the general forgiveness ; for then there were no if to
come in, it being certain that all sick persons whatever have in that sense
sinned. ' All have sinned ;' and ' he that says he hath no sin, deceiveth
himself.' The meaning therefore is, that if there be any special sin, the tem-
poral guilt whereof hath in a particular manner provoked G-od to lay this
sickness on him, it shall be remitted. And so forgiveness here is but the
removal of that guilt considered as in order to this punishment. And thus
it is taken : Ps. Ixxviii. 38, ' He forgave their iniquity, and destroyed them
not.' And so, that it should be a seal of such forgiveness, and of the pro-
mise of being restored, is but to be a seal of an outward temporary mercy,
and so not at all of the covenant of grace.
Obj. 3. But all sacraments, being seals, are annexed to absolute promises ;
and, when rightly used in faith, have certainly their effect : but so this hath
not, for then none should die that in faith do use it.
Ans. True, all sacraments of the covenant of grace are such, and the pro-
mises to which they are annexed are such ; and God hath annexed a seal to
assure our faith and hope of the fulfilling of spiritual promises, rather than
Chap. XT.] the churches of christ. ' 461
of any other outward mercy ; but yet he may have appointed a seal for the
confirmation of our faith as to the performance of them too. And of this
nature is that other ordinance, namely, imposition of hands for increase of
gifts ; not that always, when rightly used in faith, it hath its effect infallibly,
but it is a means appointed to convey the blessing, and confirms the promise
of giving gifts to men, which yet is but indefinitely performed, as being of
God's good pleasure. Yea, one end of this ordinance of anointing with oil
(whenever in use) is here made but indefinite, and with a supposition, ' If
he hath committed sins,' that is, in case he hath. And so it may be ad-
ministered to this or that person with a supposition, if he be one of those
(as he may be) unto whom the promise belongs.
Obj. 4, That anointing, Mark vi., and so healing, was extraordinary:
and how can this here be then an ordinary ordinance, unless the same gift
were continued now ?
Ans. So imposition of hands did in the primitive times serve extraordi-
narily to convey extraordinary gifts of the Holy Ghost : yet was it ordained
to serve as an ordinance of increasing gifts unto the world's end. And why
may not this be so turned to a like use also ?
Obj. 5. This gives countenance unto the papists' extreme unction, and con-
demns the reformed churches for rejecting it.
Ans. 1. The church of Rome retains almost all ordinances, only she hath
perverted them. As she hath perverted this from being an ordinance of
restoring health, and forgiving the temporary guilt of particular sins pro-
voking God to that judgment, to become a sacrament of justification and
forgiveness of all sins, and so a seal of the covenant of grace ; and that not
for the sick, but for all dying persons when past recovery, in which case it
should not be used.
Now, 2, the reformed churches, seeing that such a sacrament could not
be, and that this must needs be a perversion of it, did justly reject it as they
used it; only in rejecting it (as in some other things) they went too far, even
denying it to have that use of restoring the sick as a seal of the promise, and
an indefinite means to convey that blessing, which God in mercy hath
appointed it to be.
Use 1. We see here God's care over our bodies, as well as over our souls,
in instituting an ordinance for sickness and restoring to health ; and his
full provision by ordinances for everything, and every condition.
Use 2. See also God's especial hand in that mercy of restoring his chil-
dren unto health, and of blessing physic and means unto them, rather than
to unbelievers, though it be but a common mercy ; and therefore believers
should exercise a special faith and dependence in the use of the means for
recovery, beyond what ordinarily they use in other means for other outward
mercies.
Use 3. We should raise our faith up to God, with more hope as to this
mercy, than about any other outward mercies ; for the promise of this hath
a special seal.
Use 4. We may infer, that God doth afflict with sickness for particular
sins.
Use 5. We may infer, that yet he doth not always do so, therefore an i/
is put in, ' If ye have committed sins.'
Use 6. From hence a proof may be fetched, that elders only should
administer sacraments, as here they only are to anoint. And if the lesser
sacrament be appropriated to them, then the greater much more.
Use 7. It should be one ground of further honouring elders, that God
hath made them means of conveying health as well to our bodies as our souls.
462 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK VII.
So that if physicians be to be honoured (as you have it in Ecclesiasticus),
then they much more, even with a double honour.
Use 8. We may infer that it is not necessary that all the church should
be present. The elders only are to be sent for, since such rules are given by
the apostle as may suit all churches and all circumstances ; but now the
church may consist of so many that all the members cannot meet without incon-
venience to the sick party, and the persons sick may be so many that the
church cannot meet so often. The elders therefore are set apart for the
purpose, and may, and ought, to attend all such occasions.
Use 9. Yet the elders must be sent for by the parties, and that whilst there
is hope of recovery, and not when they are a-dying.
Use 10. Take notice here of the privilege of church members above other
believers. ' If any among you,' that is, of a church ; aod therefore it follows,
' send for the elders of the church.' If thou beest out of church fellowship
and fallest sick, thou wantest one ordinance of recovery which a church
member hath, and unto which there is both a promise and a seal annexed.
The toleration and liberty of conscience which we desire is, that we may
not be forced to communicate as members in these parishes where we dwell,
but may have liberty to have congregations of such persons who give good
testimony of their godliness and peaceableness, and yet out of tenderness of
conscience cannot communicate in their parishes, but do voluntarily offer
themselves to join in such congregations, which how it may best stand with
the peace of the kingdom, we humbly leave to the consideration of the
magistrate.
This is our request, the first part whereof, viz., that we may not be forced
to communicate as members in those parishes where we dwell, was in effect
o-ranted by the sub-committee of divines, and therefore we dispute it not.
The other part, that we may have liberty to have congregations, being denied
us, as unlawful for the magistrate to grant, we humbly offer the considerations
which foUow-
CHAPTER XIL
Of the laii]fulness of gathering chiirchea out of other churches.— How if rightly
stated it is not a separation. — That the Christian magistrate may Lawfully
tolerate swch churches.
That the lawfulness of this our desire to be indulged us by the State may
appear, we humbly present these two things.
1. The principles upon which ourselves do go in this desire.
2. The reasons upon which the State may indulge it unto us.
1. It is not a separation as from no churches, but a secession as from
such churches as we cannot, as our judgment stands, with a good conscience
continue members in, and wherein by reason thereof we should want the
enjoyment of the Lord's supper and other ordinances. And we desire that
this profession of ours not to continue members may be but as charitably
interpreted, as our presbyterian brethren would desire that their profession in
one of their petitions should be, wherein they profess that they cannot with
a good conscience continue to officiate in the administration of the Lord's
supper as pastors in their congregations, whilst no further power for suspension
of persons who appear unto them scandalous from the sacrament is given
them, and that they shall in conscience be enforced to lay down their minis-
tries, and many of them in private and in public have said that they must
turn independents. Now as to them and their consciences as ministers, such
Chap. XII.] the churches of christ. 463
an evil doth arise as would make them lay down their ministries ; so to us as
members there ariseth so much as causeth us not to renounce, but to with-
draw from present communion. The same kind of principle that they now
go upon did we go upon, in withdrawing from our parishes, which principle
they now hold forth to persuade a yielding by this state unto that rule they
have presented to them,
2. It is not a gathering of churches out of churches as it hath been inter-
preted, which imports, 1, an activeness to persuade men from their churches,
and to gain proselytes by all ways of industry, which the state may put re-
straint upon. 2. It imports a rending them from those churches whilst
there yet remains an obligation to continue in them, and to remain members
of those churches, but such a rending we acknowledge to be unlawful. But
we desire in the behalf of those that are scrupled in communion with their
churches, and whose consciences their ministers cannot satisfy, and whom
in that case they ought not for ever to retain among them without ordinances,
nor upon whom in such a case an indissoluble obligation lieth ; we desire
that these, rather than they should remain out of ordinances, may be gathered
into new churches, and euch churches wherein they may enjoy for substance
the same ordinances and the same means of edification as will save them
and build them up to life eternal, as well as in the parish churches others of
the saints of God who can and do communicate therein do enjoy them. We
may as well build up such congregational churches as the reformed churches
have built up their several members amongst them, though differing each
from other, as in England under episcopacy, and without power given to
ministers to cast out the scandalous, and as those in Scotland, or Holland,
or the Lutheran churches.
3. This is not to set up one church against another, altare versus altare,
altar against altar, but one sister church by another, as the Dutch and French
churches in England are and have been unto the churches of England and
the parishes thereof ; and this for the common edification of all sorts of saints,
and the whole mystical body of Christ, who otherwise are kept divided from
Christ in his greatest ordinances, and exasperated more one against another.
Now that this forbearance or indulgence of liberty from the common
rule established, and hitherto continued in this church of England, may,
without sin by the magistrate, of whom we humbly seek it, be granted to us,
we humbly present this general reason. That which is not unlawful, nor
contrary to the word of God for the magistrates of this kingdom, who have
put this case to us, to allow, nor destructive to the peace of the kingdom,
this the magistrates of this kingdom may allow to us without sin. But this
request of ours is such.
The proposition in itself is clear, and the parliament's willingness to do
it, they have expressed in their own ordinance.
1. I shall prove that it is not unlawful, nor contrary to the word of God,
for the magistrates of this kingdom to allow the liberty which we request.
The contrariety to the word of God for the magistrate to grant this, must
necessarily lie in one of these two things, or both ; either that it is so as to
the magstrate's judgment, who hath established the rule of communion, or
else that in the verity and truth of the thing itself, the nature of the rule by
him established, is such as is immutably commanded by God in his word,
and a command also of that high nature, as that it is not lawful for him to
grant this indulgence of swerving from it. That in either of these cases, it
would be unlawful to him, we do acknowledge. And look by how many
degrees this request of ours falls short of such an height of contrariety as
this is, either in the magistrate's conscience, or in the thing itself, so many
404 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK VII.
grounds and degrees of safety, as well as simple lawfulness, there is as to
the magistrate's conscience herein to grant it.
1. If to the magistrate's conscience and judgment the rule should, in that
wherein we desire a liberty, be prudential and hiimani jurix, of human right,
though about spiritual things, which himself may vary and alter as may suit
best for the subjects of the kingdom, then he may lawfully grant us this
liberty; for qniainque j)otest legem condere, jjotest etiain privilegium concedere,
whoever may make a law may also grant a privilege ; whereof this reason
is given, privilegiiaa est lex 2^>'ivata quadam, ergo ab eo maxime darl fotest,
qui potest legem universalem condere, a privilege is a certain private law, and
therefore it may chiefly be given by him who can make the universal law.
This (as becomes us) we humbly leave to the judgment and conscience of the
magistrate himself, yet withal humbly propound these considerations. The
unlawfulness of granting this (as to the magistrate's conscience) must be either
in respect to the terminus a quo or ad quern, that is, either in regard of the
leaving the parish churches wherein men scrupled to live, or in the setting
up distinct churches from them ; for of these two parts only is what we desire
mad« up of.
1. As to the first, the obligation for men that dwell in the precincts of a
parish cannot be such as that it should be unlawful for the magistrate to give
allowance for men dwelling in parishes to be of another church than that
in that parish ; for the bounding of parishes in this kingdom, after the manner
that now they are, was by a prudential law ; and therefore, being the magis-
trate's own ordinance, it may be by him dispensed with. And although that
now de facto, and through long continuance, churches by this ordinance
have been formed up in parishes, and that those men that desire this liberty
may have been members of some church therein, yet it is not unlawful for the
magistrate to give them leave to cease to be members of those churches, and
retain their dwellings, and to become members of some distinct church col-
lected out of many parishes. For, 1, the magistrate might permit the people
of this kingdom to be cast generally into churches otherwise bounded, with-
out sin, and therefore may allow and permit particular members who are
scrupled to cease to be members of the parish churches they are and were
in ; for otherwise this form of parishes, now there is a church state in them,
is by reason of that state, as it were, consecrated, and so exempted from all
alteration by the magistrate or themselves.
2. The late ordinance seems to permit as much as we have said to the
servants and retinue of the king, his children, and noblemen.
3. Nor is this unlawful to the magistrates' conscience in respect of the
terminus ad quern, viz., to permit setting up new churches of men having
left the churches they were in ; for, 1, if it were so, then they cannot erect
by their authority in this kingdom any new church ; but this they have done,
as, for instance, Covent Garden, and the Inns of Court, authorising them
for all ordinances of worship and government, though the most or many of
the members came up out of several other parishes throughout the whole
kingdom. And such is the case likewise of the king's household and noble-
men's famihes, instanced in before. Besides, might not the magistrate give
leave to any company of true worshippers of God to set up a new church, if
they removed their dwellings, and made a new parish, even as lawfully as to
grant a new corporation ?
Obj. 1, But it may be objected, that the sin lies in neither of these, but
in permitting them to set up churches of another constitution and govern-
ment from what is established by the rule.
Ans. 1. We reply, that we do not setup churches of another constitution,
Chap. XII.] the churches of Christ. 4G5
having the same ordinances for substance as the churches have vrhich we
leave, and not taking in any members bat whom our brethren may or will
acknowledge meet to be members of churches, such as are saints and truly
godly, though of differ ing judgment from them. And as for presbyterial
government, there are none, nay, not those that hold it to be by divine right,
who judge that it is of the essence and constitution of a church, though a
necessary ordinance therein, for the preserving of it pure.
Ans. 2. But, 2, if you will suppose that differences in the framing of
churches should make them of another constitution, yet the magistrate might
permit them ; for, 1, this state did permit the Dutch and French churches,
when of a differing, if not of as differing, a constitution (in these respects)
from the churches amongst us then, as these of ours, which we desire, are
now, who yet in continuance of time were become as natives, and understood
our tongue. The bishops, when they would have reduced them unto their
government, urged this very thing, and yet prevailed not in it in the worst
times. Again, 2, if a company of Scotchmen, inhabiting among us, scrupling
kneeling, and the government by bishops, &c., had then petitioned our state,
as was in consultation, to have churches according to their order and con-
stitution, might not our state then have permitted them ?
Ohj. 2. It may be objected, that though it were lawful for the magistrate
to permit leaving or removing from these churches, and to set up new and
distinct churches simply considered, yet the ground and principle upon which
we do it is unlawful, because we leave those churches upon an error, viz.,
that we cannot without sin communicate in them, &c., and so to permit them,
upon this error, is unlawful for the magistrate to do.
Ans. 1. We reply, 1, the magistrate's conscience need not be scrupled to
permit what is in itself in the outward act warrantable, to them that yet do
it out of an erring conscience. We have all in the assembly professed, that
if we could agree in the same practices, though upon differing principles,
which were openly professed (whereof the one or the other must be an error),
yet we would not only permit this, but rejoice in it. Magistrates, in such
cases when the outward act is lawful, and disturbs not the outward peace,
inquire not into principles. The apostles themselves rejoiced in Christ
preached, though they allowed not the principles of all that preached him :
' If Christ be preached out of envy, yet I will rejoice,' says the apostle ; yea,
perhaps it will appear, if it shall come to be debated, that the magistrate
may tolerate an outward act, which is evil as to his conscience, as well as an
act which outwardly may be good, only the principle being erroneous. And
that he may do this, when there is not only an erroneous principle, but an
hardness of heart, in men that desire it of the magistrate ; for so Moses did
in the case of polygamj^ and that for the hardness of the Jews' hearts.
2. This ground would utterly make void the ordinance of parliament con-
cerning us in that last part of it ; for when the honourable houses did put
it to our consideration how far tender consciences, that come not up to the
rule, may be borne withal, they, judging their own rule to be lawful, inust
needs suppose all those tender consciences that could not come up to it to be
in an error, and so far judge their practice to be unlawful, and yet are willing
to indulge some practices to them, notwithstanding this erring conscience.
And therefore the magistrate in conscience may indulge this to us, unless it
can be demonstrated by our brethren that there is such a peculiar sinfulness
in this principle, in its contrariety to the rule, as the magistrate cannot in-
dulge it of all other.
^ 3.' This ground will put an impossibility upon the magistrate (if differing
VOL. XI. G g
466 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK YII.
in judgment about church government, &c., from our brethren's principles)
ever to grant them by way of indulgence, much less to establish by a law
what they have so earnestly sought. Nor indeed can our brethren (if they
be of this opinion) petition the magistrate for this. For instance, our
brethren have desired power of judging of scandal for suspension, to be lodged
in the elderships, as that which belongs to them jure divino ; if the honour-
able houses be never convinced in their consciences, but do judge those that
request it upon this ground to be in an error, then they can never so much
as indulge this to them, much less by an authoritative law give forth this
jurisdiction to them over the subjects of this kingdom. This principle,
besides what other reasons the honourable houses have had, will teach them
to deny it ; and then because some, or perhaps most of our brethren, hold
national and provincial assemblies to be divino jure, and thereby do challenge
a power of judicature and jurisdiction over all men's consciences, 3'ea, over
that of the supreme magistrates, in matters which they shall discern to be
scandalous and unchristian, and the magistrate withal thinks this prmciple
to be, not only an error, but of as much danger to his authority, as what
this of ours can be pretended to be in the church, the magistrate hereby
will be constrained to undo, upon the discovery of this principle, what he
hath set up. Yea, and further, it is a principle of many of our brethren,
that the church universal is a politic body in the whole, and the parts of it
jure divino, and that every elder is an elder of the church universal, and so
may and ought to unite into general councils, with the same right of jurisdic-
tion that national or congregational assemblies have. The supreme magis-
trates of Europe, judging this an error, as they well may (and yet these are
the principles of many of our presb^'terian brethren, if not of the most), they
are taught hereby, not to grant the presbyterial government, the principles
whereof tend to this, even the setting up a body of elders, invested with
ecclesiastical jurisdiction, unto which, divino jure, all churches, and Chris-
tian subjects and kingdoms must be subject ; and so a foreign power ecclesi-
astical is set over all kingdoms, in an aristocratical way of government, as
was the pope in a monarchical way, though with this difference, that there is
a renouncing of infallibity in the one, but a requiring subjection, upon pain
of excommunication, in both.
This may suffice, touching the magistrate's conscience, in relation to what
may be supposed his principles and practices. Next we come to the nature
of the rule of institution itself, which Christ hath laid upon members of
churches, in respect of departing from other churches, and setting up new.
The obligation, say we, laid by Christ in this respect, is not such, but that
the magistrate may pennit it with a good conscience. The lawfulness or
unlawfulness hereof, if it be said to lie in respect to Christ's rule of institu-
tion, must accordingly be measured by what in the rule given by Christ is
by institution, and also by considering what sort of institution and obligation
it is, whether it be such as the magistrate cannot dispense withal without
sin. Let us therefore consider the nature of the rule.
1. It may be taken for granted by the magistrates (as it is acknowledged
by us), that church-fellowship is by the institution of Christ ; so as both
every believer is obliged to be of some church, where he may enjoy ordi-
nances ; as also that the churches themselves, the seat of ordinances, are
settled by a divine right authorising of them ; and, further, that whilst any
one doth continue a member of any particular church, he is so long obliged
to the duties to be performed by members therein.
Yet, 2, the unlawfulness of leaving this or that church, and gathering
new (which is the tbing controverted), depends upon a former thing, namely.
Chap. XII.] the churches of christ. 467
what, and how great (and that by institution), the obligation of members is
to particular churches, whereof they are members ; as if the question were,
whether it were lawful for the magistrate to tolerate divorces, and a marriage
with another ? The measure and proportion of the unlawfulness or lawfulness
hereof to him must be fetched from the nature of the obligation and tie,
which, in marriages, God hath made to arise not simply from this, that mar-
riage is God's ordinance (for so the relation of servant and master, of subject
and magistrate, also is, and the duties, whilst that relation continues, are by
God's ordinance, such or such) ; but further, it is from the strictness of the
obligation or bond of the relation by God's special institution ; for though
the relation of master and servant, or servant and family, be (as was said)
God's ordinance, yet there is not that obligation upon men for not leaving
it, and entering into a new. Let, therefore, the obligation of churches and
members (so far as from Christ's special command and Christ's institution it
may any way be made appear) be impartially weighed ; for thereupon do the
proportions and degrees of unlawfulness depend ; both how far it is lawful
or unlawful to the persons that leave the churches, or to the churches that
permit them so to do, or to the magistrate in whose dominions they are.
For a right estimating of the firmness or looseness of this knot, in which
the strength of this controversy lies, we propound these things to consi-
deration.
1. The obligation of members to this or that individual church under the
gospel, is far less than,, under the Old Testament, the obligation of members
was to that national church. So that, to take a judgment of it, or an argu-
ment from the Jewish church, against removing from churches now, and
gathering new, would (as it hath done many) much deceive us. And the
difference herein is manifest, and also the ground of it ; for the church under
the Old Testament was but one by God's institution, and so one, as there
were to be no more set up ; and therefore (though it proved idolatrous) there
was no setting up a new one. It was Jeroboam's sin, and the sin of the ten
tribes, to set up aliare versus altare, altar against altar, as they did. But
now, everywhere pure hands are, and may be lift up to God, and spiritual
sacrifices be offered everywhere as well as in the holy mount ; only we are
now bound unto church-fellowship, and the enjoyment of public ordinances,
as well as they, and so if we cannot have it in one church, we are to seek it
in another.
2. Hence it will be (we suppose) granted by our brethren, that it is a
matter of much hberty (so it be done with peaceableness and sobriety), to
remove from one church to another for civil conveniences ; yea, out of many
churches, to set up a new church for civil conveniences' sake (as for trade
and the like, when a place is not well inhabited), much more for spiritual
advantages.
3. Take the outward matter of fact (in this thing controverted), namely,
to remove and leave our membership with these individual churches now
extant, and to gather new, if you take the fact barely out of some supposed
erroneous principle as the ground of it, or scandal and disturbance annexed
thereto, it is a matter of liberty ; at least it is such as needs not a warrant
by a new institution or example which is called for. Neither as such doth
the evil and unlawfulness of it lie in crossing or thwarting an obligation by
institution indissoluble; but only it lies in the manner, ground, or the ill
consequents of it, which are extrinsecal to it. It hath been laid upon our
opinions and practices, that we held members of our churches under so hard
and strict an obligation, and to that end do bind them by a covenant (yea,
it hath been affirmed by some, that wc bind them by an oath), as that they
468 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK VII.
must remove when we remove, and by divine right are so bound up to mem-
bership, to that individual church they are of, as not to depart from it.
This, as we utterly renounce, so it will rather fall upon our brethren's prin-
ciples, who would hold their members under so great a bond, that though
they are scrupled in communion with them, and cannot satisfy their con-
sciences, they, though arising to multitudes, must rather want these ordi-
nances, than leave their churches and gather themselves into new. This
hard imposition will especially follow, if they should put this unlawfulness
upon the obligation of members unto their churches, or churches of such
or such a form.
These things premised, we argue the lawfulness of this permission to be
granted to members ; and it is lawful both as to the magistrates' conscience,
and to the churches they are members of, to permit them.
1. It is lawful to the churches and magistrates' conscience, to permit us
our desire of being free of the churches (which is the case we in this debate
have to do with), notwithstanding any obligation to continue therein divino
jure. If this obligation of members to their churches were by divine insti-
tution, yet the magistrates might permit men scrupled to leave them, and
be free therein. For, 1, yourselves have granted a liberty to consciences,
scrupling receiving the Lord's supper in the parishes, which yet is a duty
lies on them by divine commandment, ' Do this in remembrance of me,' &c.
2. Our brethren, whereof some yet hold classical and synodical assemblies to
be divino jure, have granted also a freedom for such members as scruple the
lawfulness of being subject thereto. Yea, 3, if any one that is now of a
parish church remove his dwelling to another parish (which is permitted
him), and consents not to be of the church of that parish he removes unto,
we believe, that as the law of the land frees him from being a member of the
parish church he came from, so our brethren's principles will free him from
being a member of that parish church he comes unto, until he doth give
his consent so to be. Thus easy a loose is there for freedom of members
in respect of this obligation, and so for the magistrate's conscience to per-
mit it.
But, 2, if this obhgation were by a special divine institution indissoluble,
as that of marriage was (and as this is not), yet the magistrate's conscience
mif^ht permit a secession from it without sin. For so notwithstanding God's
institution was, that in marriage the knot between two persons was such as
man could not sever or put asunder, yet Moses, without sin, not only per-
mitted divorces, and so a freedom from this so indissoluble obhgation, but
second marriages also, and this all the kings afterwards also permitted, and
so by like reason it may be here in this case. And this instance evinceth
not only the permission of the privative part of omission of communion
with such churches, but the positive too, viz., the gathering of churches also,
though both were in the judgment of the magistrate against an instituted
obligation.
2. As for the positive part, to permit new churches to be gathered, of
members out of these churches, the like practices and principles of our bre-
thren will not only warrant the lawfulness of the magistrate to permit it, but
make it warrantable for us, according to our principles, to do it.
For, 1, some of themselves have gathered a congregational church out of
many churches, receiving and admitting upon their reformation, and forming
up a church in their parish anew, an addition of members out of divers other
parishes in city and country unto the sacrament of the Lord's supper, and
to preaching, &c., in a constant way. If it be said they had not sacra-
ments in their own churches, we reply, yet they had preaching, and they
Chap. XII.] the churches of Christ. 469
should have remained hearers in their own parish churches, till God opened
a way for sacraments there ; for to this or the like law would our brethren
oblige us unto. And again, constancy of communion for preaching and
sacrament doth constitute them a member of that church they thus commu-
nicate with, more than dwelling in the parish, and occasional coming to that
church doth constitute them a member of their own parish church. If it be
said that this is pro tempore, for the time, and until such time as their own
churches are reformed, when they will restore them again ; we reply, that
so also when the parish churches shall be reformed to our principle, we will
be willing to restore all their members also, and will but relieve them with
ordinances according to their consciences until that time, and will ourselves
then become members of them. We only add this, that this some of our
brethren have done before any authority of parliament did warrant it, which
may stop their mouths at least in this so inculcated clamour (as our bre-
thren's late reply presented to this committee) against us, who went out of
the kingdom to gather new churches without oifence to the magistrate.
2. Many of themselves have gathered a church out of a church in a parish,
and that of the lesser out of the greater number. Our brethren do account
all that have formerly received the sacrament with them to be of their church,
and members thereof, for else they make wholly a new church ; and why
else do they claim power over all, and proceed by way of suspension, which
is a censure (the objects whereof are only church members), and not byway
of admission ? Now for the minister, and a few in the parish whom we shall
choose, to begin to make up a new body distinct from the rest, this act of
theirs is either by way of separation and gathering a church out of a church
(as they are pleased to call ours), or by way of church power and authority
towards its own members. If the former, then we have our brethren's own
practices warranting ours ; if the latter (which our brethren by calling it
suspension seems rather to put it upon), we ask and demand what power
Christ hath put into the lesser part of a church, to take on them to suspend
the greater part ? And, further, we desire our brethren to resolve this
committee, whether they think not themselves bound, according to the
principles of church proceedings, to proceed to excommunicate (after two or
three admonitions) all they do suspend, and so engage themselves to deliver
to Satan more than half this kingdom in a month, if upon their admonitions
they repent not. If they answer that they do thus take a few in a parish to
the sacrament, and suspend the greater part by virtue of the authority of
the magistrate ; we reply, 1, that many have done this afore the ordinance
of parliament came forth; and, 2, that then the magistrate may not only
permit but authorise us to gather a church out of churches, or at least out
of a church, as well as our brethren have done.
But, 3, as our brethren have gathered congregational churches out of a
church, yea, churches, so their classical churches are electively by picking
and choosing made up now at first, not of all the ministers in the parish
churches, but of some chosen out from the rest. Whereas, according to the
principles of their ecclesiastical obligation, the ministers of all churches
should be taken in ; but that would spoil reformation. And yet if they will
tie us to the obligation of members, according to the law of particular
churches, that because all in the parishes have universally been members of
churches, and so are theirs already ; and therefore we must wait a reforma-
tion of these churches, and take them as churches, and not make new ; then
should they by the like law take these all as ministers of churches into their
classes, and trust God with his own ordinance, as they account it.
If, in the next place it may be objected, that it is not simply the breaking
470 THE GOVEENMENT OF [BoOK VII.
of the bond of obligation to the churches of which we are members, that the
unlawfulness of this consists in, but in the erroneous ground which we leave
our churches upon, as if you cannot enjoy communion with them without
sin ; which error therefore binds ye as an erring conscience doth, and not to
remove, and also binds the magistrates and the churches not to permit this
freedom from our churches, but to continue in them till they recall that
error ;
We reply. Suppose this an error in the person (as the magistrate who hath
propounded this case doth suppose this scruple of ours to be, and upon this
supposition to resolve what forbearance he may permit), yet it is not unlaw-
ful for the magistrate to permit them this freedom whom he judgeth to be
in this error. Besides the reasons mentioned before, yourselves also would
permit us to forbear the Lord's supper without your censure, and to be free
from the power of the assemblies, which forbearance yet you judge to be
upon an unlawful ground in us.
But more particularly, to reduce this plea of our brethren against us to its
right state,
1. We say, if the question be about the magistrates' or churches' con-
science, whether they may permit it or no (as the question is), then it is not,
whether this be an error in these members, according to the magistrates' or
churches' judgment, but whether it be such an error as they have warrant
from Christ so to bind it upon the conscience of the parties erring, as not to
sufier them to practise it upon their own peril and account betwixt God and
them, after due means be used to reclaim them. Our meaning in stating it
thus will be cleared.
If the case be put as inforo ecclesiastico, in the ecclesiastical court, if this
error come before the church these members are of (and we hope our
brethren will not oblige the magistrates' conscience to more strictness herein
than of the church itself), the question will not be whether these parties
do err in their judgment, or whether doctrinally the church may not lay
before them this error, and their grounds why they judge it to be so, and so
press it upon them as a good means to reclaim them from this erroneous
ground ; but the question is. Whether they are judicially to bind the con-
sciences of them that are in this error of scrupling communion ? &c. So as
this sentence, according to the law of Christ, should bind them up from
practising accordingly, by virtue of this ordinance and power given the church
over them, though in the particular so judged their private consciences re-
main as afore. And again, the question is. Whether it be such an error as
the church is obliged not to permit them to remain in, or to practise
accordingly, but is bound to retain them ; and if they do otherwise, to ex-
cornmunicate them. In a word, the question is, Whether there lie an ecclesi-
astical obligation, both upon the church, to bind this error judicially upon
conscience, and to retain these persons ever ; and also an obligation upon the
persons, the church so judging, to continue still as members.
Now this we take for granted, that churches will not take on them to bind
thus judicially upon the consciences of their members, whatever they account
an erroneous principle, nor bind them up from the practice of whatever they
shall doctrinally declare to be upon an erroneous ground, especially when
otherwise the outward fact simply considered is lawful, which is the case in
hand. And that this alleged is such an erroneous principle as they ought
judicially to bind upon the consciences of their members, it remains upon
our brethren to prove; for when they shall take on them to prohibit a
practice, otherwise lawful, upon this error, the burden lies on them to make
it forth, to be of that nature as that they dare bind it upon the consciences
Chap. XII.] the churches of christ. 471
of others, to so great a prejudice to them, as to deprive them of the ordi-
nances of Christ.
But, besides the expectation of our brethren's making this forth, we
humbly present these reasons why the churches are not bound thus to bind
this error upon their brethren who arc members of them, nor their members
thus scrupled to be bound up thereby.
1. Because it is not an error of that degree of erroneousness, as should
be the object of such a judicial binding it upon their consciences, it being but
such an error as comes under that rule which the assembly hath voted, that may
stand with piety, wherein godly and learned men possibly may and do differ,
and such errors the assembly dischargeth from judicial binding by censures.
2. Again, our brethren have granted that after due means used they will
not constrain (that is, by censures or otherwise) any that scruple communion
with them, they own that principle which is the foundation of what we desire,
and do thereby grant that this error is not the object of church censures.
3. Therefore they are not to censure this practice neither which we desire,
upon this supposed error.
1. For if the unlawfulness of removing from these churches, and gathering
new, be founded upon this supposed erroneous ground of it, and not upon
the law of the obligation of church membership, and if it is simply con-
sidered in the outward act lawful, then if the error itself be not worthy of
an ecclesiastical binding, the practice founded hereupon is not ; and if it be
not, then may the churches tolerate it.
2. 'Otherwise if any member of a church remove from his church to
another upon a mistaken ground ; as for example his not edifying under
that ministry or the like, which the church he is in judgeth an error; hath
that church power ever to retain him, because his going away was upon an
erroneous principle, so as they may not dismiss him ; or have they power
from Christ to bind his conscience not to remove, because they judge him
to do this upon an erring principle ?
3. Yea, we humbly offer it to consideration, if after due means used to
convince men of this error, when they shall find they cannot persuade them,
they should not say as they to Paul, ' The will of the Lord be done ;'
though the thing be against their own judgment (as that was) ; and not only
permit them to go from them, but assist them in gathering a new church,
according to the principles of their own consciences, whilst they therein set
up the substance of God's worship, and profess to hold all communion in
other ordinances with them as far as possible they can ? For,
1. The general obligation, by Christ's command and appointment, to all
sorts of believers to be in church fellowship, wherein to enjoy all ordinances,
especially the sacraments, is a greater obligation than the obligation that
members can have to any particular churches. We are all sure that this
general law is an institution of Christ, and absolute, and the obligation to
particular churches is far less, as hath been shewn. Now, as the law of
lesser obligations useth to yield to the more universal, so should this ; yea,
in this case men keep more to the law of communion with the whole uni-
versal church, for they partake of all the same ordinances with them by
which the communion of the church catholic with Christ their head, and one
with another, is more observed, than if, in being deprived of this communion,
they held communion but in some things with a particular church.
2. We humbly ofler that as for such errors for which membei'S should
not be excommunicated out of their own church, and deprived of the ordi-
nances therein, for such errors Christ's mind is, that they should not be
deprived of them where else they may have them. If there were churches
472 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK VII.
extant of their judgment anywhere in the world, why might they not be per-
mitted to remove to them ? As put the case : When our nonconformists were
scrupled in kneeling at the sacrament, or to have been present at the liturgy,
and so were deprived of the ordinances ; suppose this to have been an error
in them, to have scrupled the lawfulness hereof (as we may well suppose it
may be the judgment of some of our brethren that it was an error in them),
might not these have removed into Scotland, to those churches where the
pure ordinances might be had ? And then again, suppose there were no
such churches extant, were it not a lawful way of attaining to enjoyment of
the ordinances by making a new church, such at least as the magistrate in
tenderness to them might permit ?
3. If the primitive condition and differences among the saints in the first
erecting churches give not an example, yet they do afford a principle of
equity for this. The differences between the circumcision and uncircum-
cision were such as the circumcised Jewish Christian would not eat together
with the uncircumcised, though professing Christianity. How many years
this continued we know not, nor how long it remained in many men's con-
sciences after the decision of the apostles about the non-necessity of circum-
cision, Acts XV. ; but suppose it did remain in many for a long while, as
appears by the epistles to the Galatians, Colossians, &c., yet surely Jesus
Christ did alike provide a way of enjoyment for church fellowship and com-
munion in ordinances for the one as well as the other, though the difference
in judgment was such as the one could not eat with another. And that
Christ's mind was that both should have the ordinances, though thus differ-
ing, is clear, because ' in Christ neither circumcision nor uncircumcision
availed ;' and notwithstanding this difference (because it might stand with
piety in either), they all were baptized into one body, the church universal,
and did drink (which alludes to their having the Lord's supper) into
one spirit, 1 Cor. xii. 13. The apostles did labour all they could to allay
this difference, but did they forbid either to make churches apart, if they
could not be reconciled in one ? As Peter said in the like case, ' Can any
man forbid water to them that have received the Holy Ghost as well as we
Jews ?' so, have the apostles anywhere forbidden, or can any man forbid,
those to have the sacrament in churches truly constituted, that cannot
through an invincible scruple receive the sacrament in the churches they
have been born in ? Would not and ought not general councils, if now
called, if they could not reduce the churches to one rule, to permit each
their way according to their several principles ? And there are as great
differences in the reformed churches as amongst us and our brethren.
4. Yea, doth not God profess to accept practices for the substance good,
though upon erroneous grounds ? Rom. xiv., * He that eateth, eateth to the
Lord ; and he that eateth not' (out of scruple of conscience, which was an
error), ' his not eating was to the Lord also ;' and upon that very ground
he commands us not to judge them in so doing, because he accepted them.
5. Is not charity more seen in allowing to such tender consciences those
ordinances which are of so general influence to build them up to life, though
with the practice of some error or upon some erroneous principle (which God
will pardon, and men should indulge to them), than for that error for which
they cannot justly be punished with civil or ecclesiastical censure, to detain
them from those ordinances by which they may be recovered and healed ?
This is as if one who had some disease of smaller moment in probability
incurable, and yet not mortal in the issue, should yet be denied such food
as would make him more vigorous and fitter for all duties to God and men,
when in this case it is more charity to allow it him.
Chap. XIII.] the churches of christ. 47B
CHAPTER XIII.
What liberty of conscience is to be indulged. — That peace and love is the great
law of Christ that is to be observed among Christians, ivho ought there-
fore to hear with one another. — What jirinciples and practices are contrary
to this law.
We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to
please ourselves. Let every one of us please his neighbour for his good to
edification. For even Christ pleased not himself; but, as it is written, The
reproaches of them that reproached thee fell on me. For irhatsoever things
were written aforetime were written for our learning ; that ice, through
patience and comfort of the scriptures, might have hope. — Rom. XV. 3—4.
Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ. — Gal. VI. 2.
I intend in this discourse to strengthen our faith as to the having liberty
of our consciences in times of difficulty. One great foundation of our faith is,
that Christ died to take away that enmity which is in the hearts of his people
one towards another, which I have shewed in another disconrse.* My design
is now to state the case of liberty and conscience, and to shew how agreeable
it is to the laws and rules of Christ.
The course which I will steer is this : first, to state the business, as,
1. It is not the general hberty of all, of what religion or kind soever, which
we prosecute ; for, if you observe it, in both these texts (as there are abun-
dance of other scriptures to like purpose), the consideration is of what is
the duty between Christians professing Jesus Christ, by virtue of Christ
and his blood. Those that would make this liberty of conscience to be
extended to all men, weaken our prayers wonderfully, and do weaken our
arguments ;t for the hold we have upon the men among whom we live is,
that we all profess ourselves Christians, and we do not plead for liberty to
be given to atheists, infidels, or Mahomedans, but we plead for Christ, and
you will find the strength lies there.
2. We profess this principle, that all saints should be of one mind, as
in 1 Cor. i. 10, ' That ye be all of one mind, of one judgment ; I be-
seech you, brethren, by the name of the Lord Jesus Christ' (he urgeth
Christ too) ' that ye all speak the same thing ; that ye be perfectly joined
together in the same mind, and in the same judgment, that you, being of
the same mind and judgment, may acknowledge this.' It is this that all
saints should seek, and the name of Jesus Christ should cause a rever-
ence to the judgment of Christians.
3. But if this cannot be effected (if that be the case), you have the
rule, Philip iii. 15, 16. If men be otherwise minded, what then is to be
done ? The rule is both there and here, forbearance. When we say for-
bearance, and cry out for liberty, our meaning is not that we should there-
fore remain indifferent whether this troth prevail ; no, we are to contend
earnestly for that faith we think to be faith, and onee given to the saints,
but it must be by gospel means.
* Discourse of Christ the nniversal peacemaker, in Vol. I. of his works. [I sup-
suppose the reference is to the sermons on Ephesians ii. 14-16, in Vol. II. of this
edition. — Ed.]
t Tliis discourse was writtcB in 1646, when there vreie those heats af^inst the
dissenting brethren, who asserted the congregational way of churches, and tiierefore
all must be understood as relating to those times.
474 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK VII.
4. While we plead for liberty unto persons that are godly, and profess
Chi-ist, we do not favour the error that is laid upon us, of pleading for a
toleration of all heresies. It was long ago said by the bishop of Lincoln,
that was lord-keeper, that it is an a,rgument out of the devil's logic, to argue
from the concrete to the abstract. A man is sick of such a disease, inso-
much as that the humour of the disease requires food that is in itself hurt-
ful, and yet the man must live, and he cannot live without food. In this
case, what is to be done ? You must preserve the life of the man. Physi-
cians in that case do so, and allow that which otherwise they would not
allow. Suppose men mingle with the ordinances of Christ superstition,
the diseased humour of their spirits run out that way, you must, for Christ's
sake, bear with them, for the man is in Christ, and the man must be fed
and nourished ; you must allow him what is mingled with superstition,
without which he cannot partake of the ordinances, and Grod will pardon
the error, and bless the ordinance. And in this case, it is not the error we
indulge, but Christ in his person, and conscience in him, and we do it for
Christ's sake ; and if you go by outward force, and keep him from what
would edify him, you endanger his salvation : Rom. xiv. 4, ' Who art
thou that judgest another man's servant ? to his own master he standeth
or falleth. Yea, he shall be holden up : for God is able to make him
stand.'
5. The apostle's rule is, though a man be in an error, you should be more
earnest to regard the general end of his glorifying God in the substance of
what he doth, than to punish his error. It is clearly the meaning of Rom.
xiv. 6-8, ' He that regardeth a day, regardeth it to the Lord, &c. He that
eateth, eateth to the Lord, for he giveth God thanks ; and he that eateth
not, to the Lord he eateth not, and giveth God thanks. Whether we live,
we live unto the Lord ; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord,' &c.
What is the meaning ? You are to regard the common principle of Chris-
tians. There is a substance of worship, and though the man err, yet you
are to regard more what he doth to God, than you are to regard his error,
and you are to nourish that more, than to go and beat out his error by a
violent course. This is certainly the apostle's meaning. The rise of what
the apostle saith in the text, Rom. xv., is clearly this, that it was not a
matter indifferent, but was about things wherein one side were in a great
error, and was in the wrong very much; and, I think, Calvin acknowledgeth
it, the case here was concerning the whole of the Jewish worship, though he
gives instances only of days, and concerning their Sabbaths, and new moons,
and meats that were forbidden. Now, let all the world judge, if he that
did abstain, did it as thinking it indifferent, and so would be at liberty ; no,
but in conscience I ought not, saith a Christian Jew, to neglect those ordi-
nances ; they were given by God, and we ought all to be subject to them ;
they were not things indifferent ; the worship of God was stated in the one
and in the other, so that it was not a thing indifferent, as they stated it ; yet
in this case, and upon this occasion, when matters did stand thus, doth the
apostle plead his argument, as he does in Rom. xiv. and xv. The true
intent of their meeting. Acts xv., was to compose the difference, by letting
the Jews alone, to go on in their way, though they were in an error ; and
as for the Gentiles, to let them be free, only to warn them to take heed of
offending the Jew ; of all Scriptures I know, it is most abused ; it is alleged
for using an authority, whenas the thing is for an accommodation. But as to
the stating the question, you find the apostle Paul flies upon the Galatians,
and overruns them, and that because they kept days and times, &c. You
find here, he pleads otherwise. What is the difference ? In Rom. xv., he tells
Chap. XIII. j the churches of christ. 475
you, there was two opinions on foot ; there were some of them wretched
men, that said, a man could not be saved unless he were circumcised, and
kept the whole law, ver. 5.
What do I gather hence ? If a doctrine come to be stated as in the foun-
dation of religion, and urged so as it comes to a point of salvation and dam-
nation, says Paul there, I will not bear with you, no, not for a moment. He
falls upon them in his epistle to the Galatians to the height, stays not a
moment ; but come to the epistle to the Romans, here we find that those
Judaisiug Christians did not urge it by way of salvation and damnation, but
went the moderate way, that it ought to be commanded, and that it was
vi prcrcejiti to be done ; and he here pleads for liberty, and that there should
be forbearance, and it is a great argument. I will not say what the magis-
trate hath to do, but this I will say, the magistrate is not to be more severe
than the church, unless it be in his own concernment of the civil peace; this
is the state of it. So now I come to the argument, the thing itself.
1. And the first head of arguments I run upon is this, that in such cases
of difi'erences thus stated. Christians ought to be equally minded one towards*
another : Rom. xv. 5, ' Now the God of patience grant you to be like-minded
one towards another, according to Christ Jesus.'
1. This being like-minded, is not oneness of judgment, which our brethren
would carry all these places to, but equality of mind or like-mindedness in
afiection one towards another, notwithstanding difi'erences : Rom. xii. 16,
' Be of the same mind one towards another.' It is the same word in the
original ; that is, let the same equality of love and afi"ection be kept up mu-
tually one to another ; let afiections continue to one another, upon the same
terms. It is not spoken of oneness of judgment and opinion, but of afl'ec-
tion ; it is spoken so, Rom. xii. 15, ' Rejoice with them that rejoice, and
weep with them that weep ;' that is, have like sympathy and feeling of one
another's afflictions; and then, * Be of the same mind one towards another,*
ver. 16 ; and ' Have peace among yourselves,' Philip, iv. 2. There be other
scriptures where it is used for mutual comfort, agreement and afiections,
equal afiections and equal dealings upon it. That we ought to be so afiected,
notwithstanding difi'erences, and that this is here intended, is clear enough.
It is not only clear from the 14th chapter, which comes in upon occasion of
those differences, but the text clears it, that they should be equally minded
in case of difi'erence. Take the 5th verse ; it says, ' The God of patience and
consolation grant you to be equally minded one towards another, according
to Christ Jesus.' Here is prayer, and every prayer is usually framed ac-
cording to the matter, and the thing that is required. If he prays that they
should be all of one mind, why should he say. The God of patience, God
that is the God of patience, the author and God of patience and consolation,
work such a like-mindedness in you. If his meaning were, that all should
be of one mind and judgment, there were no need to say, the Lord give you
patience. If his scope were that they should be of one mind, there needed
no patience. Truly, they that impose need not patience, but those that
were imposed upon ; but he speaks of patience of one to another, and one
is to be patient as much as the other ; and truly there needs patience to
bear with differences : ver. 1, * You that are strong, please not yourselves,
but bear the infirmities ' (as porters do). Eph. iv. 2, You should tolerate,
and sufl'er ' with all lowliness and meekness, with long-sufi'ering, forbearing
one another in love.' It is plain it is meant in point of difi'erence, that they
should be equally minded to keep the bond of union in the bond of peace.
The meaning is, while you agree in such things, in which the common and
great concernments of Christianity, and of the Spirit's working upon all sorts
476 THE GOVERNMENT OP [BoOK VII.
of Christians are found ; this is the bond of the difference in externals, and
therefore bear that difference with patience.
2. A second consideration is from ver. 5, * According to Christ Jesus.'
There is a great deal lies in this ; take heed of casting your case of tolera-
tion into the common case of Turks and Mahomedans ; you then weaken
yourselves, for the toleration must be according to Christ. We have a great
strength and hank upon them that profess Christianity, to urge Christ upon
them. Let them look to themselves ; for though the universal toleration
must have other principles, yet that toleration which we seek, and which is
according to Christ, and so is to move them from such a consideration, supposing
men to be in Christ ; that toleration hath a great, a mighty, a strong foun-
dation, which the apostle here brings upon them. The meaning is, all sorts
of obligations drawn from Christ, which either Christ's example, or our com-
mon interest in him, or relation to him, or the nature and law of having him
to be our head and our Redeemer, afford, are a complete topic for our
liberty. And let them come with all their arguments out of the Old Testa-
ment, I will but only preach Jesus Christ, and say. What say you to Jesus
Christ ? ' According to Jesus Christ,' says the apostle. He first urgeth
what Christ hath done upon earth ; ' Let every one please his neighbour
according to Christ.' Secondly, What was his carriage since he went to
heaven ? Ver. 7, ' Receive ye one another, as Christ also received us to the
glory of God,' both Jews and Gentiles, with all their differences. Thirdly,
he urgeth the hke intent Jesus Christ had in dying : Did he die for you of
the circumcision only ? He died for the uncircumcision also. Did he die
for you of the uncircumcision only ? No, he died fw you of the circumcision
also, ver. 8. One would think it should end the controversy, but that men
have a zeal not according to knowledge. Now, then, out of all this being
opened, take only that argument, 'according to Christ,' and you are complete
in him for liberty of conscience ; and methinks all the world must vanish
before it.
My assertion is this, that saints or persons professing Christ, though they
differ, yet being in Christ they ought not to judge or despise, but forbear
cne another, according to Christ.
In proving this assertion, I shall keep myself to Christ, and use such
arguments as the considerations of relation of Christ to us, and of us to him,
will afford.
1. And I begin first with the example of Christ : * Let us,' says the
apostle, ' bear the infirmities of the weak, and not please ourselves, for even
Christ pleased not himself.' Do you know what he bare when he was upon
earth ? Do you know what his light was (for all the business is, men have
light for this or that which they would impose, and they think much others
should not yield to it), who had light ? He that had life, hath light ; could
all the earth come up to this light if he were now on earth ? How did he
shew his condescension to his apostles, to his disciples, who had great
diffei'ences, great fallings short ? He pleased not himself; for a person who
had all that knowledge comes and lives amongst a company of poor ignorant
people, so that he was forced to leave the half of his light unmanifested ;
and when he comes to part from them, John xvii., he was forced to pray
that God would teach them to know that he came from him. Thus Christ
did bear with them when he lived on earth.
I may shew it also, how he hath borne with his saints since he went to
heaven ; he found the saints (and so in all ages) differing : some would have
circumcision and others not. Whom doth Christ take part with ? Neither
with the one nor the other, but receives all to the glory of God.
Chap. XIII.] the churches of chkist. 477
2. I pass now from the example of Christ, Rom. xv., and I come to the
law of Christ : * Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law oi
Christ,' Gal. vi. 2.
When Jesus Christ had given us his example, he left it with a law:
1 John ii. 8, ' A new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in
him and in you ; because the darkness is past, and the true light now
shineth.' What is this commandment ? ' He that says he is in the light,
and hateth his brother, is in darkness even till now.' This was true in him
first, that is, it had its real existence in him first, he made it good in his
example ; and then in you, it becoming a law from him to you, he performs
it for you, and he hath given the law to you. Now I shall but add this pre-
mise for the interpretation of this place : it is true, this place in the Gala-
tians comes in upon the occasion of the spiritual restoring and setting in
joint with meekness one that was overtaken in a fault ; says the apostle,
' Bear ye one another's burdens.' But let me say this to you, this is not a
particular maxim restrained to that thing, for it is a general maxim, as the
apostle in abundance of places brings a great general maxim for a particular
occasion. Now it is clear in that Rom. xv., there is a general maxim, we
that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak ; and there it i:^
spoken of a Christian forbearing, of a conscientious forbearing, and here it
is spoken in a spiritual sense. Those that are spiritual ought to bear the
infirmities of the weak, in several ways, in restoring, if one falls for want of
light, &c. But the equity of the maxim is one and the same, so that this
rule here, Gal. vi. 2, falls in, and is as applicable to that, Rom. xv., as to
the particular purpose he brings it for in Gal. vi. This premised, let us
consider the explication of this his saying, ' Bear one another's burdens ;'
what is the meaning ?
(1.) It is to bear the burden we have from another, that is his meaning ;
■what is burdensome from another to thee or me, this we are to bear.
(2.) Being applied to be all one in the general, and the occasion being but
a branch of it, in Rom. xv., the meaning must be, that one party is to bear,
and bear the burden indifferently, as well as the other, for it runs upon equal
and mutual terms ; and if any of the two should bear most, it should be the
strong ; they are to bear as porters do. Who are to be porters ? Those that
are strong certainly; and if need be, they are not only to carry their burdens
for them, but to carry the weak themselves, as Christ doth his poor lambs
in his arms. Now, those that get ecclesiastical power in their hands, take
upon themselves to be strong, and call themselves strong. Do they do so ?
Truly then they are bound by this, Rom. xv. and Gal. vi., to bear. They
are to be the bearers, and the more they take themselves to be strong, the
more doth the law of Christ come upon them to bear the infirmities of the
■weak. You see this place doth exhort indifferently to an equal bearing.
Now then how unsuitable is it for those that are strong to run into so unequal
a practice, as to go and lay the burden upon the weak with all their autho-
rity. And, that they may ease their spirits of the burden, they, feeling the
infirmities of the weak, will not come up to them and bear with them. In
this case they ease their spirits by imposing those heavy burdens upon the
weak ; as it is plainly implied in Rom. xv., ' Please not yourselves :' bear
one another's burdens, and please not yourselves ; it imports, it is the greatest
pleasing a man's self that can be, to make others of my mind in point of
religion, and to see others subject to my understanding. They constrain
you to be circumcised, says the apostle, Gal. vi. 12, 13; and what is the rise
of it ? Ver. 13, that they may glory in your flesh. When you out of weakness
yield, they glory in their victory, and so ease themselves. To be lords of
478 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK YII.
your faith, is what the false apostles sought for ; to be lord of your faith,
and to see you practise as they do in point of religion, is more than to be
lords of men's estates or lives. If those men that are strong do thus, how
do they bear one another's burdens? How do they bear the infirmities of the
weak? How do they sufier, or at least, how do they so suffer the weak, as the
weak ought to suffer them ? for they must bear one another's burdens. Truly
to see another differ, is both a burden to men's corruptions, that would please
themselves to see others of their mind ; and it is also pleasing to grace (sim-
ply considered) to bring men off from their errors, though to do it by force
and violence is a sin and an error. It is a burden to grace, and a burden
to corrupt nature, to see another dissent ; you all find it in part, those that
are strong, and strong in power too. In this case, what doth Jesus Christ
and his apostles call to ? Not to please ourselves, and so to deny both the
desires of grace ; in that case, that would be inordinate, and of corruption,
that would put men upon it. So much for opening this * bear one another's
burdens,' applied, falling in with that Rom. xv.
3. Herein the force of the argument must lie ; that this is a special law
of Christ : ' And so fulfil the law of Christ.' Love one to another was the
general law Christ gave, but to bear the burdens one of another, which is
the burdensome part, this hath the title of the whole law which Christ hath
given for saints. [1.] To love one another is the special law in respect of other
commandments of Christ ; but for saints to bear with the burdeoa of others
(which is one branch of the law), this is more the law of Christ. If you
would see the general law of Christ, look into John xv. 12, ' This is my com-
mandment, that ye love one another, as I have loved you ;' ver. 17, 18,
* These things I command you, that ye love one another. If the world hate
you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you ;' which is, as if he had
said, You saints need love one another all of you, for you will have enough
of the world's hatred, you need not lay load one upon another ; you need not
lay burdens, persecutions, one upon another, therefore do you saints see to
this, that you love one another. I bring it for this, to shew that it is Christ's
special law : ' This is my commandment,' says Christ. Of all the duties of the
ten commandments, Christ singles out this, to call it his commandment, as
enforced from his love : ' These things I command, that ye love one another,'
John xiii. 34. Take it thus, says Jesus Christ here : I have died for you, and
I leave this commandment of all commandments in special manner to you ;
and I have reason to do it, for I bear with you, and I must bear with you
when I am in heaven ; and if there be any commandment which is more
peculiarly mine, it is this, ' That you love one another.' My Father loves
you, and gave me to die for you ; and ' I have chosen you out of the world ;'
but my commandment is, that you love one another, John xv. 12. The
apostle, 1 John ii. 7, calls it a new commandment, yet it was from the
beginning. To love our neighbour, that is, every man, was a duty from the
beginning, from Adam. Cain was the first who broke this command, and
he hated his brother for religious respects. This was an instance from the
beginning of wickedness. Nay, says God, I will part you; and so from the
beginning he suffered a separation. Seth came, and when he had posterity,
Gen. iv., men began to worship God together, and they were severed from
the world. Cain's seed, how did they corrupt that separation ! They should
have loved one another; this was the commandment, but this commandment
was clearly obliterated. Christ comes and enforces it anew; and, says he, I
have loved you and died for you, and this commandment I give you. Christ
revives it which had been from the beginning, so that it is now enforced from
Jesus Christ's having renewed it, having died for his people, and having
Chap. XIII. j the churches of christ. 479
borne with tliem, and having given them that example. This example passed
into a law, a special law. This law of love is enforced from Christ.
[2.] It is enforced from God the Father too : 1 John iv. 11, 'If God so
loved us, we ought also to love one another.' This was to confirm the general,
yet special, law. What person doth he speak of ? God the Father. Look
into the words before, ' He loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation
for our sins.' You have both Jesus Christ's law, and God the Father's law,
in this giving his Son, that saints should thus love saints. Truly in the old
law all the ten commandments had this, ' The Lord thy God, that brought
thee out of the land of Egypt,' to enforce them ; but if you come to this law
of saints, men that profess themselves Christians have both Father and Son,
and the enforcement of the love of either put with an edge upon his com-
mandment. This is my commandment (says Christ) ; this is the law of
Christ (still remember), to bear one another's burdens. This is a special
law of that special law, because it is the hardest of all the rest.
[3.] Nay, thirdly, he tells us the love of the Father is perfected in us if we
love another, 1 John iv. 12. God gains nothing by it; but you are the
gainers, for his love is perfected when you love one another. I would but
bring this special law of Jesus Christ to all saints ; this love which hath the
love of the Father in sending the Son, and hath the love of Jesus Christ him-
self, to put the weight and edge upon it ; and this law of love is obligatory to
all saints, and that upon mutual terms in point of forbearance, Eph. i. 15.
3. There was another commandment left ; and what was that ? ' Have
peace amongst yourselves.' It runs upon mutual terms one towards an-
other. He did leave it (you know) before he died. It is a strain he runs
much upon : John xiv. 27, ' Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto
you.' After he died and rose again, says he, John xx. 19, 'Peace be with
you,' and among you. Whilst he was alive, he spoke the same thing : Mark
ix. 50, 'Have grace in yourselves,' to save you; and next to that, 'Have
peace one with another.' And the case was this, in the beginning of the
sermon they fell out who should be greatest, ver. 34, 35 ; he ends the sermon
with this, ' Have peace one with another.' Have peace ; wherein doth peace
lie ? Peace lies especially in taking up cases of difference ; therein is peace
required. It respects differences ; and all by this rule, for love and peace.
He foresaw that differences would be in his church to the end of the world,
and he urgeth this thing because so necessary both for the ordering and
preserving his church, for he could never have built it else. So soon as he
went to heaven, they quarrelled about circumcision and uncircumcision ; had
not the apostles endeavoured peace, they had never set up the church of the
Gentiles. For there was a peddling principle, thti a Jew must not preach to
a Gentile ; and if Christ had not convinced them of the folly of it, where had
his church been ?
Lastly, It is a new commandment: John xiii. 34, 'A new commandment
give I unto you, that ye love one another ;' ver. 35, ' By this shall all men
know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another ;' chap. xvii. 21,
' That they all may be one ' (that is, amongst themselves) ' as thou. Father,
art in me, and I in thee, that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.'
It is called a new commandment, because the most excellent of all the rest ;
as a new song and new wine is meant when Christ says that he would drink
no more of the vine till he drank it new in the kingdom of heaven ; that is,
more excellent wine.
These plain and transcendent admonitions, both for love and peace, have
been given by Christ, because he did foresee all the differences that have
arisen in his church, and which did arise in those first times, and therefore
480 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK VII.
saw that these rules of peace and love were necessary to begin, and consti-
tute, and then to keep up and preserve his church. He could not have set
up his church of Jews and Gentiles, much less have kept them in peace, un-
less these his laws had taken place among them. And such a mutual love
and peace shewn in bearing one another's burdens (and this is to be exercised
even toward all saints, great and small, weak and strong; and this, though
but a branch, is dignified with the title of the whole law), is so peculiar and
transcendent a duty, as was sufficient to characterise them to be Christ's
disciples, with a notorious diiierence from that love and peace which is to be
found in the world one towards another. And this love and peace is to be
shewed among the saints one towards another, with a difference from what
they are in any way to shew unto the world, who doth and will hate them ;
yea", it is to rise so high as to be an evidence to the world that Christ is the
Saviour of this world of saints, and the head, and guide, and inspirer of them
with such a peace and love. And this rule of love is to be exercised even
toward all saints, great and small, weak and strong; and though it is but a
branch, yet it is dignified with the title of the whole law. It is passed into
a special law above all other laws ; for this (saith Christ) is my law. And
it is the hardest part of that law to bear the burdens one of another, of saints
small and weak ; and yet it is called by the name of that whole law, though
it be but a branch of it. You have heard it is such a law as saints should
observe one to another; they are enforced from the Father and from Christ
to love so as no company in the world should love, and with difference from
what love they bear to the world. They ought to be at such peace one with
another, so to bear one with another, as no other men would bear with others
in the world beside; yea, it is such a love of forbearance and peace, that
men may know by it that they are disciples of Christ, John xiii. 34, 35.
We are to shew such love to each other as is not to be found amongst any
sort of men upon earth, and such a peace, such a love, that it may mani-
fest that Jesus Christ is the Saviour of the world, John xvii. 21 ; and do
this to saints, and to all saints. Now, truly peace is a fruit of love, Col.
iii. 10, 14.
From whence I may infer, that the principles and practices of our pres-
byterian brethren, though persons godly, do yet in this respect not only fi\ll
short of this rule in degrees of love, for all are thus deficient, but run cross
to it.
1. For whereas Christ would have saints, by virtue of their Christianity,
to love all those whom they judge to be saints in a different respect from the
world, our presbyterian brethren, even in rehgious matters, extend their charity
and rule in things of worship to the generality of men in a nation. There
must be a national church, made up of all who are plainly the world. They
will take in men merely moral and civil in their outward deportment, and
make such rules and constitutions of church fellowship as shall take in these
and suit with them. And by this rule multitudes of poor saints in a nation
are excluded, who cannot join in such a loose constitution of a church.
2. Men do it for the world's sake, and to please them, that thereby they
may strengthen their interest, while they make up their party by joining with
the world in ordinances; whereas Christ says to his disciples. The world will
hate you, but do you love one another. And now what then is the quarrel
between their dissenting brethren and them ? Their dissenting brethren say.
We love you, and are very desirous to join with you in the ordinances of
God ; but you join herein with the wox'ld, which we cannot do. Upon this
they cry out upon us as schismatics. What a terrible thing is this ! They
make up a party in the world of those who have only a form of godliness,
Chap. XIII.] the churches of christ. 481
contrary to the rule which enjoins us to turn away from such, 2 Tim. iii. 5.
And contrary to the rule of loving all the saints, they exclude a great many
who cannot unite in the laxness of their discipline, and act oppositely to the
law of bearing the burdens of such, and act thus in matters too wherein they
cannot convince them that they are in the wrong.
3. In framing an outward administration of religion for the world, as well
as for the saints of their judgment, they greatly gratify the world. And then
it is no wonder if the world be at peace with them ; for if they will own them
and their children, and admit them to their sacraments, they have in rehgious
respects what they did desire, and for other things of religion they are not
much inquisitive. For so they have but a religion, they are not apt to be
scrupulous in things of that nature, and so they are at peace. But what is
the peace which they have with these ? It is but a dull peace, such as Rome
hath amongst her children, who go by an implicit faith, insomuch as there
is little religion and little inquiry about it among them. But a man whose
mind God hath enlightened, and who knows Jesus Christ to the purpose of
salvation, is an inquisitive creature, and must be satisfied ; and it is his burden
if he is not, and this burden they ought to bear. But they gratify the world
rather to make up an interest with them, and so they may have peace.
4. They do that which is worse than all this ; for when they have joined
with the world, they make use of worldly force and compulsion, and employ
and call in aid and strength from the world, whereby to compel their poor
dissenting brethren to their way. How contrary is this to Christ's advice
and counsel, who tells us that the world will hate us sufiiciently, and there-
fore we need not lay load upon one another. But they joining with the
world, it will afford them carnal weapons in this case, because of its hatred
to any who are godly. And yet all this must not be counted persecution.
But I would ask, How doth the antichrist of Rome persecute ? Is it not by
imprisonment and death ? And is not confiscation of goods, though not
materially the same punishments, yet a sort of persecution too ?
5. They do this for points of doubtful disputation (as the apostle's phrase
is) for both the things urged by them, and the power which they challenge
to impose them, are such. They are such disputable matters, as men may
dispute their hearts out about them, and yet not prevail to a conviction.
But oh, how is this such a peace, such a love of saints to all saints, as
should and might distinguish them from all the world besides ! For it is
such a distinguishing love and peace which Christ enjoins as is not to be
found in all the world besides. It is so remarkable a love, that by it it
might be discerned even by the world that these are Christ's disciples. How
many differences far gi'eater doth Rome, the antichristian world, indulge to
her children, in variety of orders, points of doctrine, &c. And yet these men
will not allow a liberty in smaller things ; they will not use the same for-
bearance as the men of the world commonly observe one towards another.
6. They farther herein go against as clear rules as any are in Christianity
or the Scriptures, while they thus impose things of doubtful disputations.
Is not that a clear rule, Philip, iii. 15, 16, * Let us therefore, as many as be
perfect, be thus minded : and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God
shall reveal even this unto you. Nevertheless, whereto we have already
attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing,' We
are to leave the rest to God, to reveal when he pleaseth. It is another clear
rule which we have : Rom, xv. 1, 'You that are strong, bear the infirmities
of those who are weak.' This we are to do to fulfil the law of Christ. Is
it not a clear rule, ' that every one should please his neighbour for edifica-
VOL. XI. H h
482 THE GOVERNMENT OF [BoOK VII.
tion' ? Rom. xv. 2. We sliould then follow things that make for peace, and
whereby we may edify one another ; but when they act thus contrary to
these rules, they pretend that their design is to procure peace in the
churches, as if the only way to peace (which they take for granted too) were
to impose the more common, and generally prevailing, opinions concerning
faith and worship upon others who do dissent ; and if they do not submit
unto those impositions, to restrain them from holding any religious assem-
bhes, or enjoying among themselves those ordinances of the gospel which
may edify them. If we look into Holland, we shall find a toleration of wor-
ship allowed to those who dissent from the established constitution ; if we
go to Turkey, the East Indies, or to any government of Mahomedans, we
shall see that peace is granted even by them to Christians, by a toleration,
and forbearance of them. And, what ! must there be no way among Chris-
tians for peace but to constrain all to be of one mind, and that in things of
lesser and doubtful moment?
7. They retain these principles and resolutions even M-hile themselves are
persecuted by other protestants, who profess to do it out of the same con-
science and principles upon which they themselves do proceed (only mutatis
mutandis), and think they ought to do so, and that they do God good ser-
vice in it. Our presbyterian brethren have been put by, and not suffered to
preach, as being thought not to be legally ordained, or not to worship God
as they ought. And while they cry out Persecution, persecution, when it
falls thus upon themselves, how can they have any secret reserve, or enter-
tain any principles to lead them unto a resolution to do the like things unto
others whom they judge to be godly persons, and who differ less from them
in doctrines and substantials of worship than they do from other persons ?
I will only say this, in allusion to that in Ezekiel, Wilt thou persecute under
the power of those who persecute thee ?
8. The most moderate of them condescended indeed so far, that saints un-
satisfied to hold communion with them might continue in their congrega-
tions, without being pressed to come to the Lord's supper ; but it would not
be allowed that they should enjoy this ordinance in other assemblies of their
own. Thus it was debated in the assembly, and the reason given for it was,
such an allowance would be against the common peace, and disturb the
common established rule. And so, out of reverence to their opinion and
,way, others must stand out, and be excluded from this great ordinance for
•ever, in reverence to, and for the sake of, the pretended peace of their
church. The great business pretended is peace, the peace of the church ;
ay, but let them yield things conducive to peace too. For the peace of the
church doth not lie in this, that none must be sufi'ered in anything to differ
from it. Peace doth not consist in this, that many persons truly godly must
stand out, and be deprived of worship and ordinances, for fear of displeasing
them by entering into separate congregations, which they cannot endure to
see. Peace doth not consist in paying such a reverence to a church, that
all who dissent from it must forbear meeting apart for religious worship.
No, let us truly follow the apostle's direction : Rom. xiv. 19, ' Let us there-
fore follow after the things which make for peace, and things wherewith one
may edify another.' And from hence, these are the great things which may
be complained of in the case.
1. That some persons think peace to lie only in men's quietly not enjoy-
ing ordinances in separate congregations, as if there were no way to peace
but this. But there is another way of peace, in bearing with men notwith-
standing their different practices and judgments. The one man keeps a day
which another doth not, yet peace may be preserved between them both, and
Chap. XIII.] the churches of christ. 483
this is the peace to which Christ exhorts us. It is not as if there were no
other way but this ; if you cannot be of our mind, and if you will not enjoy
the ordinances in communion with us, you must fly out of the land for them !
2. While they are so urgent for peace, they forget what follows, Rom.
xiv. 19, that we should mind such things whereby one may edify another.
If their claims for peace would hold, yet they run away but with half the
apostle's rule, whereas all of it should be taken in. These dissenting Chris-
tians should have the Lord's supper (which they scruple to receive in your
parishes) for their edification ; for it is that whereby they are to be built
up, and we are to please our neighbour for his edification. Yea, this is
of far greater moment to each saint than that dull tjTannical peace which
is aimed at by a coercive power. If, indeed, those to whom forbearance is
used disturb the public church assemblies, and would hinder them in the
ordinances, let them have the due reward of their turbulency, for such be-
haviour is contrary unto peace indeed. But men might have peace, and
others by them, and among them might have peace, true, everlasting peace,
if they could quiet themselves in Christ's rule for forbearance.
All the apostles, when they were alive, could not persuade one Jew,
though a believer, to disclaim the continuance of the Jewish ceremonies.
Peter himself, and James, were of the mind that they should cease (as
appears from Acts xv.), and yet they could not persuade the Jews to relin-
quish them. This was a tried business, and in the highest supposition of
apostolical power and authority ; and what authority is there then now upon
earth sufficient to persuade men's consciences, when the apostles themselves
could not do it in a case of like nature ? The apostles professed that they
had power given only for edification, and not for destruction. And what
greater destruction is there than by outward compulsion, and utterly ruining
men, to tempt them to break their consciences, or against their consciences
to refrain religious assemblies for worship and enjoyment of ordinances in
them, which is the food of their souls ? Is not this expressly contrary to
the apostle's direction : Rom. xv. 1, 2, 'We then that are strong ought to
bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let every one
of us please his neighbour for his good to edification ' ? Truly, I will not now
ask by what authority they would do these things, but I would ask by what
charity do they these things ? Why should they lay any godly person under
that necessity, that he shall not have the sacrament unless he takes it in their
way ? Why should they tempt a man to act against his conscience in one
thing, to have the enjoyment of it in another ? What a terrible thing is this !
Rome^ bears with their children more, by sufi'ering them to differ in a thou-
sand things.
3. If they proceed in making laws against us, let us go to law with them.
Let us plead Christ's law, and let us in prayer urge him that he would put
his own law in execution. Let us pray to him, that he would cause his law
to stand and take place. It is very seasonable to do so. Why may we not
thus, in appeals to Christ by prayer, go to law with them ? We have a more
ancient law, a special law of Jesus Christ, who is the great lawgiver, and
who hath the executive power, even all power in heaven and earth ; and hath
he]_^not laid it at stake, for the maintaining of his ordinances and worship to
the end of the world ? And he is our advocate to plead his own law and
our cause ; and heaven and earth shall pass away before the least tittle of
his law shall fail. No, it shall all be accomplished in the world ; and he
will shake heavens and earth but he will do it. Methinks this should afford
a very great deal of strength and help to our faith, that we may go to God
and Christ and plead this law, this, his own law, unto him. Yea, it is not
484 THE GO'V'ERNMENT OF THE CHURCHES OF CHRIST. [BoOK VII.
his law only, but we have his oath and covenant annexed. He hath sworn
unto us to this pui'pose : Luke i. 73-75, ' The oath which he sware to our
father Abraham, that he would grant unto us, that we, being delivered out
of the hands of our enemies, might serve him without fear, in holiness and
righteousness before him, all the days of our life.'
1. There is a judgment acknowledged and confessed in the case, and (as
you know) execution, if sued out, is to follow. In the year 1640, when
some would bring in bowing to the altar, what was then pleaded in the
canon ? It was this : ' Let not him that is strong despise him that is weak ;
and let not him that is weak judge him that is strong.' This is a judgment
passed to prove all that I have said.
2. We must also bring them and our case to an appeal in the day of judg-
ment, for thither the apostle brings it : Eom. xiv. 10, * But why dost thou
judge thy brother ? or why dost thou set at nought thy brother ? we shall
all stand before the judgment-seat of Christ.' The apostle urgeth upon
them the observance of this law of love and peace, as they will answer it
there.
THE GOTERNMENT AND DISCIPLINE OF THE
CHURCHES OF CHRIST,
SET DOWN BY WAY OF QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS, WITH AN EXPLANATION AND
APPLICATION OF THEM.
Quest. What is the church of the New Testament/
Ans. The church of God is a mystical body, whereof Christ is the head.
Explicat. The church is here described by four arguments : 1st, By the
genus or kind ; it is a mystical body. 2dly, By the subject of it ; that is, the
head, the members, saints. Sdly, A form and essence by which it is a
church ; there may be a company of saints which have Christ for their head,
and yet want fellowship. Now that which makes them a church, and dis-
tinguishes them from other churches, is this uniting into one congregation
by holy covenant ; the form giveth essence and distinction. All churches*
have Christ for their head, and are saints by calling ; but that which makes
us difler and makes us to be this church, is this covenant which we have
made with God, to submit ourselves to God's ordinance in this company.
This giveth the life and being to a particular church. 4thly, The end why
we are thus united and knit together; and that is, to worship God, and that
concerneth God ; another concemeth us, that he may bless us, and we may
edify one another in all his holy ordinances. This is the nature of a church.
I. For the fii-st, the church is a body ; that is the proper kind of the
church. To say a company or number, is too general a word ; but it is a
body that we are in, knit together to one kind of employment, which every
company is not fit to do. The church is a body, Eph. i. 22, the church is
Christ's body, Eph. v. 23 ; Christ is the head of his church, the Saviour of
his body, Rom. xii. 4, 1 Cor. xii. 27, 28. Now this word body doth imply
in it three things, which concur to the nature of a body.
1st. A body consists of variety of members, of several offices and uses, but
sufficient to serve to the subsistence of the whole person. There is no living
body but consists of variety of members ; so it is with the church, 1 Cor.
xii. 14-20, the members have several offices, Rom. xii. 5, G, every member
bath his diflerent gift, and by the use of them they are able to minister
supply to the whole body.
2%. A body doth not imply only this, but a fit communion and combina-
* Qu. ' Christians'?— Ed.
486 CHURCH ORDEE EXPLAINED
tion of these members togethei-; they are joined together in order, Eph. iv.
15, 16. Therefore a church is of such members that can fitl}' join and be
joined, whose sj^irits can well close and make sweet concert ; yea, can better
suit with those of their own body than of another, Col. ii. 19. The body is
knit by joints and bands, for so the church is compacted together in a pro-
portionable frame with joints and bands.
Quest. What are those joints and bands that make members so knit together
and firmly joined, that you may as veil hreak a. hone in the midst, as break them?
Ans. The body is great, Christ is the head, therefore the bands must be
such as knit us to him, and one to another. Eph. iv. 4, 5, there the apostle
tells you what they be.
First, One body, one spirit with Christ, and one spirit one with another ;
not only that we have all a spirit of grace, of faith and love, for so have all
the true members of every church, but a natural disposition of heart, that
may fitly join together as much as may be ; and this makes them one body.
Secondly, One faith, by which we all look to Christ for grace to perform
our duties, and for acceptance of them. This faith knits to Christ, and also
knits us together. .
Thirdly, One love, which is the bond of perfection. Col. ii. 14 ; some
more love which God calleth me to bear to the members of my own body
than the members of another.
Fourthly, One covenant, and the seals confirming that covenant. 1 Cor.
X. 17, we are one bread ; one bread combines us more to one body, and so
doth baptism, 1 Cor. xii. 13. As for that covenant which made a Gentile
when he came on to grace to partake with the Israelites in the ordinance of
God, it was entering into covenant, and having a place in God's house, Isa.
Ivi. 4, 6, 7. But now I speak only of the covenant, as that which makes
them one body ; but more of them when I come to the formal part of the
chm-ch.
But this is not all, for the apostle saith we are knit by joints, not {)i joints.
The Spirit knits, and faith knits, but what makes them fall into joints ?
This is done by mutual submission. What makes the thigh fall into the
knee ? There is an hollow in the knee, into which the thigh shoots itself, and
is there joined. That which joins us together in a church is submission,
Eph. V. 31. They that cannot well submit to one another are not w-ell
joined ; so the bands of the church must be whole, of one spirit, of one
faith, &c. Thus you see a body must be joined together by bands and
joints that they may close one with another, and can fall down and yield one
to another, either in admonition or reproof.
Sdly. The third thing in a body is the ministering of mutual help and
supply from one member to another, for the health and growth of the body,
so that we cannot be without one, 1 Cor. xii. 21-23. You will say. Hath
Christ need of us ? Yea, for he is the head of the body ; and if he w'ill be a
king, he must have his subjects, for this is the glory of a king, and serveth
much to his supply. Though Christ would be happy without us, yet if he
will be the head of the church, as every member receiveth something from
him, so it adds something to him, to the beauty of the body, Eph, i. 23.
The church is ' the fulness of him that fiUeth all in all.' Christ were empty
were it not for the church, as the head without the body. "When you have
a church, then you have a full Saviour and advocate ; the church fills up his
mystical body. His divine and human nature need it not, but the mystical
body needs it ; therefore the apostle calleth the church Christ, because Christ
and the church are one body, 1 Cor. xii. 12. Christ is pleased to sa}' he
stands in need of us, yea, of his poorest servants, to receive grace from him,
IN A WAY OF CATECHISM.
487
and that he might pour it out upon them. As a woman with full breasts
stands in need of a child to suck them, so Christ is so full of grace and
comfort, that if he have not his weak ones to suck grace from him, his
bowels ache within him ; therefore he called to the weak and thirsty, Mat.
xi. 28 ; Isa. Iv. 1,2. 'Of his fulness we receive grace for grace.' As the head
thus communicates to the body, and the body adds to the head, so every
member adds supply one toward another. We can want no kindly member
of the body, but the body will be sensible of it, Eph. iv. 16 ; every part hath
some measure of spiritual life, and so they can be helpful and useful one to
another, and thereby they grow up according to the increase of God, Col.
ii. 19. One member of the body derives nourishment from another, till it
comes to the lowest member of all ; so the members of Christ draw grace
from him, till it stretcheth to the lowest, the lowest servant, the lowest skirt
of his garment. This is the third thing in a body ; the members of it safe-
guard and preserve that body. And thus you see why the church is called a
body. The church is not only a body, but a mystical body, Eph. v. 82. It
is not the natural but mystical body of Christ ; Christ is such a body as is
secretly knit to him by one Spirit. This is a great mystery, saith the apos-
tle : first, that the church should be framed out of the side of Christ, as
Eve out of Adam's bone ; for such is the church. So is his comparison. All
that have been brought home to Christ, have been brought home by the
preaching of Christ and his death. 2dly, The desertion of a man's father
and mother, and all outward comforts, to cleave to Christ, this is a great
mystery. 3dly, They should be one flesh ; and union with Christ is a great
mystery. There is a shadow of it in civil marriage, but it is a great mystery ;
for this body is a spiritual body.
^ II. Now to the subject of this church, first, Christ is the head of it, Eph.
V. 23, and i. 22. Reasons.
1. In regard of eminency of place therein. He is above all the members
in place and power.
2. As the body receives from the head motion, sense, and reasonable
life, so have we all our spiritual life and motion, all our grace, from Christ
as our head.
3. As the head guides the body which way it pleaseth, and the body is
ready at its command, so every member of the body of Christ is ready to
move or go at his appointment and command.
Secondly, The melnbers be saints, 1 Cor. i. 2, Col. i. 2; Acts ii. 47, ' such
as shall be saved.' And the reason is, because it is meet the head and the
body should be proportionable. What proportion is there between a leaden
heel and golden head ?
Use 1. If the church of Christ be a body, then it is necessary that in the
body of the church the members should be of diflferent gifts and growth.
' If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing ?' An hundred
apostles could not make a church standing as apostles, 1 Cor. xii. 24, 29.
The church must be a body ; there must be some distinction, as much as is
requisite to the being of a body. An hundi'ed hands will not make a body,
therefore conceive this necessary to a church, as also how unwieldy a work
the fabric of a church is.
Use 2. If a chui-ch be a body, then you see what we ought to be : to be
of one spirit, of one love, to be willing to submit the one to the other in the
Lord, that we be careful to grow up in all things to the mutual helpfulness
of one another. The name of a lodi/ is of strong instruction, to teach us
what we ought to be. When saw you one member of the body fall out with
488 CHURCH ORDER EXPLAINED
another? but they are sensible of the joy and grief of each other. Therefore
be of one spirit, and build up one another in love.
Use 3. The name of a body binds us from easily starting one from an-
other. If a member hang by a loose skin, it is no trouble to cut it off; but if
it be fast on, it will be a great grief to the body ; therefore there should be
weighty reasons for difjointing one from another. May not a man then
remove himself, or may the church keep a man in the body, or let him go
at their pleasure ? I answer, Neither of both, 1 Cor. xii. 18. If they be
members, they must see that Christ dismiss them ; but if they will fall off,
it is a sign they did hang but by a loose skin, and then the church will be
no great losers by the departure of such from them.
Use 4. Is Christ the head of the church ? Then the pope is not the head
of the church. An headship is appUed to Christ ; for if the pope be the
head of the church, then the church is the body of the pope, which no papist
durst ever say to this day. Now these two stand relative. Princes are said
to be the head of the church, as Saul to be head of the tribes, that is, only
in regard of eminency or place, that they be to see all the members of the
church do their duty.
Use 5. Is Christ the head of the church ? Then if any man want wisdom,
direction, or comfort, where should he have it but in our head ? The head
must supply all to the members.
Use 6. Also it teacheth us to be subject unto Christ, as the church is to
Christ her head. When the head calleth for anything, make no difficulty of
it, be willing to be led and guided by him.
Use 7. It is comfort to every poor member of Christ, that surely Christ
cannot but be sensible of my estate. If Christ be our head, then the least
toe cannot be trodden on but the head feels it. Acts ix. 4, Saul cannot per-
secute a member of Christ but he persecutes Christ ; Isa. Ixiii. 9, He is
merciful to us, and his soul is grieved for the miseries that befall us. Judges
X. 16.
Use 8. If the members of the church be saints, then you see what man-
ner of persons they ought to be that offer themselves to the church, and
whom the church receiveth. They must be faithful brethren, such as shall
be saved, such as are knit to Christ by one spirit ; and when they have
given themselves to Christ, then let them give themselves to the church.
To have a golden head and wooden leg is a dishonour to the head.
Use 9. If members be saints, then you see what God calleth us to be. A
saint implies to be set apart from all unclean uses ; they are devoted to
God's ways, to the building up of his kingdom. This God calleth us to be,
as to be members of Christ, so to be saints.
And now to the form and essence of the church, to which also belongs
the end, as the subject-matter doth to the kind. The form is that which dis-
tinguisheth it from all other assemblies and churches ; for when it is said,
united into one congregation, it distinguisheth it from the church of the
Jews, which was a national church ; from the catholic church, which never
in this world meets in one congregation ; as also from the diocesan church
and family church. That they are knit into covenant distinguisheth one
congi'egation from another ; that they meet to worship God in all his holy
ordinances, this distinguisheth them from all other assemblies that may be.
Godly men may meet in one place for civil ends ; the church therefore to
which God hath given pastors and teachers is united into one congregation
that meets in one place, 1 Cor. xiv. 23, and xi. 18, 20. When they come
together in one place, then they make up a church assembly ; it must be a
place of no bigger compass and latitude than that all may hear and be
IN A WAY OF CATECHISM. 489
edified, 1 Cor. xiv. 26, 31. To this church Paul commendeth the excom-
munication of the incestuous Corinthian, 1 Cor. vii. 4. To a church that
may meet in one place, Christ biddeth us ' tell the church,' that is, one
congregation. The apostle never calls the Christians of a whole nation one
church, but when there are many congregations in a nation or country, then
he terms them many churches. Gal. i. 22, 1 Cor. xvi. 19, Gal. i. 2 ; there-
fore he styles them churches because they meet not all in one place, Rom.
xvi. 4, 1 Cor. xiv. 33. He doth not call them the church of the saints, but
the churches, and there is a double reason of it.
1. It is taken from the duty that lieth upon the church in the New Tes-
tament to take up oflences amongst brethren : Mat. xviii. 17, 18, * Tell
the church,' saith Christ. Now that is not a family church ; for what hath
one family to do to judge another ? It is not the catholic church, for they
never meet but representatively, and they cannot hear all the offences of
private brethren ; neither can it be a national, diocesan, or provincial church,
for a whole nation or province cannot meet for one brother's offence ; there-
fore by the church is meant the congregation that meets every Lord's day,
and it is easy for them to hear and heal all the oflences that fall out in
a week. To that church Christ speaks, ' Whatsoever you bind on earth
shall be bound in heaven.'
2. And from the silence of God in the New Testament touching all national
meetings and provincial and diocesan meetings ; for if God had appointed
such a church, he would have appointed national and provincial meetings.
In the church of the Jews, which was a national church, they were at the
least three times in the year to meet all together, and there were national
ofiices and sacrifices to be oflered only at those times. The high priest had
a peculiar place, therefore Christ would have appointed national officers and
meetings, and national and provincial worship, if he had appointed such a
church. Some will say he hath left primates and metropolitans, &c., but he
hath not set down the offices and duties of such men, there is a deep silence
of all these things ; therefore the church of the New Testament is a congre-
gational church, that may meet in one place.
Use 1. A just refutation of all that platform of churches that antichrist
brought into the church, and with the church came in to make way for him ;
for if the church be a congregation, it may meet in one place. Then national,
provincial, and diocesan churches are such that the apostles never heard of
in the New Testament ; they are therefore the inventions of men's brains,
iind so an image set up, and contrary to the second commandment. If it
should be said to us, Ycu are a few scattered churches, were it not fit to
have transcendent officers for unity's sake, to prevent schism and factions ?
I answer. It was intended for tbat end, but that which was intended for the
benefit of the church hath brought contentions into the church, hath made
way for ambition and secular pomp, for shouldering out of God's ordinances
and godly men. Hath God therefore appointed no such things as national
churches, national meetings, and worship ? Then let us entertain no thoughts
of them.
Use 2. From hence take the limits of the power of church officers, how
they may proceed as far as the congregation reacheth, for the church is a
congregation, therefore from hence will fall to the ground non-residence,
that one man should have many churches under him, one in one country,
another in another country. Such walk beside the rule ; for if God hath
ordained more officers to one church than one, and not more churches to
one officer, then one man may have no more but one church under him.
The apostle left more officers in one church than one: Philip, i. 1, ' With the
490
CHURCH OEDEK EXPLAINED
bishops;' that is, the pastors, teachers, and elders. No pastor or teacher
but he is the pastor or teacher of one congregation, and no more, Acts
XX. 7, 28. God hath many overseers to one flock, not committed many
flocks to one overseer ; therefore non-residency is against the rale of
Christ.
Use 3. Hence see the irregular proceedings of such as take upon them
ecclesiastical jurisdiction over many churches, over a thousand congrega-
tions, over a whole province or nation, or the whole world, as the pope
doth : for Christ left every church his own officers to rule the same.
Use 4. Also this is for refutation of those that think parishes are distin-
guished, not by divine institution, but human. Indeed, that the circuit of
so much land shall maintain the minister, and all that live within such a
compass of ground shall be of such a congregation, this is of human inven-
tion, against the commandment of God: but this is of divine institution, that
the church exceedeth not the bounds of one congregation, of such a latitude
that all may hear, and all may be edified. And as for those that are ad-
mitted into the church, this is divine ; for the Lord admitteth all into the
church, 1 Cor. xii. 18, that willingly offer themselves to subject themselves
to the ordinances of God. Therefore the church is of divine institution.
III. Now the next thing is, that they are joined together in one congrega-
tion by holy covenant. First, to prove this by grounds out of Scripture,
and then by reasons.
1. The first direction and institution of a church was by a covenant. The
Israelites made a covenant with the Lord, and he with them, Deut. v. 2,
and from that time they were called a church. Acts vii. 38 ; there they pro-
mised they would do all the Lord had said, and be obedient, Exod. xxiv.
3, 7. There was another covenant made with them, Deut. xxix. 12, &c. ;
this was a covenant of grace, as the other was of works, vers. 10-12. The
Lord entered into covenant with them that day, and with their children.
By a covenant he takes them to be his people, and to be their God. Some
of them were in covenant with God before, as Moses, Joshua, &c., but when
they became a national church, then they made a popular covenant with
God and their own selves ; and there is the same reason of a national and
congregational church. The stranger that would be of that church must
lay hold of the covenant with them, Isa. Ivi. 47. Therefore, when Abraham
took strangers into fellowship with his family, in which the church was, they
did it by confederacy with him, which is a covenant. Gen. xiv. 23. He
would not have done it if they had been idolaters ; that was the sin of Asa
and Jehoshaphat with Ahab. Therefore, when he took them to war with
him, they were confederate in religion with him, they must come in by
covenant ; and then ' my horses are thy horses, thy friends my friends,'
and thus all one. Thus all in the church of Israel came in by way of
covenant.
2. The second ground of Scripture is taken from the restitution of a church
when it is fallen, and there is the same reason of restitution as institution,
by the same means it is restituted as instituted. Now, when they had ever
fallen from God, or had decayed, they entered into a new covenant with
God, so did they in the days of Asa, 2 Chron. xxiii. 16 ; so did also Heze-
kiah, 2 Chron. xxix. 9, 10; so in the days of Joash, when it had been broken
by Joram and Athahah, 2 Chron. xiii. 16 ; so did Josiah, 2 Chron. xxxiv.
31, 32. Thus a church is restored to its purity, by renewing of its cove-
nant, Ezra X. 3, 5, 12, 19, and Neh. x. 29. They all clave to the Lord
and to their brethren, with their nobles ; and therefore there was a register
IN A WAY OF CATECHISM. 491
kept of them that entered into covenant, Isa, iv. 3, they were written, &c.,
Ps. Ixxxvii. 6 ; therefore they that could not shew their father's house in
the genealogies were put out, unless they would make a new covenant,
Ezra ii. 59.
3. The third ground from Scripture is taken from the apostle's preface in
the New Testament: Acts ii. 42, ' They continued,' &c. The word signifies,
they joined and cleaved together ; and this you see more plain in Acts v. 13 ;
none durst join themselves, that is, glue themselves to the church ; and it
is the same word which Christ useth about man and wife. Mat. xix. 6. Now,
how doth a man cleave to his wife but by mutual covenant ? No other ways.
That being wanting or broken, breaks and dissolves ; that being maintained
and kept, keeps a church; but the covenant being wanting or broken, breaks
a church ; therefore the covenant being made and kept, makes and keeps a
church in its institution. Ezek. x. 10, 14, there is a description of the
breaking of the church of Israel. Christ had two staves, and when he had
broken the first, that was his covenant he had made with his people, and
they with him, and that was the presence of Christ in his ordinances, which
is his beauty. When you may go and hear the scribes and pharisees, and be
never the better, then Christ is gone ; their souls loathed him, and his soul
loathed them ; but the other staff was afterwards broken hands, and that was
the covenant between God's people and the scribes and pharisees ; and those
that had a name to be of Israel, and were not true Israelites, God broke
brotherhood between them. He broke it in the death of Stephen, and the
persecution following, and thereby severed his faithful people from amongst
them, so that they were forced for to leave the temple and the worship, and
then they turned to the Gentiles, Acts xiii. 46, and then they ceased to be a
church. Now, then, if the breaking of the covenant break the church, then
the making of it constitutes a church ; break the covenant with Christ, and
you shake the foundation of the church. The poor of the fold began to per-
ceive that Christ had left them, when he spake not in the scribes and pha-
risees, but when he breaks the brotherhood, then the church is quite broken ;
therefore, this being held, held and maintained a church together. If this
held in the Old Testament, it will in the New. These things were so plain
to the Jews in the Old Testament, that they made no question but that in
the New Testament the children should be admitted as the parents were.
Therefore you read little of the baptism of the infants ; but it was clear, that
if the fathers and their seed were then received into the covenant by the seal
of circumcision, then in the New Testament they were to be received by the
seal of baptism, Col. ii. 11, 12. So that in the New Testament you read
of nothing but of the joining and gluing to the church ; and as man and wife
were joined by marriage covenant, so were they joined together by covenant
in church fellowship. These be the grounds from Scripture : now for the
reasons.
Reason 1. First, it is taken from the nature of a church. As God styles it
in Scripture, it is called the spouse and queen of Christ, Eph. v. 23, 31, 32,
Cant. vi. 8. Now, wherein doth a queen differ from a concubine ? A queen
enters into the bed by covenant, but a concubine is taken in by power, as
Jacob took his maid. Prov. ii. 17, the wife is said to forsake the covenant ;
therefore, if the church be a spouse, she must enter in by covenant. Two
things go to a queen-like state : 1, she enters in by covenant ; 2, she hath the
keys of the family, and rules the affairs in it ; but a concubine hath neither ;
so a true church hath both these. She is called ' the city of the living
God,' Heb. xii. 22, Eph. ii. 19 ; the members of the church are citizens.
Now citizens enter into a covenant together to keep the laws and maintain
492 CHURCH ORDER EXPLAINED
the liberty of the citv, therefore the church is a city, must enter in by
covenant.
2. From the power of the church to call her own officers. Acts i. 26,
the church called Matthias, he was numbered ; the word signified by common
voice and suffrage they accepted him, auyx.aTs-^rjpindr]. So were the deacons
chosen by lifting up of hands, Acts vi. 5 ; the word xa/ s^O.s^avro, signifies
they ai'e chosen by lifting up of hands. Now the church doth not call her
officers to an annual place, but constant, Zech. xi. 17, Deut. xii. 19, they
must not forsake the Levite, nor the Levite them ; the very calling of a
minister to the employment of the ministry is an essential covenant, though
something more implicit. An officer should not thrust himself upon a body,
for then he maketh her a concubine, not a queen. Now, then, if he must
be chosen by full consent, then be hath no authority over them that will not
submit themselves to him, and therefore cannot do any act of power, as ad-
minister the sacraments and church censures, to those that do not call him
to the work; therefore there must be a covenant.
3. From the power of the church over her members. She hath power to
admonish them ; and if they bear her not, then to exclude them. Now she
hath nothing to do to judge those that are without the church, but those
that are joined to the church, 1 Cor. v. 11, 12.
4. From the end and use of the sacraments. One end is to'seal up church-
fellowship, 1 Cor. xii. 13, and x. 18 ; therefore church fellowship standeth
by church covenant, because they are the seal of the covenant.
Use 1. Reproof of those spirits that look at church covenants as a human
invention. Abraham will not admit any to fellowship with him but by cove-
nant. The church of Israel enters by covenant, and is by covenant restored ;
by covenant the church of the New Testament is the city and spouse of
Christ, therefore there must be a covenant.
Use 2. You see how we have cause to be humbled if we sit down any-
where, and enjoy the church privileges without church-fellowship by a
covenant.
Use 3. Learn we a true estimation of churches, and discretion in judging
of them. By how much any church is more faithful in the covenant, the
truer and more pure the church is. Hath any church power to choose her
own officers, and the power to govern the church ? Then such are pure
churches, but else they are defiled, and are but concubines. How should
we, therefore, be humbled for our brethren, that are forced like concubines,
enter not into covenant before the Lord and one with another, according to
his will !
Use 4. A just apology for such ministers and others that dare not adminis-
ter any ordinance of God to such as offer not themselves to enter into cove-
nant with the church. A minister may not obtrude himself upon any ; if
they call him not to be their minister, he may not dispense any censure or
act of power to them ; therefore it is not an act of schism in the church or
minister, but in those that so withdraw themselves ; they thereby make
themselves incapable to have any ordinance of power to be dispensed to
them. Ministers have no power but where they are called, and they are
not but where there is a willing people. If men will not have the church
to rule over them, God compels none, though he commands it ; and therefore
neither may the church. 2 Cor. ix. 13, they thank God for their professed
subjection.
Use 5. Hence see the essential difference of one congregation from another,
the difference of the covenant ; they enter into covenant with officers and
members, and this distiu"uisheth them.
IN A WAY OF CATECHISM. 493
Use 6. This may teach the necessity of constancy in church fellowship.
It is a covenant of God, and God hath a part in all covenants, between
man and wife, prince and people, but especially in all holy covenants ;
therefore they may not depart the one from the other, but God must part
them. God hath set us in the church by virtue of a covenant, therefore we
must have God's leave and the church's leave to depart, if we will depart in
God's fear. Unless God dispose of it, a member may not depart, nor the
chui-ch dismiss him ; there is a tripartite covenant : God is one party, the
member another, the church the third. Now, as I have God's leave to
come in, so I must have his leave to go out.
Use 7. To such as desire fellowship with the church, to exhort them, first
to enter into covenant with the Lord, and then to make a covenant with the
congregation. If any man offer himself to the church, and the church
defer his entertainment, his very looking towards God's temple is an ordi-
nance, and God will accordingly bless him : the desire of an ordinance
before God is accepted as well as the enjoyment. Every stone was hewn
before they came to be laid in Solomon's temple. The chiefest work, the
work of regeneration, should be wrought before he enters into the church ;
the conversion of men is not proper to the members of the church, but to
children.
Use 8. Comfort to us that are knit together in holy covenant, therefore
stand fast in his liberty, Gal. v. 1. It is an unspeakable mercy, and for
ever to be acknowledged to God's praise ; therefore, though they do aban-
don us, we should have a care of them that are entered into covenant
with us.
IV. Now the end of this uniting together in covenant is to worship the
Lord, and to edify one another in all his holy ordinances, 1 Cor. v. 4 ; ' When
you are met together in the name of the Lord,' 1 Cor. xiv. 26, all must be
done to edification. This is the end of all church meetings ; but of this
more hereafter.
Obj. But then, where doth contribution take place ? It is neither the wor-
ship of God, nor edification.
A)is. It is both God's worship, and an act of edification ; it is not only
a Christian duty, but it tends to edify. Philip, iv. 18, the succour of our
brethren is an acceptable sacrifice to God, and that was edification to Paul,
for ' by this,' saith he, ' I am full, and abound,' and so he was quickened to
his work ; Heb. xiii. 16, ' With such sacrifices God is well pleased,' and
hereby the bowels of the saints are refreshed, which is one part of edifica-
tion ; Philem. 7, ' And,' saith he, * we have great joy and consolation,'
which is also edification ; therefore it is not only a carnal affection that is
helped by contribution, but spiritual edification.
Beas. Herein the church differs from other assemblies, that may be godly
men, and may meet in one place and be in covenant ; for so may a common-
wealth, but a chm-ch always meets for spiritual works.
Use 1. To teach us to do all our outward works in a spiritual manner, to
give to our brethren to refresh their bowels, to increase their joy, to quicken
them in the work of the Lord.
Use 2. Learn what is the end of all our meeting and all our confederacy ;
all is to worship the Lord, and to edify one another in God's holy ways.
Some think the assembly of God's people to be factious, but, saith Tertullian,
Congressus pionon non f actio dicendus est, sed curia; let there therefore nothing
be done in the church but that which tendeth to the honour of God and the
edification of the church.
494 CHURCH ORDER EXPLAINED
Use 3. Comfort to us, that God affords us such liberties as these be,
wherein we may meet to worship, and edify one another in God's ways.
It is an honourable assembly wherein Christ is the head, and every member,
if he be not an hypocrite, is a younger brother or sister to the Lord Jesus
Christ ; and they meet not for the good of the commonwealth directly, though
that be honourable, yet it is nothing to the salvation of souls, and the edify-
ing of one another in God's fear. How, therefore, should all matters be car-
ried ? There should nothing appear but the presence of Christ, the love of
Christ, the power of his grace ; and then they are the most honourable meet-
ings in the world.
Use 4. This is also comfort to us, that Christ will be our provision, pro-
tection ; he is our head, and he will care for us. If we meet together and
worship God, and edify one another, will he let us want and starve ? Do
you think Christ is so ill an husband ? Would you leave your wives
naked, and without provision, if you had it for them ? Now Christ
hath it for us, and he will not leave us without supply. Philip, iv, 19,
when they had supplied him, then saith he,'* ' God shall supply all your
wants.' And now this church of Philippi was one of the poorest churches
of all ; it was one of the churches of Macedonia that was in deep poverty,
2 Cor, viii, 2; yet Paul bears those record, that they only had communicated
unto him ; therefore, saith he, God shall do you good. Walk as becometh
the spouse of Christ, and he will care for us ; God will not be wanting to
pour out blessings upon us, those that enter into covenant with him, and
walk according to the power of it. Now you see what a church is.
Quest. What sort of members hath God set in his church ?
Ans. Some of them are ministers and officers of the chui-ch, others of
them are called commonly by the general name of the members, brethren,
and saints ; so that here are two sorts of members and two sorts of names :
the name of the first, ministers and officers, the other, brethren and saints.
Ministers and officers are all one, brethren and saints are all one. To prove
all of them: first, for ministers, 1 Cor, iv. 1, 1 Tim, i, 12, Col, iv, 12,
2 Cor, iii. 6, Rom, xii. 7 ; by ministers he means elders, and deacons for
officers, 1 Tim. iii. 1, 10, Rom, si, 14, Acts i, 20, Ps, cix. 8, These two
titles express one part of the church's body. The brethren and saints are
distinguished from the ministers and officers ; Acts xv, 22, 23, those he
calls the church, ver. 22, he calls them brethren, ver. 23. All the members
of the church are usually styled brethren, Rom. xvi. 23, Philip, i. 10. Those
Christians that had no public offices in the church he styleth saints. Col. i. 2,
Now, because God would have us give our children significant names, there-
fore it is likely for good reason the Holy Ghost gave these names to the
members of the church, some officers and ministers, others brethren and
saints. In their very names you may read the idea and platform of the
church government ; their very name should put them in mind of their
duties, that as readily as you know your names when you are called, so you
may hereby see the duties that God calls for in our several places.
1st, For ministers. This is expressed by two words in Scripture : the
first is vv'/jPiTc/.c, 1 Cor. iv, 1 ; let men esteem of us as under-rowers, the
ministers carry an-end the ship of the church. Now, what doth this hold
forth unto us ? It holds forth thus much, that ministers are called to be
rowers and under-rowers to Christ, This text will lead ministers by the
hand to see what God requires of them, that they should labour one way
and look another way, and yet both without hypocrisy. A rower, which way
soever he rows, he looks contrary: if he be for to row westward, he looks
eastward. And did you ever hear a minister preach damnation in his words.
IN A WAY OF CATECHISM. 495
and see him look as though he would carry all his hearers to hell ? It is
true, it may be he looks so, but now he rows a clean contrary way to that.
And you would think he did respect the way to everlasting happiness, that
he would advance you to them when he delivers you all delicacies and com-
fort ; you would think his intent were to advance you to the highest hea-
vens, and so it is ; but withal he labours a quite contrary thing, his course
is quite contrary to that he looks. When he doth most exalt you, then he
doth but abase you ; it is to make you the more humble, James i. 9, 10.
You will sometimes think a minister speaks with much authority and stern-
ness, and yet doth he serve you in all meekness of Christian wisdom and
humility of mind. Paul saith he did, Acts xx. 18, 19, when yet he charged
them with all authority, and when he beseeches you to receive grace ; when
he moves and persuades to avoid any evil, then doth he come with all autho-
rity and rule over you with power. These are compact together, and that
without sin; and what is said of one minister is said of all, that is, pastors
and teachers. This is the first thing implied in the word minister, that is,
an under-rower.
2dly, The word minister signifies a servant. Joshua was Moses's minister,
his servant that waited on him ; so are all the apostles, elders, and deacons.
The w^ord deacon signifies a minister.
First, They are ministers to Christ, Rom. xv. 16. Now, they are his ser-
vants, 1, because they deliver nothing, nor speak nothing to the church, but
the commands of Christ ; they do nothing nor speak nothing but what they
have received from Christ, Mat. xxviii. 20. 2. They work for his end and
for his glory, and make it a transgression of their ministry to do otherwise,
Philip, ii. 21, 22, Gal. i. 10; then they are ministers to Christ indeed.
Secondly, They are ministers and servants of the church : Eom. xvi. 1,
' Phebe, a servant of the church ;' 1 Cor. iv. 5, ' We preach ourselves your
servants ;' and 1 Cor. iii. 22, 23. Wherein are the ministers the church's
servants ? Are they not called rulers ? Ans. Not in the same respect they
are ministers. The calling of a minister is a mystery ; they look one way
and work another, and yet dissemble neither way. But as they are ser-
vants, their service to the church stands in these things: 1. They come at
the church's call ; this is one part of their service to the church : Acts xvi.
9, 10, ' Come into Macedonia and help us,' whence they gathered the Lord
called them. Hence God hath ordained the church to call her own officers,
for the man came in the church's name : ' Come and help us.' It is a point
of service to come when a man is called. 2. They go upon the church's
errand; that is a point of service. Mat, viii. 9. It is our Saviour's rule,
'He that is sent is not greater than he that sends.' So then herein lies
their service, they come when the church calls them, and go when the church
sends them, John xiii. IG. Paul saith he was sent by the church, and the
church chose another to go with him. 3. They submit themselves to the
church's censure. Col. iv. 17 ; and if they will not hear an admonition, they
may deal further with them. Peter himself must not judge others, but the
church, and they must also judge him; this is the service of ministers to the
church.
Thirdly, The third thing wrapped up in the name of minister is, that he is
a dispenser, Gal. iii. 5, 11. Rom. xv. 16, ' He hath made us able ministers
of the gospel,' that is, dispensers of it by the Spirit.
1. Therefore it lieth strongly upon their consciences to know and practise
that which is a main part of their calling : never to think they have done this
ministry till they have dispensed the Spirit with the New Testament and the
gospel, 2 Cor. iii. 6. This makes the work too heavy for men and angels.
496 CHURCH ORDER EXPLAINED
that they must minister the Spirit ; not only the word, but the Spirit, saving
knowledge. This is the main weight of duty that lies upon a minister, not
to dispense ceremonies, shadows, rule, and pomp ; but if we run without the
Spirit, we run without our errand, and we have not fulfilled it except we leave
the Spirit behind us in the hearts of the people. ' I create the fruit of the
lips, peace, peace,' Isa. Jvii. 19, speaking of the ministers of the New Testa-
ment. This is therefore their principal work, to be dispensing a spirit of
peace, a spirit of power, a spirit of love, a spirit of meekness, and of zeal,
and of humihty, and whatsoever savours of hfe. Thus they are called to the
work, therefore they are called stewards, 1 Cor. iv. 1, 2.
2. This therefore teacheth us ministers to be faithful, for so must dispensers
be. They must tell all their errand ; and not only fill them with words, but
with the characters of the Spirit also, if it be possible. 2 Cor. ii. 16, ' Who
therefore is sufiicient for these things ? ' to be a savour of life ; therefore it
is not all the learning in the world that will make a man sufficient to dispense
a spirit of life and darkness. ' Who is sufficient ? ' Are not you, Paul ?
No, not Paul ; for for him to give the Holy Ghost is far from him, but he
keeps his heart in frame, and is faithful, that Christ may breathe in his
ministry.
3. This will carry some respect back again from the people to the minister,
in regard he is a dispenser to them, 1 Cor. ix. 11. Now, for this word officer,
it signifies two things, and that God styles them : 1. It signifies a charge,
Acts i. 20, Ps. cix. 8. The word in the original is properly charge, and so
it is translated Isa. Ix. 17. ' Necessity is laid upon me to preach,' 1 Cor.
ix. 16 ;' ' Thou shalt give Joshua a charge,' Num. xxvii. 23. It implies
authority, Ps. cix. 8. That word implies authority, therefore the officers are
called rulers, 1 Tim. v. 17. God hath left governors in his church, 1 Cor.
xii. 28 ; ' Obey them that have the rule over you,' Heb. xiii. 17. But if they
be servants, how then can they be rulers ? This is the mystery. The rulers
of the church are the church's servants, and the servants of the church are the
church's rulers. Ans. There are three things in which lies the authority of
their office : 1. In dispensing of the mysteries of the kingdom of God, Titus
ii. 15, either in exhortation, doctrine, or admonition, they do it with all au-
thority : 1 Tim. vi. 17, ' Charge them that are rich,' &c. 2. Though they
come not on to the ministry till they are called, yet being called they have
authority to call church assemblies and to dismiss them : Acts vi. 2, the
apostles called the church together ; Joel i. 13, 14, ' Call a solemn assembly.'
They moderate matters in the assembly, give leave to others to speak, Acts
xiii. 9 ; and they dismiss the assembly. Num. vi. 23-27. 3. These are the
mouth and hands of the church, by which they execute the power of the
censures ; and therefore he saith he hath somewhat against the angel of the
church of Ephesus, and against the angel of Pergamos and Thyatira, Rev.
ii. 4, 14, 20. By the angel is meant the presbytery, and they are taxed for
lack of good discipline in the church ; because the church having called rulers,
it lies upon them if there be any abuse in it, for they have the power to act
and moderate all in it, and the church only consents to and approves what
they do. If you ask, then, "What is the power of the church ? it is this :
1st, she calls her own officers and members ; and, 2dly, she sends forth both
for her service ; and if any fail, she may call them to account, and censure
their failings by the hand of her mouth, which are her ministers. The
ministers have another power, to call the church together, to charge her there
with all authority, to moderate things in it, and to dismiss it, and to execute
her censures, according to God's word. The deacons also being officers,
have the charge of the church's treasure, and they have power and authority
* IN A WAY OF CATEOHISM. 497
to dispense it according to the rule of Christ ; and except they go besides the
rule, the church breaks not in upon their office.
Now, for the word brethren, it argues three things : 1. That they are sub-
ject to officers, which is not service, but brotherhood : Rom. xiv. 23, ' Qaartus,
a brother.' 2. It is a rule over brethren ; it implies a continuance in brotherly
love, Heb. xiii. 1 ; break them, and you break the covenant. 3. A continu-
ance of brotherly communion and fellowship, that it be not broken; except
Christ break it, we may not brc:ik it, Zech. xi. 14.
That word saints implies two things : 1. A separation from all unclean and
common use ; as bread and wine, when they are set apart from common use,
are said to be holy, so men, when they are set apart from lusts and passions,
are then sanctified. 2. A devotion or dedication of them to God's service;
as a Sabbath is said to be sanctified when it is dedicated to God.
Then let the mentioning of these names keep this whole work of discipline
fresh in your hearts and thoughts ; as often as you are called officers, ministers,
brethren, and saints, then read your duty, and they will be a commentary
whereby to know what God requires of you, your duty to himself, to his
church, and one to another.
Quest. What sorts of ministers or officers hath God set in his church?
Am. Thej are some of them extraordinary, as apostles, prophets, and evan-
gelists; some ordinary, as bishops and deacous.
First, For the extraordinary officers, they are apostles, prophets, and evan-
gelists; and these God set in his church, Eph. iv. 11, 1 Cor. xi. 28. To
open these; and,
1. For apostles, they are first set in the church, 1 Cor. xi. 28. An apostle
signifies as much as an angel or messenger, four benefits or privileges accom-
panying their calling: 1. They were messengers sent immediately by Jesus
Christ; they had their calling by lively voice from him, John xx. 21. So
also saith Paul of himself, that he was not ' of man, nor by man, but by
Jesus Christ.' 2. They had an immediate charge ; Mat. xxviii. 19, ' Go,
teach all nations;' Mark xvi. 15, 16, 1 Cor. xi. 28. The care of all the
churches lay upon him ; yet where God blessed his ministry, there he stayed
longer, and departed from them that would not receive his doctrine. Gal. ii,
7, 8, Peter was more mighty among the Jews, and Paul among the Gentiles.
Though their power were illimited in regard of the charge, yet there was a
limitation in respect of effects and spiritual directions by them. Paul would
have gone to Bithynia, but the Spirit suflered him not. 3. They were guided
by infallible assistance of the Spirit; the Spirit led them into all truth. Gal,
i. 11, 12. Paul doubts not to say that he had laid the foundation, therefore
good reason it was that they should be kept from errors, 1 Cor. iii. 10,
Peter erred indeed, but his error was not in doctrine, but only in matters of
fact. 4. They were endued with the power of working miracles, to confirm
their doctrine, Mark xvi. 20 ; these things made their places extraordinary.
Other ministers of the church have not the same call, the same charge, the
same assistance, nor the like power. When Judas the apostle hanged him-
self, they had a church meeting to elect another apostle into his office. Acts
i. 15, IG; but when Herod had slain James the apostle, chap. xii. 2, you
read not of any other meeting to constitute another. When they slept, their
calling slept with them, and were not to continue in succession; for no man
was substituted in the room of James as there was in the room of Judas, but
instead thereof the apostles constituted elders in every church. Acts xiv. 23.
As in the Old Testament there wore twelve patriarchs, and of Joseph that
was cut off from his brethren there came two tribes, and so they were thirteen
VOL. XI. I i
498
CHURCH ORDER EXPLAINED
in all, so when Judas fell from bis office, God ordained another in his room.
And, lastl}', was Paul, as one born out of due time, sent by Christ himself,
for to make up the number of the thirteen patriarchs of the New Testament.
This was the work of the apostles, even to plant churches ; the church could
not call them, for they were to bring in the Gentiles, which were no churches.
2. A second sort of officers is prophets, Eph. iv. 11, 1 Cor. xii. 28 ; this
is the second office. There were three sorts of prophets in the New Testa-
ment : 1. Those that were endued with an extraordinary gift of foretelling
things to come, needful to prevent the churches' dangers, and give direction
for the churches' safety ; such an one was Agabus, Acts xi. 28, 29. If that
danger had not been foretold, the churches would not have been ready for
to send relief to the saints in Judea, and so many poor saints might have
perished; but by that prophecy it was prevented, Acts xxi. 9-11. Agabus
prophesied what should betide Paul at Jerusalem ; this was of excellent use
in those times, that so the churches might by their prayers prevent such
like calamities ; or else if Paul could not prevent bonds or death, then be
might be prepared for such desperate discouragements, as he saith himself,
I am ready to die. These gifts ordinarily now are ceased ; all is written in
the Scriptures, whereof we stand in need for help and direction. 2. Prophets
are taken for the preaching elders of the church, so it is taken, Eom. xii.
6, 7. The ordinary preachers of the gospel are pastors and teachers, and
they are called prophets. 3. Sometimes prophets are taken to mean those
who have the gift of teaching and prophecy, which may be found in any
member of the church ; and this is not an office, 1 Cor. xiv. 31 ; these are
not ceased in the church, but still continue in the same.
3. For the evangelists, Eph. iv. 11, who they were, is much sought after ;
but they were such as had not their call immediately from Christ, yet they
had an immediate call from the apostles, who were extraordinary men, and
had extraordinary gifts. The}' had their calling from the apostles, as the
apostles had theirs from Christ : 2 Tim. iv. 6, * Do the work of an evange-
list ;' and it is said of him that Paul would have him go forth with him,
Acts xvi. 13. Another evangelist was Mark, whom Paul would not accept
of to go with him. Acts xv. 37, 38 ; and these were called to perfect the
work of the apostles, that which the apostles had begun. When they had
begun to plant churches, they left the finishing and perfecting of them to the
evangelists. These were extraordinary in their call : 1. That they were im-
mediately called by the apostles, though the church sometimes joined with
them, as in ordaining Timothy, 1 Tim. iv. 14. 2. They were not limited to
any one charge, but had many, and executed authority in divers places ; and
herein they diflered from pastors and teachers, for the pastors are to look to
the flock, over which the Holy Ghost hath made them overseers ; but evan-
gelists stayed no longer in a place than they were entreated, which pastors
needed not to be. 1 Tim. i. 3, He would not have besought Timothy to
have tarried, if he might not have gone away when he pleased. Tit. i. 5, He
left him for to ordain elders in every city, therefore thej were not limited to
one charge, or bound to stay in any one place, 2 Tim. iv. 11, 12. Thus he
leaves some in one place, and some in another, and disposeth of them ; for
they were to perfect the work of the apostles, and not limited to any charge.
8. Some of the evangelists wrote the Gospel, as Mark and Luke, but this was
peculiar to some of them ; the rest of the evangelists that wrote the Gospel
were apostles also. But since the apostles and evangelists went to heaven,
you never heard the Holy Ghost took care to substitute any evangelists in
their room ; as they died, so their places died with them. Further, you
read that Philip, one of the deacons, Acts vi. 6, was an evangelist. Acts xxi.
IN A WAY OF CATECHISM. 499
8 ; and then the Holy Ghost sets him apart too, for he went down to Sama-
ria, and preached there, and the people gave heed unto his ministry. Acts
viii. 5, 6 ; also he baptized the eunuch, which, as a deacon, he would not
have done, but as an evangelist called to preach the gospel. Some, there-
fore, of the evangelists were immediately called by the Holy Ghost, some
immediately by the apostles, some by the apostles with the church, 1 Tim.
iv. 14. This office is ceased, as the callings of the apostles and prophets
are. God hath of latter days given to some extraordinary gifts for the
settling of churches, as Luther, Calvin, &c., having great wisdom and know-
ledge ; but they did it not so much by virtue of office as by gifts. These
are the extraordinary, apostles, prophets, evangelists.
Two sorts of officers in the church are ordinary, and they are bishops and
deacons, Philip, i. 1. That these are ordinary, and that these are all, may
appear by the direction of the apostle to Timothy, how to carry himself in
the church of God in constituting of officers. He nameth these two, 1 Tim.
iii. 1, 8, bishops and deacons. Whom doth he mean by the bishops ? You
may see, Acts xx. 17, with 28, ' the flock over which God hath made you
e'ziSKO'Tovc, overseers'; those he calleth elders, ver. 17, he calleth bishops,
ver. 28, Tit. i. 5,1; and the same he calleth elders, ver, 5, are called
bishops, ver. 7. For deacons, see Acts vi. 2-4, the deacons for the church
at Jerusalem ; and Paul giveth directions to Timothy about them, and it is
a perpetual charge to the church. Compare 1 Tim. iii, 14, 15, with 1 Tim.
vi. 13, 14. Bishops and deacons must be kept to the coming of Christ in
the church ; not so apostles, prophets, evangelists.
Quest. What vumner of persons hath God appointed to be called to the office
of bishops, or (\vliicli is all one) elders in the cJiurch ?
Ans. A bishop or elder in the church must be in himself blameless for
holiness and righteousness, and for freedom from passions and lust, also a
vigilant man, and of good behaviour. Moreover, in his family, a man of
government, and good hospitality ; in his name, of good report, yea, even of
those that are without ; and in profession he may not be a young plant, but
holding fast the word of truth, apt to teach it, and able to maintain it, 1 Tim.
iii. 2-7, 11 ; Titus i. 6-9. To open all these particulars from those texts.
An elder is all one with a bishop, and a bishop with an elder : Titus i. 5, 7,
* I left thee to ordain elders, if any be blameless. For a bishop must,' &c.,
Acts XX. 17, 28. Therefore a bishop, in the first place, must be blameless,
1 Tim. iii. 2 ; Titus i. 6 ; for what is it to be blameless ? He must be holy,
and, Titus i. 8, he must be known to be holy in his service of God, just in
his dealings wdth men, and not justly taxed for any profaneness or unright-
eousness. He must give God his own, man his own, and not be blamed for
the least offence ; so also he must be blameless from passion and lust ; he
must not be self-willed, Titus i, 7 ; he must not be self-conceited, self-
pleasing, that pleaseth himself in his fancy, and will not be drawn from it ;
he must not be soon angi'y, he must not be a striker, he must not be a
brawler, 1 Tim, iii. 3. He must be free from readiness to be angry in his
speeches, nor must he be ready to strike, a thought and a word, a word and
a blow ; thus must he not be, but blameless from them. He may not lust
after wine, for that is a lust of intemperance ; nor greed}' of filthy lucre, for
that is a lust of covetousness, 1 Tim. iii. 3, Titus i. 7, 8 ; he must be a sober
man, and of temperate behaviour. All those vain, worthless things are
reckoned under these heads, 1 John ii. 6, 7, ' The lust of the flesh, the lust
of the ej'es, and the pride of life.' Now when he is forbidden to be self-
willed, to be angry, to be a brawler, then he is no proud person ; take away
self-W'ill, and down falleth pride; through pride men make contention, Prov.
500 CHURCH ORDER EXPLAINED
xiii. 10. He may not be blamed for covetousness, the lust of the eye, nor
the lust of the flesh, intemperance and incontinency. A bishop must also
be a vigilant man, and of good behaviour, 1 Tim. iii. 2; 'vigilant,' that is,
watchful; a double watchfulness is required of him, 1. In respect of his
own estate, that he may not put upon the church unnecessary burdens ; he
must be prudent, not unthrifty. 2. In a diligent observance of the state of
the flock committed to him, that he may be able to apply a fit word to them
in season. Also, he must be ' of good behaviour,' comely ; he must not be
slovenly nor rude, nor neglective to others ; such a man will bring his calling
into contempt, especially amongst carnal men. This would make his people
neglect his counsel, therefore he must not be rude whether it be through ill-
nature or ill-nurture. They should be comely-carriaged men, that they expose
not their callings to contempt through rudeness or slovenliness, but that they
may be fit for any company. God taketh no pleasure in compliments ; for
God would not have a man of a mimic behaviour, full of gesticulations and
cringes, for they are not fit for men of gravity, as elders must be ; they must
not be like players and courtiers, but of grave and comely behaviour: this he
must be in himself. Now in his family he must be, first, a man of good
government ; he must have his children and servants in good order ; they
must not be wild and unruly, nor pilferers, nor riotous, nor sturdy, nor
prodigal, Titus i. 7, but faithful, but frugal, but teachable, and ingenious.
He must be the husband of one wife ; he must not have two, as the Jews had,
nor have a second when he had put away the first for any other cause than
adultery; he must have but one, and her lawfully married. 1 Tim. ii. 5, if
a man cannot rule his own house, his own servants, his own children, how
shall he rule other men's servants and children that are members of the
church ? He must also be of good hospitality, 1 Tim. iii. 2, Titus i. 8; he
must be a ' lover of hospitality,' and given to it. The word in the original
signifies both, that a man lovetla he is given to ; he taketh it for his comfort
to have Christian friends in his house with him. It is his joy ; he doth not
harbour his brethren with grudging, 1 Peter iv. 9, he must do it freely,
frequently, according to the measure of his estate God hath given him, Heb.
xiii. 1,2. Now for his good name, he must be a man of good report, even
of those that are without, 1 Tim. iii. 7, that they that would slander him,
and religion by him, may not be able, lest he fall into reproach, which is a
dishonour to his name and to the church of God, and he falleth into the
snare of the devil. While he may seek to clear himself, he may fall into
passion, and brawling, and contention, or else may let a report lie upon him,
and not seek to vindicate his name, and so the devil will have him on either
side. He must have a good report even of those that are without, because
this will first cut off occasion of slander from pagans, and also give them the
better opportunity and greater encouragement to come into the church, and
for that end to confer with the elders about it, for otherwise it would be'a
stumbling-block unto them ; and if they should be well reported of by those
that are without, how much more by those that are within ! Finally, he
may not be a new plant, a novice, one that is new come on to grace, or
newly in the church, for such an one is but raw, and unsettled, and of no
great experience. He must be a grave Christian, and of some standing and
constancy. Titus i. 9, he must hold fast the faithful word of God, which a
vouucr plant cannot do ; he 'must be a constant Christian and professor,
that must hold fast the doctrine of truth and grace against his adversaries,
Satan and his instruments ; yea, he must be able to maintain that he saith,
and persuade others to it : apt to teach ; for though all elders teach not, yet
they must be apt for it, apt to admonish, apt to teach, as they have occa-
IN A WAY OF CATECHISM. 501
sion. They must be able to give good reason of what they hold, and able
to justify it against gainsayers. A good cause giveth a great strength to
him that believeth what he saith, and practiseth what he believeth ; such a man
will be able to give a reason and account of his faith and government, which
a gainsayer cannot resist. He must not be a young plant, for he is not a
holdfast ; the reason of this is given, 1 Tim. iii. 6, ' Lest, being lifted up
with pride, he fall into the condemnation of the devil.' This holds forth
thus much, that a young plant being called to the ministry, may be puffed
up with the pride of his place, and respect done unto him from others, and
60 fall into the condemnation of the devil, which was pride upon the excel-
lency of his ministry ; that was the devil's fall, and the sin whereby he fell
out of heaven and became a devil. God made him an angel of light; and
when God had made his angels ministering spirits about his throne, they
were proud of it, and thought it reflected some glory, not upon God, but upon
themselves ; and therefore God cast them out, and they are reserved in
chains of darkness unto the judgment of the great day. The devil was not
capable of the lust of the flesh, nor the ' lust of the eye,' therefore his sin
was pride, or the fruits of it. Some have thought he offered to set his
throne equal with his Maker, Isa. xiv. 12-14 ; but it is not spoken of him,
,but of the king of Babylon ; and the text saith, 1 Tim. iii. 6, his pride was
in his ministry ; for pride may shew itself, as in envy of superiors, so in con-
tempt of inferiors, or self-sufficiency and fulness in a man's self; for their
envying of God we read not any footsteps of it in Scripture, but that they
prided themselves in their ministry. Because they saw Adam and Eve not
60 glorious creatures as themselves, but that they were more remote from
God, therefore they prided themselves in their ministry above Adam, and
were full of themselves, and therefore would not serve and attend upon
Adam; and this might be their ruin. Therefore, a man might not be a
novice, lest he fall into the sin of the devil, who prided himself in his minis-
try about the throne, and despised Adam, to pride himself in his ministry.
Use 1. This serves to teach the church of God, when you come to choose
your church-officers, whom they are to choose into the office of a bishop or
elder, even men thus qualified, of such government in their families, of such
a growth as hath been described ; for if you walk besides the rule, you walk
besides peace.
Use 2. It teacheth officers their duty, and what God calleth them to, even
to be blameless, &c. ; and this is your copy, this is that you are so to express,
that you may not fail in any.
Uae 3. To teach us what cause of due thankfulness to God we have, when
God giveth us such as are in any measure conformable to this rule laid down
unto us.
Use 4. To teach the children and servants of church elders to take heed
of riot, of anger, of impatience, disobedience, for thereby you disable them
from ruling the church. He that cannot keep in order his own family, how,
then, shall he rule the church of God ?
Use 5. To teach those whom God calleth to any public office, either in
the church or commonwealth, to look to have their hearts not puffed up
with their places ; but be you humble in the ministry God calleth you to,
not to be exalted above your brethren. A man is not to be self-full, but
careful to receive supply from Christ, and so to go in and out amongst your
people, that you may be exemplary patterns to them of blamelessness, of
freedom from passions and lust, of good behaviour, of good government, that
60 God's work may prosper in your hands, and you may give God a com-
fortable account at the day of your appearance.
502 CHURCH ORDER EXPLAINED
Quest. What sort of bishops hath God set in his chinch ?
Am. Two ; some pastors and teachers, some ruling elders, under two
lieads ; some labour in word and doctrine, and of those some are pastors,
some teachers, others rule only, and labour not in word and doctrine.
Quest. What is the work and office of the pastors and teachers /
Ans. The work of the pastors is to attend to exhortation, and therein to
dispense a word of wisdom ; but the teacher's office is to attend unto doc-
trine, and therein to dispense a word of knowledge : Eph. iv. 11, ' God hath
given some pastors, some teachers.' Now there be two places which give
clear light to the difi'erence of their work and office. The first place is Rom.
xii. 7, 8 : there is a teacher, which is to attend unto teaching ; and an ex-
horter, which is to wait upon exhortation. If the teacher be to attend unto
teaching, and there is besides an exhorter, then that is left for the pastor's
office and work to exhort ; for there are no other officers in the church now
that labour in the word and doctrine but pastors and teachers. The apostle
maketh them distinct officers, and they have their several works to attend
unto ; the teacher is not to attend unto exhortation, nor the pastor unto doc-
trine. The second place is 1 Cor. xii. 8: the apostle, speaking of the several
gifts that God hath given to the members of the church, ' To one,' saith he,
' is given by the Spirit, the word of wisdom, to another the word of know-
ledge, by the same Spirit ;' and these he maketh to be given to distinct and
different persons. As the gifts are different, so the persons are different.
Now to which is the word of knowledge given ?, It is the proper object
of the teacher. So he is to teach knowledge to the people, and then the
pastor is with wisdom to dispense a word of exhortation. Consider what are
the objects of knowledge and wisdom ; the object of knowledge is truth, and
the difi'erence between truth and falsehood, and contains in it all things that
are to be known and believed by Christian men, though they are not to be
practised, as the knowledge of God, the state of innocency, man's fall, of
the state of glory, yea, of man's sins, which are not to be practised. The
object of wisdom is godliness, for wisdom ever directeth to a good end, and
the means to attain it. Matters of wisdom must not only be known, but we
must be stirred up and exhorted to the same ; so that, when he saith, ' To
one is given a word of wisdom ;' that is, to discern what is best for the
people of God to do, and to stir them up accordingly to it by wise motives,
and inducements, and helps, as may make a Christian wise unto salvation ;
and for the matters of truth, and faith, and knowledge, they belong to the
teacher to dispense unto God's children and people; but there are four things
which are both for knowledge and practice, as what is the nature of repent-
ance and faith, matters to be known and practised also ; and so the nature
of obedience, what is a virtue and what a vice ; and where both these con-
cur together, there both is the teacher to deal in teaching, and the pastor to
take them up in application. Now the reason w^hy God is pleased thus to
dispense himself is, first, taken from the necessity of supplying the defects of
God's people. 1, Ignorance and error lieth upon them ; so God complains,
' My people perish for want of knowledge.' Now the teacher is to look that
they be taught the knowledge of the Lord. 2. Folly and slowness of heart.
Folly to see what is best to be done ; and when we know it, we are slow to
put it into practice, Luke xxiv. 25. Now here comes in the pastor's work :
he teacheth them what is best to be done, and stirs them up to it ; he
cometh to heal their folly and slowness of heart, and that he doth by a wise
and quick exhortation. Secondly, from the defect of officers themselves ; for
a man may be abundant and rich in knowledge, and yet cold in exhorting ;
and a man may be quick and lively in exhortation, and yet slow in know-
IN A WAY OF CATECHISM.
503
ledge ; and there is a reason in nature for it, for tliey require a several tem-
per of body : a man of knowledge must be of a cold temper, and an exliorter
of an hot spirit ; and therefore God, for the good of his church, hath provided
both. There may be little light where there is much heat, and much light
where there is little heat. So God's servants are some of them more full of
light, and some of heat, and the church hath need of both. And thus the
teacher may have need of the pastor, and the pastor of the teacher, and so
like two hands they walk and help one another : 1 Tim. iv. 13, ' Give
attendance to exhortation, and to doctrine ;' he chargeth them with both, all
extraordinary ofhcers of the church, as apostles, prophets, and evangelists,
and a Timothy, that were to give attendance to both ; but he never saith so
to any ordinary officer. An evangelist is as much worth as both pastor and
teacher ; and therefore they that have spirits for both come nigh an extra-
ordinary officer, an evangelist ; as God raised up some in the reformation
of his church and people. But the apostle saith, Rom. xii. 7, ' Let the
teacher wait on teaching,' &c., but the word wait is not in the original.
Quest. What is this the apostle would have them do, when he would have
them attend and wait ?
Ans. He would have this to be all their work : there they set up, there
rest, they are to dwell upon them, that if you would have them, there you
must have them; that though they may have to deal in sundry occasions, yet
all the work of a teacher is about teaching, and of a pastor about exhorta-
tion. Now this word applying or attendimi implies four things :
1. They must attend to the raising of their doctrine and exhortation, and
that will require their attendance to reading. For a man to raise a doctrine
and not understand his text, he buildeth without a foundation ; therefore he
must read the Scripture and learn the sense of it, and must withal attend to
the state of the people which he is to teach and exhort. Prov. xxvii. 23, he
would have them know the state of their flocks : how much more should a
pastor and teacher the state of their people? Ezek. iii. 17-19, therefore it is
necessary for them to watch over them, Heb. xiii. 17, that they may apply
a word to them according to their estates. This is the first thing : if a man
either mistake the state of his text or of his flock, he will speak very imper-
tinently to them ; they must not come ofl' with a sudden doctrine or exhor-
tation, for that which is seasonable at one time may be unseasonable at
another.
2. They must attend unto applying of their doctrine for refutation of errors,
for reproof of any corruption of manners, the teacher to the one of them, the
pastor to the other, for there is a ditference between these two, for, saith the
apostle, 2 Tim. iii. IG, the word is ' profitable for reproof, for correction,'
iXsyyog, that is, reproof of errors; iirayooQMSig, it is ' reformation' of manners,
and so they urge both. The teacher presseth his doctrine from manifold
scriptures and reasons from Scripture, and the pastor presseth his exhorta-
tion from sundry matters, and dispenseth sundry means, by which the duties
he persuade th them to may be performed, as also it is the duty of both of
them (in special manner of the pastor) to comfort when either doctrine is
believed or duty performed.
3. They must attend to the ratifying and sealing of the doctrine they
teach, partly by dispensing the seals of the covenant, in which are wrapped
np the counsel of God. Mat. xxviii. 19, they must baptize and teach, and
therefore they that attend unto doctrine must attend unto the sacraments, to
seal unto the people the doctrine they teach, partly by dispensation of the
church censures together with the church ; whatsoever is an act of rule, they
must have a hand in it, though others join with them: 1 Tim. i. 20, 'Whom
504 CHURCH ORDER EXPLAINED
I have delivered unto Satan ;' he had a principal stroke in it, to make the
church to do it, and he did it ' that they might learn not to blaspheme,' and
so he ratified his doctrine, and so for the incestuous Corinthian doth mind
about him, and send to the church to excommunicate him when they were
met together with his spirit, and as though ho was present with them, 1 Cor.
V. 3, 4, Both pastors and teachers have a power to join in the church cen-
sures.
4. They must attend to the perfecting of the work they have in hand ; for
■what is their exhortation, and doctrine, and sacraments, and censures, unless
God's blessing be upon them? Therefore they must attend unto that which
will perfect their work, and that is prayer ; Acts vi. 4, they must attend to
the ministry of the word and to prayer, that is their main work ; Philip, i. 3,
he never prayed but he prayed for that church, Col. i. 3, 1 Thes, i. 2, 3,
1 Sam. xii. 23. Amongst these prayers you must put in your blessings,
Num. vi. 23-25 ; this perfects the work, for prayer opens the treasures of
heaven for a blessing. They also perfect their work by their exemplary con-
versation, 1 Tim. iv. 12. Attendance to their own rule perfects their work
they have in hand ; nay, moreover, pastors and teachers must be willing to
lay down their lives for the confirmation of the doctrine and exhortations
they have given to their people ; Philip, ii. 17, if God call, they must be
willing to seal it with blood. This perfects their work.
Use 1. It is an use of refutation of a double error. Some think that the
offices of pastor and teacher are all one ; others think that the pastors and
teachers may be distinct offices, yet not both of them needful in every con-
gregation. Both of these are errors from that formerly delivered ; for if God
hath given some pastors and some teachers, and hath commanded the teacher
to attend unto teaching, and the exhorter unto exhortation, then they are
different offices committed to several persons ; they must attend to their
several works, the pastor to exhortation, the teacher to doctrine. I may
have a gift for sundry matters, but I am not bound to attend to any but that
which is the principal work of my calling. Some man hath a gift of pro-
phecy : is he therefore bound to attend to that only ? But when a man is
bound to attend to his teaching, then that is a thing that will take up his
whole work, and is his peculiar office ; and so for the exhorter. But what
need both these in every congregation? Doth not the apostle say God hath
set them in his church? He means every particular church. It is a maimed
body that wanteth an eye or some other member ; so is a church unless it
hath all the officers ; it may be a church, but not a complete church. Hath
not every church need of light and heat, and need to be taught and exhorted?
The pastor and teacher hath need both to be in the chureh.
Une 2. To teach the officers of the church, both pastors and teachers, what
is required of them in their several places, to teach, and exhort, and comfort
the people of God.
Use 3. To teach the people of God, 1, not to expect the like measure of
gifts from all your officers. If God hath given difi'erent giits, you should
not then look that a pastor should be so ready and strong in doctrine, nor
from teachers to be quick in exhortations. 2. To teach us to be sensible of
our own defects. To what purpose should God give us difi'erent officers if we
stood not in need of them ; what need teachers if we were not dark in our
understandings ? If we were not slow to believe, what need we exhorters to
quicken, to exhort, and comfort those that do well ? Therefore, when you
see your officers, you may consider your own defects in them. 8. To con-
sider the marvellous bounty of God to us, that hath sent officers according
to all our necessities. 4. To teach you what use to make of your pastors
IN A WAY OP CATECHISM. 505
and teachers, whom you are to choose to those places and offices. Repair to
them for the word of truth and goodness according to God, that they may
direct and exhort you in the ways of his grace.
Quest. What is (he office and work of the riding elders?
Ans. Seeing the kingdom of God is not of this world, but heavenly and
spiritual, and the government of his kingdom is not lordly, but stewardly and
ministerial, and to labour in the ministry of exhortation and doctrine is the
proper work of the pastors and teachers, it remaineth therefore to be the
office and work of the ruling elders to assist the pastors and teachers in dili-
gent attendance to all other aids of rule besides exhortation and doctrine, as
becometh good stewards of the household of God; as, 1, to open and shut
the doors of God's house by admission of members, by ordination of officers,
by excommunication of notorious and obstinate offenders ; 1, to see none
live in the church inordinately without a calling, or idle in their calling ;
3, to prevent and heal oflences, whether in life or doctrine, that might cor-
rupt their own chui'ch, or other churches also, if their counsel be required ;
4, to prepare matters for the church's consideration, and to moderate the
carriage of all matters in the church assemblies, as to propound matters ia
the chuich, and to order the seasons of speech and silence in the church ;
5, finally, to feed the flock of God by a word of admonition, and, as they
shall be called, to visit and pray for their sick brethren.
The ground of all this is laid down in Rom. xii. 8, where the apostle,
besides him that exhorteth and teacheth, maketh mention of another officer
that ruleth with diligence; and he is distinct from the pastors and teachers,
and that is the sum of his work, to rule with diligence. Now, because this
is a general word, to rule, and here it is not limited ; and to bring in an
illimited rule in the church might overthrow the estate of the church ; it is
therefore requisite to inquire what manner of rule this is. For opening of
which, you hear, in answer to the question, that the kingdom of Christ is
not of this world, but heavenly and spiritual : from whence it will follow,
that the rule commended to a ruling elder is not a worldly rule, not with
state and pomp, nor a rule that doth inflict bodily punishment. This is the
rule of worldly kingdoms. Now, as Christ's kingdom is not of this world,
so is neither the rule of his kingdom. We say it is spiritual ; is it then in
such things as these men may dispense at their pleasure ? Not so, for as
his kingdom is spiritual, so is his government of his kingdom not lordly,
but stewardly, Luke xii. 42. It is a stewardly office ; and there the officers in
the church are not said to carry the sword, as magistrates, Rom. xiii. 4 :
* But to thee will I give the keys of the kingdom,' Mat. xvi. 19. The power
of the sword is princely and lordly, but the power of the keys is only
stewardly and ministerial ; for so it was said, the keys of the house of David
were committed to. Eliakim, Isa. xxii. 22, and he was 'over the house,' ver.
16 ; which phrase of being ' over the house,' is translated properly, Gen.
xliii. 19, ' steward of the house.' So we see ground laid for clearing of the
office of the ruling elder ; it is neither after a worldly manner, neither doth
he rule with any illimited power, but he is to rule as becometh a steward in
the house ; not by the sword, nor by his own light and direction, but by the
direction given him by the master of the house, Mat. xxviii. 19, 20; they
are to teach whatsoever Christ hath commanded them. Well, then, what
kind of government is this '? It is not worldly,"'-' but ministerial, dispensing
the will of Christ. Is it then to attend upon the ministry of the word ? We
hear that to labour in that work is commended to the pastors and teachers,
Titus i. 5, 17 ; therefore it doth remain, that it belongeth unto the office of
* Qu. 'lordly'?— Ed.
506
CHURCH ORDER EXPLAINED
this ruling elder to assist the pastor and teacher in all other acts besides.
Now the ruler's office being ministerial, look what things there be that Christ
hath not made proper to the pastor and teacher, they are communicable to
those ruling elders. It is with the ruling elders now as it was with the
Levites, Num. viii. 19, they are given to the priests to assist them, but
some things were reserved to the priests, and some things were communi-
cated to the Levites ; they had indeed the care of the doors of the taber-
nacle, but for offering sacrifice it was not communicated to them, but
reserved to the priests only : so attendance on teaching and exhorting is the
proper work of the pastor and teacher, but other acts of rule are as well
communicated to ruhng elders.
1. The first act of rule is, to open and shut the doors of Grod's house ;
and of them to whom the power of the keys is committed, it is generally
inferred that they have power to open and shut, Mat. xvi. 19. All the
members of the church have some interest in the power of keys, but it is
specially delegated to them that are stewards by office, for admission of
members into the church, that is, to open the doors of God's house. We
read, that when Paul sent for the elders, he took his leave of them in a most
heavenly sermon as ever he preached : Acts xx. 28, 29, ' Take heed there-
fore to yourselves, and to all the flock God hath made you overseers of,' &c.
Wherein he doth lay a caveat to them to take heed to the doors of God's
house ; grievous wolves will be creeping in among you. This charge lies
upon all the elders. And whereas it is said, ' Let him rule with diligence,'
it implieth, 1, watchfulness, and then industry and fidehty to take heed ;
set not open the doors of the broad gates of the kingdom, to let in all that
comes ; as the Levites were to keep the doors of the tabernacle, that no
unclean thing should come in, no unclean Israelite, no, not the king himself,
if he were leprous and unclean. And this is the first part of the elders'
office, to open and shut the doors of God's house, not to admit hand over
head all comers whatsoever; but take heed no wolf, no hypocrite, no carnal
person may come in, till they be able to give an account of their faith, to
the edification of God's church. For this we shall read, that those are only
members fitted for the church which are able to manifest their faith. The
mauifestation of the Spirit is given him to speak withal ; so those that ten-
der themselves to have fellowship with the church, though you find that
they have grace, it is not sufficient presently to let them in, but tarry a while,
and they will have a gift to manifest the work of grace in their souls, though
such should not be too long delayed, lest they be too much damped and
discouraged. 2. They have power to ordain church officers, 1 Tim. iv. 14.
The hands of the presbytery are the hands of the company of elders, Acts
xiv. 23 ; those elders are called the eldership, or presbytery, so that by the
same hands that they admit some into church fellowship, others they admit
into office in the church. 3. They do shut the doors of God's house, by ex-
communication of notorious and obstinate offenders : Mat. xviii. 17, 18, * If
he neglect to hear the church, let him be to thee as an heathen,' &c. They are
to deliver them to Satan, as Paul determined concerning the incestuous Corin-
thian ; now the care of the whole church is, and ought to be, to see that they
do not suffer among them such venomous persons as would corrupt the
whole body, but in special-wise this care belongeth to the elders, some
singular accounts lie upon them. Christ Jesus, writing an epistle to the
churches of Asia, he doth in special reprove the angels of the churches, and
those doth he blame for tolerating such things as God hateth. Now, if they
be principally and properly reproved by Christ for suffering scandalous
offenders, Eev. ii. 14-10, it is therefore their care to see that the church
IN A WAY OF CATECHISM.
507
be not scandalised with notoriously corrupted members, it lies principally
upon them that are to be the guides and rulers in the congregation of the
saints.
2. The power of the keys reachelh further ; it doth belong to the stewards'
care to see that none in the churches do live inordinately without a calling,
or idle in their calling. It is the elder's office to see that no drone or un-
prolitable servant be in the church, which may live of other men's labours.
2 Thess. iii. 10, 11, there the apostle taxeth the Thessalonians for a double
vice : some walked without callings, others were idle in their callings. And
this belongeth to the elders to see to the amendment thereof ; it is an act
of rule.
3. A third act of the elders' office is, to prevent and heal all offences in
life or doctrine in their own or other churches. Rev. ii. 14, 15, 20. The
angels, the officers of the church, are to see that no Balaamite, no Nico-
laitane, no Jezebel, be in the church; but such they are to heal, either by
admonition, or else to cast them out of the church. 2 Thes. v. 13, 14. This
is the proper character of the elder's office : if warning may heal a vice, that
member ought not to be cut oti' ; but they are to be cut off if warning or
rebuke heal not. The elders are to seek to heal it; for if it be not removed
or reformed, it lies upon their heads : and I put it in that they are to help
other churches also, if their counsel be required. Churches may require the
help of other congregations to heal and remove the offence that pesters the
body, if they cannot do it themselves. When the church at Antioch was
troubled about the necessity of circumcision to salvation, and they could not
be satifcfied in it, they sent to to the church at Jerusalem apostles and
elders. The apostles are not implied as extraordinary officers, but they carry
all things in an ordinary course, and meet together with the church, to de-
bate the matter with the church assembly, and there was such disputing
amongst them ; if they had spoken by divine testimony, what needed their
disputation ? The word of one apostle might have quelled all contradic-
tion ; but they send to them as to a church, and it is a precedent for other
churches ; and therefore, in that the elders are named, it is their care to look
to such errors as arise in other churches if they be required, and it is also
their duty, according to the rule of Christ, to go to other churches and deliver
their minds. Acts xv. 22, there you may see that such ought to be the
care of the elders, and of one church over another, as that if any church
should send to them for their counsel, they are to do what they can for the
redressing of errors amongst them, and they may set in order such things,
and send chosen men from amongst themselves unto other congregations, as
to answer by word of mouth what hath been agreed upon. This belongeth
to the elder's office ; but in case other churches should be careless of in-
quiring after the counsel of other churches, it will be the part of one church
to admonish another, out of the liberty that one church hath in another,
and the necessity that lies upon all to neglect no good means to preserve
the household of God unspotted. But how cometh it to pass that all the
churches are called one church ? Mat. xviii. 18. Doth it not sh-ew thus
much, that all churches have a like power, and that all churches should have
a like care over one another's good ? So this was prophesied of old of the
churches of the New Testament : Cant. viii. 8, ' We have a little sister, and
she hath no breasts,' &c. What if a church hath no breasts ? And what if
she should use means, and not be able to procure breasts ? What if she
should be content to live without breasts, should other churches let such a
church alone ? The church doth complain, ' We have a little sister, and she
hath no breasts ; what shall we do for her ?' This is the mutual care that
508
CHUECH ORDER EXPLAINED
one church should have of another ; whatever defects they see a chnrch lie
under, they might labour to supply them. It was Cain's profane sph-it that
said, ' Am I my brother's keeper ?' and it savoureth of the rancour of Cain's
spirit to say, What hath one church to do with another ? Is it nothing if
one church want officers, breasts to give them suck ? If there be in you
spirits of sisters, if the blood of Christ run in your veins, you may not put
off the state of other churches, as impertinent to you. It is therefore the
care of elders, that are officers in the churches, for to be ready to help other
churches if they do require them ; and if they do not require them, yet by all
means what they can to help them, and reform what is amiss amongst them.
4. That part of the officers is to prepare matters for the church's con-
sideration, and to moderate matters in the church assembly. First, to pre-
pare matters for the church's consideration, Acts xxi. 18. They knew Paul
must come before the church, therefore they meet to prepare matters for it,
that he might not raise an oifensiveness in the chnrch. When they meet
together, the elders are to take care that things might be so carried that there
might be no disturbance ; they must so fit them that there may be little noise,
and that the church's answer may be without exaggeration, contention, and
disturbance ; that things may be ordered with the most care, with the least
oflfence to edification ; and they are to order the seasons of speech and silence
in the church. Acts xiii. 15, ' The rulers of the synagogue sent,' &c., so
that they open the mouths of men, and by the same power do also shut them
again. They who call for speech may call for silence ; he that shutteth, he
may also open ; he that openeth, he may also shut. They also propound
matters to the congregation. Acts vi. 3 ; and what the apostles did as
elders, the same may also elders do. It is the elder's office to feed the flock
of God with a word of admonition, for we heard before that all the elders
were to be apt to teach and able to convince an adversary. Now what word doth
remain for them ? Not a word of exhortation nor doctrine, for that belongs to
pastors and teachers; but the apostle expresseth it, 1 Thes. v. 12, ' Now we
beseech you, brethren,' &c., where he distinguishcth between them that
labour and them that rule : ' know them that labour among you,' that is,
your pastors and teachers ; and ' know them that are over you,' that is, your
ruling elders. And what work do they ? They rule principally by a word
of admonition ; that is, such a word that warneth every man in his place to
take up some calling, and to be diligent in his calling, to be able to teach this
or that to be lawful or unlawful. This is he both able and fit for to do, and
this he ought to do according unto God, Acts xx. 31. Paul propounds his
own example to them, how he ceased not to warn day nor night with tears ;
and this warning is a principal part of rule, and therefore when good Lot
did but sadly admonish those lewd persons, Gen. xviii. 19, they said, Shall
he judge and rule ? So that this is the work of the elders, to admonish the
church. Finally, when they are called for, they are to visit the sick brethren,
and to pray over them, James v. 14, 15 ; being called for, they ought to
speak some word of edification to the sick, and to pray over them, and God
hath promised to heal them both in soul and body : ' The prayer of faith shall
save the sick.' As for anointment with oil, it is not ceased, as is the gift of
miracles, but it is a marvellous strong promise that is given to the prayers
of the elders of the church, for the Lord did know that this ordinance would
be despised ; and to prevent it, the Lord doth marvellously encourage them to
the use of it by the promise of this very blessing, that ' the prayer of faith
shall save the sick ; and if he hath committed sins, they shall be forgiven
him ;' so that it will be a wholesome medicine both to soul and body. Not
that God doth promise that this shall ever be granted, for then men should
IN A WAY OF CATECHISM. 509
never die -when tliey send for the elders to pray over them ; bnt they shall
find it to be a usual blessing to the honour of the elder's office, that at their
prayer for the sick the Lord will raise up their estate and strength again,
though it seems desperate. Thus you see the whole duty of these ruling
elders, and how they are to assist the pastors and teachers in all other acts
of rule besides word and doctrine.
Use 1. From hence observe the great bounty of God unto pastors and
teachers, that God hath not left them alone in the church, as Martha com-
plains to Christ that Mary had left her alone to serve. The ministers of the
church have no such cause to complain, for as he gave the Levites to the
priests to help them in their service, so hath he given ruling elders to such
as labour in the word and doctrine, that they might have assistance from
them in ruling of the church of God.
Use 2. It may serve to answer a cavil that some have against this office,
who say that if God hath given these officers to the church, he would have
then set down the limits of their offices, and not have sent them forth with
illimited power ; to which it is answered, that iheir power is strongly limited,
as a stewardly or ministerial power and office. It is the power of the keys
which Christ hath expressed in his word, and it consisteth in these things
that have been spoken of God's house, to open and shut the doors of God's
house by admission of members, &c. (iit prim). This is such a rule as is
no small help to the spirits and hearts of those that labour in doctrine, and
no small help it is also to the whole church of God ; and when they are
wanting, many evils will grow, and those without possibility of redress and
amendment, much idleness, much confusion, many offences. Though other
ministers have been in the church, we may see how much in the want of
these officers the churches have been corrupted.
Use 3. This serveth for instruction to the elders, to shew them what
bounds God hath set them in their calling, as hath been said, that so they
may walk according to God in them.
Use 4. It doth enforce a duty lying upon all the members of the church,
to submit themselves to them in the Lord, as becometh saints. Members
ought to submit to their trial ; it is no arrogancy for them to deal with those
that are to be admitted into the church, to lay hands upon officers; and think
it not a hard matter that they should be thus careful of setting men into
their callings. It is no transgression of their bounds to prepare matters for
the church, to moderate the carriage of matters in the church assembly by
their wise direction, and it will be then the part and duty of the people to sub-
mit to their elders in these things. From this ground it will appear to be a
swerving from the rule for men to give way to their spirits and tongues to
speak in the congregetion, though their matters be good, before the door be
opened by him that hath the keys, otherwise it is out of order. They ought
not for to speak without the consent of the elder ; and if the elder see that
it tends to confusion and disturbance, he may as reasonably put an end to
it, as at first he opened a door for it.
Obj. But suppose that all the elders be in the same transgression, and
they will not hear any admonition ; if then, before I can declare it to the
church, I must crave leave of them to speak, they will not give it me, may
not I then declare my grievance to the church without them ?
Alls. If all the officers bo in an ofience, and if they will not hear thy
private admonitions, then tell the church of them. If Peter himself offend,
and Peter will not hear thee, tell the church of Peter. Christ alone and his
church is king and judge in such a case ; then doth their power return to
the church from whence they first received it ; but if the elders be not
510 CHURCH ORDER EXPLAINED
delinquent, nor possessed with any sinful prejudice, then must they moderate
the carriage of all matters in the church assembly, otherwise there would be
no end of speaking and confusion, if every man might open a floodgate of
speech when he would. And when we see further what lieth as a duty upon
sick persons, that they must not neglect to send for the elders of the church,
for we see how strong the promise is when they are sent for in faith, with
expectation of a blessing from an ordinance, and they pray over them in the
name of the Lortl. And lastly, as brethren ought to receive admonition from
the hand of any brother, so snrely they ought not to despise it from the hand
of an elder. 1 Thes. v. 12-14, there the apostle shews them how willingly
and surely they should submit to such, with due attention and reformation,
according to God.
Quest. What manner of wenliath God nppointedtohe called to the deacon's office?
Ans. Men of gravity and good report, not given to dissimulation nor to
wine, nor to covetousness; men full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom, holding
the mystery of faith in a pure conscience, keeping their household in good
rule, having such wives as may neither dishonour nor corrupt their calling ;
not slanderers, but grave, sober, and faithful in all things.
Explication. This full description of the state of the deacon's spirit is ex-
pressly laid down in two places of Scripture, 1 Tim. iii. 8-12 and Acts vi. 3.
First, they must be men of gravity. This word, translated rfrave, doth imply
three things : 1. It is opposed to lightness. A deacon must not be light in
his gestures, in his speech and apparel, but be grave. 2. It is opposed to
wantonness; they must be retired, and clean from all wanton daUiance.
8. Comeliness; the word signifies reverent and venerable. He must neither
be light in his own carriage, nor in the hearts of other men. The word
Cometh from a word that signifies to worship. He must not be light in his
own disposition, nor in other men's apprehensions. Him whom you would
slight is not venerable (ffs/xvoj), Avhich is required of a deacon. Secondlj', he
must be 'of honest report,' Acts vi. 3; men gravely borne witness unto, so
signifies the word [/xaPTv^oufi'svo-jg). They must carry a good report with
them wherever they are known. Thirdly, they must not be given to dis-
simulation, not double-tongued. In churches of great multitudes, where
many are to be maintained by their hands, he may promise something to
some which he may forget or not be able to perform. His word must be as
bis oath or vow ; if it be gone out of his mouth, it must stand inviolable.
He must not pretend more care for the poor than there is need, nor promise
that he is not able to perform. A man is double-tongued two ways: 1, when
his heart difters from his tongue; 2, when his tongue difiers from his tongue
at several times, when the first thing was right and true. He must not be
given to wine ; for so he may come to waste, not only his own estate, but the
stock of the church, and that is contrary to the spirit of a steward ; nor to
covetousness, for that will overwork his honest heart to divert the church's
stock from the church's service, and to employ it for his own ends. Therefore
this is carefully to be avoided, these are his moral virtues. Now, for his
spiritual endowments, he must be ' full of the Holy Ghost, and wisdom,' Acts
vi. 3. He must be full of the Holy Ghost, which implies, 1, that a man
must be empty of his own spirit, for else he cannot be full of the Spirit of
God. A vessel cannot be full of wine and water too; therefore he must be
empty of every lust, and of himself. 2. He must abound in all the gifts of
God's grace ; and not only be full of gifts, but of the Holy Ghost himself.
For gifts will grow rusty, dead, powerless, and unprofitable, and we shall
turn them to our own ends ; but he must be full of the Holy Ghost, not full
of faith, patience, &c., but of the Spirit of faith, and full of the Spirit of God,
IN A WAY OF CATECHISM. 511
to put life into all liis graces : 1 John iv. 4, ' Greater is he,' &c. It is not
his gifts, but his person, Rom. viii. 11. It is not gifts that raised Christ
from the dead, but the eternal Spirit. Now, then, the eternal Spirit of God
must rest in the heart of a deacon. A deacon may be put to sudden expres-
sions ; and if he be not full of the Holy Ghost, he will not well rule his own
gifts. The more pure any grace is, the sooner it is wrecked, unless it be
carefully handled and guided according to God. A man is then full of the
Holy Ghost when he doth not content himself with gifts, that he hath a gift
of prayer and of edification, and a spirit of diligence, but when he finds him-
self still empty for all this, but as he continually desires fresh supply from
the Holy Ghost. If in abundance of gifts I find myself empty, and I am
sensible of my own unprofitableness and inability to do any good, then am
I not only full of the gifts of God, but of the Holy Ghost, to carry them an-
end with strength. 3. And this implies such a strength of grace and spirit,
that it carries him above the world, above all lusts, above all temptations,
all credit and reputation, and whatsoever he meets withal, and he is carried
with fall sail steadily and strongly to God's heavenly kingdom; whatsoever
is put into his hand, he is carried an-end with speed and strength above all
difficulties. 4. A man is full of the Holy Ghost when he is ready to utter
spiritual things upon all occasions; for ' out of the abundance of the heart
the mouth speaketh.' When a man is full of the Holy Ghost, there is a law
of grace in his lips. And there is reason that a deacon should be thus full
of the Spirit, for many times the members may grow worldly with whom they
are to deal, who then should speak a spiritual word of quickening to them ;
and also they are to deal with the poor and with the sick, and therefore had
need to deal with their souls as well as with their bodies. Job xxxii. 18, Elihu,
when he was full of the Holy Ghost, could not hold his peace, but must speak.
5. A man full of the Holy Ghost will not respect persons. A deacon will be
apt to respect his kindred, or friends, or countrymen, if he be not full of the
Holy Ghost. The Levites did not know their own fathers when they had
sinned, and they were then full of the Holy Ghost. A man with his own
stock may lawfully have respect to persons, to his kindred, &c., and oucrht
so to do ; but if it come to the stock of the church, that being in the hand
of a man dedicated to God, now, his hands are the hands of God, and the
hands of the church, and therefore he distributes them according to God, as
if the Holy Ghost did it, not respecting persons.
And full oftvisdom. There was in the apostles' time more need of wisdom,
for they had the charge of all the members of the church. They had the
common stock of all, and therefore were to provide for all they had charge
of, and therefore had need to have the wisdom of the whole church, that they
might distribute an equal proportion to all. But when the church was not
so poor, but men might distribute to the ministers and poor, and yet not sell
their whole estates, yet then also was there need of wisdom to administer the
church's treasure ; they must see the burdens of men, and reheve them accord-
ingly. Nay, in this country, if the deacons have not a public providence,
the poor company of the church may much want ; for it is some men's sinful
modesty that they will perish almost rather than ask. Therefore they being
the church's stewards, must see that every one hath such a comfortable pro-
portion of estate that he may attend to the things of God and to the edifica-
tion of his own soul, and not be disquieted in his spirit. We must not serve
tables, saith the apostle; but it is the deacon's office. The Holy Ghost
speaketh more of the deacons than of the pastors and teachers, for they have
not so much need of this kind of wisdom as the deacon hath; therefore they
had need cast an eye to see what men's tables be, and so accordingly as
512 CHUKCH ORDER EXPLAINED
they may comfortably provide for them, that so they may bless God, and
attend to God's ordinances (keeping the mystery of faith in a pure con-
science). Must he ,be such now? will you say. The whole doctrine of
religion is a mystery to flesh and blood. His conscience being a pure and
precious vessel, the mystery of faith should be so kept that he may be as
exemplary in his place for this as for wisdom. And the reason is this, because
that in the persecution of the churches the deacons have been hunted after,
partly to know what was the church's treasure, that they might confiscate it,
and partly because they think them more excellent than other men, being
called to public office ; and therefore the deacons have been put to exquisite
torment, as Lawrence the deacon, &c. Now, if a man be called to answer,
he had need to be a man of knowledge and faith, and that in a pure conscience,
for so he will dash his enemies and honour his profession. 2. He must hold
the mystery of faith, that he may be able to speak a word of edification to his
poor brethren, as well as minister to their bodies. Now, for his family gifts ;
first, he must keep his house well in order. If his children be riotous, his
servants disorderly, it will weaken the deacon's fidelity ; and besides, public
persons must be exemplary both in public and private walking. For their
wives, they must be such as may neither corrupt nor dishonour their calling,
nor slanderers ; grave, sober, and faithful in all things. And not slcuiderers ;
the word is not devils, not unjustly accusing any body, nor unseasonably doing
of it. If one accuse another unjustly, or without due order, the deacon may
grow moi'e remiss in his office to such ; and so a woman may corrupt and dis-
honour his calling. She must speak well of her brethren and sisters. Grave;
they must not be light in themselves, nor in others' esteem, but reverend
and grave. Sober; the word is the same with vigilant, 1 Tim. iii. 2. The
deacon's wife therefore must be a good housewife, for else she may corrupt
his calling. She must also be sober and moderate in meats and drinks, and
humble and meek, not high above sobriety, above due proportion and mea-
sure. And failJifid in all tliinr/s; faithful to God, he trusts her ; faithful to
men, they dare trust her ; faithful to her husband, faithful in speech, in
carriage, not dealing unrighteously with anything committed to her hand,
but helping forward her husband in the place God hath set him.
Use 1. It may serve to teach the church of God what manner of men they
are to choose into this office ; and,
2. It teacheth deacons liow they are to behave themselves whom God
calleth to this office, and what their qualifications ought to be, and what they
are to grow up unto, that so they may faithfully discharge the trust that God
and his church have committed unto them.
Quest. What is tlie office of a deacon ?
Ans. To receive the offerings of the church which are brought unto them,
and laid down before them, and therewith to serve tables, distributing with
simplicity, not only to the ministers of the church, but to any other of the
brethren, as their needs shall require, Acts vi. 3, 4. The occasion of their
calling was this : the apostles being sent by Christ with fulness of power,
being pastors, teachers, elders, and deacons, finding themselves burdened
with the deacon's oflice, which was the lowest part of their spiritual work,
they disburdened themselves of it, and said it was not meet they should go
to serve tables ; therefore to serve tables they laid down to the deacons.
What the apostles did in that office they delegated to them. Acts vi. 34, 35.
It seemeth they sat higher than the people, and every one brought his
ofi"ering and laid it down at their feet, and they therefore received. They
went not to call upon the people for such benevolence, nor seek it where it
is not to be had, but the members freely offered it, and what they offered
IN A WAY OF CATECHISM. 513
they took. Such was the manner of the old temple : Luke xxi. 1-3, they
cast money into the treasury, where it was received by the officers for that
service. Neh. xiii.^12, 13, there they set down what officers they were the
gifts were brought and disposed to, the treasurer, &c., and they faithfully
distributed to their brethren. So David appointed men over the treasury, 1
Chron. xxvi. 20-26 ; and he gave Solomon the pattern of the treasury,
1 Chron. xxviii. 11. The people brought their offerings, and the Levites
received and distributed them, 2 Chron. xxxi. 11-14 ; they were not exacted
by the Levites, but brought and distributed as need required ; so in the New
Testament Christ first appointed his disciples the apostles for that office, who
received the contributions of the church, and therewith served tables, but
when necessity required, they laid down that office to others. To serve
tables implies to minister to the necessity of all their brethren, for then they
laid all upon the common stock, and they had nothing peculiar, because else
they could not provide for the congregation, though a part had been received,
as Peter told Ananias. This therefore was the care of the apostles, to see
that every man's table in the congregation was spread. Now, lest it might
be thought that the same course should be taken all ages in the church,
therefore it fell out otherwise whilst the apostles themselves lived, that in
the churches of the Gentiles which were rich, and men might keep a pro-
priety in their estate and yet maintain the church, they were commanded to
put it into a stock every Lord's day what they laid aside for the necessity of
the church, 1 Cor. xvi. 2, and out of that theydid prepare the Lord's table, the
table of the officers and of their poor brethren of their own church and other
churches, according to their necessity. Now the deacon in serving of tables
must distribute in simplicity : Rom. xii. 8, ' He that distributes,' &c., which
is the description of the deacon. There is this difference between distri-
bution and contribution : he that contributes gives his private stock and
ofi'ering into a common treasury, but to distribute is to turn a common stock
into pieces and parcels, as every one hath need. This must be done with
simplicity, which implies two things : (1.) It standeth in opposition to respect of
persons ; that a deacon should not respect any for country's sake, for kindred's
sake, but distribute to every one as he hath need ; (2.) 2 Cor. viii. 2, this
word simplicity is there translated liberality, and, 2 Cor. ix. 11, the same
word which is here translated simplicity is there translated hountifulness. A
deacon therefore must not distribute with respect of persons, and also with
a free and willing spirit, without any upbraiding of any brother or officer in
the church, but freely distributing according to the will of Christ and of his
church. The cheerfulness of the giver, and the readiness of his care in
giving, may express much simplicity. Now the deacon is not only to distri-
bute to the ministers, though he doth to them, 2 Cor. viii. 15 ; and so they
did in the New Testament ; for if all the church was supplied by the treasu-
rers, then much more the apostles and officers of the church.
Object. Gal. vi. 6, ' Let him that is taught in the word communicate to
him that teacheth him in all good things.'
Alls. The word is not distribute, but communicate, that is, put it into a
common treasury, 1 Tim. vi. 17, 18. There is difference between dis-
tributing and communicating : to communicate is to lay a parcel of the estate
into a common stock, ' be ready to communicate ;' but to distribute is
another thing, which they may have occasion to do here and there as they
see any have need of that which is put into the common stock ; and therefore
the apostle's meaning, Gal. vi. 6, is not to distribute, but to communicate
according to a man's estate and the church's occasions. 1 Tim. v. 17, there
VOL. XI. . K k
514 CHURCH OKDEE EXPLAINED
is a care to be had of the officers of the church ; that which is given must be
given as an honour and due, not grudgingly, but freely and readily. Those
that are officers must live off their labour. Besides, the officers are to dis-
tribute to every one according to his need and use, not only necessity, but
according to his expedient use. Acts iv. 35. This was never counted alma
in the church or mercy, but a matter of justice and equity, whether to their
own church or the members of other churches in their need, with consent of
the church, Rom. xv. 26, 27. The apostle giveth this contribution a name
far off from alms or charity, for he calleth it a service and grace of God to be
able to communicate to the necessities of the church, 2 Cor. ix. 12 and viii. 19.
Use 1. To teach you a true discerning of the corruptions that have been
brought into the office in time of popery, wherein it hath been imposed upon
them to teach and baptize, some to rule, yea, overrule the officers of the
church and the church itself, so that very few of them have a hand in serving
of tables, a burden which the apostles perceived they were not able to bear ;
that is beyond the institution of Christ, and therefore an invention of man's
brain, and will never do good to the church of God.
Object. Philip preached and baptized, Acts viii. 5, 12, 13, and if so, why
might he not also be a ruler ?
Ans. He was not only a deacon, but when the office was laid aside by
reason of the persecution, then God called him forth to be an evangelist,
Acts xxi. 8, and therefore he may not be a pattern for deacons in other
ages. It is a like abuse that in some churches they have instead of these col-
lections*' for the poor, who receive not the contributions, but gather them and
distrain for them, and that not for the ministers, but for the poor only. This
never doth good in the church ; but it falls out that all the collections made
by the church will not maintain the poor of the church, but they are forced
to beg abroad. God marvellously beareth witness to his own ordinance, that
either there shall be no poor, or if there be, God so blesseth his ordinance
that a little church hath well provided for all her poor, yea, sometimes to
the relief of neighbour congregations.
Use 2. To teach deacons to cast about how all the tables of the congre-
gation may be provided for, not only the Lord's table and the officer's table,,
but also the tables of the poor brethren, who, though they make not known
their necessity, yet the deacon's care should be to see that they be provided
for of things sufficient for this natural life, and therefore to provide that they
may have gardens and planting grounds, &c., by which they might live.
Use 3. It behoves all the members of the body, that ought to have a care
one of another, to see that there may never want provision in the deacon's
bands to provide for all the tables in the churches, and to see that there never
want bread in God's house ; and then God hath promised, Mai. iii. 9-11, that
he will open the windows of heaven and pour in a blessing. It is for brethren
of higher degree to see to the treasury of the churches. Gal. vi. 10, that so
no member of the church may want convenient supply ; and where there is
meat in God's house, there shall never want meat in any man's house. He
is a faithful God, and he hath said it : ' Prove me now, and see if I will
not open the windows of heaven,' &c.
Use 4. To provoke the deacons, when strangers come over from other
churches, to see that none of them want convenient harbour among our con-
gregations, especially when there is only care needful, no charges required.
Quest. But is it vot the deacon s office to shew mercy ivith cheerfulness ?
-' Ans. Yes, verily, to their brethren in misery ; but that part of their office
they chiefly perform by the hand of the widows chosen into the number, who
* Qu, ' collectors ' ?— Ed.
IN A WAY OF CATECHISM. 515
are therefore called the deacons or servants of the church. The deacon is
to shew mercy with cheerfulness, Rom. xii. 8. He must not stay till his
brethren be in extreme misery, but beforehand prevent them with some sea-
sonable relief, as may save them out of the hand of such extremity. A
small matter will strengthen a house when it is undershooted, but when it is
down, then a great matter will not do it. So it is with a poor brother's
estate ; therefore, in ordinary course, distribution in time should prevent it ;
but the members will be sick, and sometimes sick of long diseases, and poor
brethren will be sick as well as rich, and then there is room for shewing of
mercy ; but where there is no misery there is no need of mercy, but when
danger, long sickness, danger of death, extreme wants fall upon brethren,
then must the deacon shew mercy, and that with cheerfulness ; that is, not
grudgingly, nor of necessity. That word cheerfulness implies, that whereas
the brother standeth in need of the church's love in way of mercy, this cheer-
fulness distributes it readily, freely, joyfully, and not rejoicing in his misery,
but in that he hath to relieve him withal. This grace adorns a Christian
much. Micah vii. 18, God describes himself by it, that he delights in mercy,
when he hath occasion to shew mercy. That is the work he delights in.
Though the sins of his people be many, and his anger is provoked against
them for the same, yet he sheweth mercy, and that with delight in it.
Luke XV. 20, the father was moved with compassion, and ran to meet his
son, and kisses him. When the soul is very unfit to receive mercy, then
he runs to his son, and kisses him ; and that which God sheweth to his sons
in misery, he calleth on us to shew the like, that so we may be like him ;
and the reason is great the church offers in shewing mercy, that they should
do it with cheerfulness. 1. God's example requires it, as you see before.
2. The brotherly affection that should be between the members of the Lord
Jesus requires the same. How busy is every member of the body to pro-
cure help and mercy to any member that standeth in need ? Now God
calleth us to be members of one body, and commendeth this work of mercy
to the deacons ; and they should come readily and cheerfully to this work, to
shew mercy to those that are in misery. 3. From the great recompence
that God poureth upon his church and the officers, when he seeth them doing
of works of mercy with cheerfulness. Micah vi. 7, 8, God cared not so much
for a thousand sacrifices, but that he loved that men should love mercy, and
be diligent to shew it. But this part of the ofiice, &c., 1 Tim. v. 9, and
these widows are taken into the number of the deacons. The apostle speak-
eth not of widows to be relieved, for so a widow of thirty or forty may stand
in need by sickness, or any other misery ; but of such widows as are chosen
into the number of those that are to shew mercy with cheerfulness, and
these are the widows or servants of the church. Rom. xvi. 1, it is translated
servants, but the word is deacons. There was a church at Cenchrea, an haven
by Corinth, and Phebe was a deacon there ; and the servant of the church
implies the thing : for a woman may not teach nor rule in the church, and
therefore she must be a deaconess ; and the apostle giveth her this testi-
mony, that she had been a succourer of him and of others also. Now this
succouring is to those that are cast down by sickness or sores, to look to
them, and to provide them tables ; and none are so fit for this, as skilful,
pitiful, and compassionate widows ; they are fit to minister succour to poor
brethren, to them that have none of their own kindred to provide for them
and relieve them. Such are to be taken into the number of the deacons.
This was the practice of the primitive church long after the apostles' times.
Quest. What manner of widows hath God allowed to he chosen into this
number ?
516 CHURCH ORDER EXPLAINED
Ans. Ancient widows, of threescore years of age, well reported of for good
works, for nursing of their children, for lodging of strangers, washing the
saints' feet, for relieving the aiflicted, for diligently following of every good
work, 1 Tim. v. 9. First, they must be threescore years old, and the rea-
son is, 1. Because they must be dedicated to the church's service ; for in
those hot countries many were sick of pestilential fevers ; again, they were
often in wars, and therefore many poor members might come maimed ; as
also many were called before judgment-seats, and there beaten and dismem-
bered, and so need succour. Now, therefore, he would not have her that is
chosen into the office to have an husband, for such have families of their own
to look unto ; and she must be one that is past marriage, for when they are
called to an office, they should not easily lay it down again. And this reason
the apostle giveth, for the younger women wax wanton against Christ, and
will marry. They having many pagans about them, the young women taking
affection to them, they would leave their faith and their office to marry them ;
therefore he would have them to be past marriage, 2. From the vanity that
would befall younger women. If they had no employment of their own but
only public, they would then be fit for the devil's work, they would go about
from house to house, and be busy-bodies ; but elder women would be graver
than to talk of every thing they see, and therefore he would have them to be
threescore years old. Now there are four things required of these widows :
1, diligence; 2, tenderness of affection; 3, lowliness in mind; 4, that she
diligently follow every good work.
1. Diligence. She must be a painful woman, and take pains about a sick
body, and therefore the apostle would know whether they had nursed their
own children or no; for many women will not, though God gave them breasts.
They will not have their sleeps broken, neither can they tarry long at home.
But if a woman cannot endure to do servile offices to her own children, she
will never endure to do service to elder bodies ; therefore she must be one
that hath nursed her own children.
2. Tenderness in affection to those that are in misery. She should be
full of courtesy to all, of mercy to those that are poor and in misery ; there-
fore the apostle would know whether she had lodged strangers or no. There
is not the poorest woman but, be she loving, at one time or other she shall
have strangers. And a deaconess must not be churlish nor covetous ; for if
so, they that are succoured by her will find but little mercy, and slender pro-
vision ; she will divert the church's portion, and which the deacons commit
to her, to herself; and therefore she must be one that hath entertained and
lodged strangers. But the apostle would further know whether she relieved
the afflicted also or no ; for a man may lodge strangers for his own honour's
sake, but to relieve the afflicted, argues not only courtesy but mercy also; and
therefore, when such are in office, they will do it with more mercy. You
will say, By this no poor woman shall be called to this office, for they can
relieve but few. True, poverty is a great hindrance unto it ; but the poor
widow which cast more into the treasury than all the rich men did, she may
have her poor mites. Suppose she hath no money, yet she can tend them,
provide their diet, and do such like things for them ; and is a woman ready
to do this ? Some may relieve with money, some with apparel, some with
counsel, and that the poorest may do. Courtesy and mercy is the second
property which is required in a widow, to be chosen into the number of the
deacons.
3. Lowliness of mind. Therefore, saith the apostle, * If she hath washed
the saints' feet,' Gen. xix. 2, and xliii. 24, and xxiv. 32. And this Christ
charges upon Simon, Luke vii. 44, that he had not done unto him. In
IN A WAY OF CATECHISM. 517
those countries they wore no stockings and shoes, but sandals tied about the
bottom of their feet ; and their first entertainment was when they came
to any place, to wash their feet ; therefore the widow must be such an one
that hath washed the saints' feet, and must do any humble service to them.
This is not useful in this country, but implies she must not skue at any poor
service, or fulsome or mean office, that may concern the comfort of a weak
or sick brother.
She must be diligently following every good work. This is not every good
woman's care and practice. There is not any conference, but she will be one
there ; not any day of humihation, but she will be one at it. This is the main
thing he coramendeth ; she must be one of the foremost at every good work,
and she follows it on till it comes to some perfection. This woman is fit for
this service, this is a work of fruitfulness and godliness ; nay, she must be
well reported of for all these, for many an one is given to these things, but is
not known so to be ; therefore she must be known. That is required of all
ofiicers, of elders and deacons, and so of widows. Public officers of the church
must be of good report, of a good name and fame, for that is the honour of
the Lord Jesus Christ. This good report is the cognisance and badge of a
godly soul ; so much faith as there is in the heart, so much good report
there is of a man in the mouths of men. Heb. xi. 2, faith and the fruits of
faith brought the elders unto a good report ; and the ground of this is, no
man livelh by faith, but he liveth by Christ, and honoureth him ; and the more
a man honoureth Christ, the more will Christ honour him ; and therefore a
faithful Christian never wants a good report, but he is a crown of glory
wherever he doth come. He walks in a humble frame, for that is the life
of faith, and fruitful unto men, and thus he cometh to have a good report,
and then will Christ have no dishonour by administrations. They that speak
evil of such a man, their own consciences bear witness against them, and
therefore these widow's that are to be chosen to this office are to be well re-
ported of. They that speak ill of such men as are humble and fruitful in
their course, and do all for the glory of Christ, they are either brutishly
ignorant, or such as sin maliciously against the Holy Ghost. Humility and
love never went without a good name from the beginning of the world, nor
never will to the latter end of the world.
Use 1. This doth reprove the popish manner of their kind of cloisters, for
this place of the apostle was the foundation of their nunneries. When the
apostle said they must be of threescore years of age, a council afterwards
decreed they should be forty years old ; afterwards, because the apostle saith,
she must be one that hath been the wife of 'one man, therefore they thought
virgins would be better, for that state was more honourable than marriage,
and they backed it with that of the apostle, 1 Cor. vii. 38, ' He that giveth
not his virgin in marriage doth better,' &c. But then these are not fit to
tend sick persons. And then that flew in their consciences how to make
that good, ' she must be threescore years old,' and therefore they ordained a
prioress, an ancient woman, to be over all the rest; and because these could
not tend to the sick persons, therefore they should help the church with
their continual prayers. This is the order of their cloister virgins, and this
is the delusion which the devil built upon this sacred ordinance. Instead of
holiness, they have become sinks of all uncleanness and abominations.
Use 2. Observe what is the honour Christ reserveth for the best women.
Suppose that she hath nursed her children and lodged strangers, Szc, say
she be well reported of for good works. This is the sum of her preferment.
Christ calleth her, when she is threescore years old, to work and to minister
to the church in the homeliest office, to be the right hand of the deacon in
518 CHUBCH ORDER EXPLAINED
shewing mercy with cheerfulness. Some that were high-spirited would think
within themselves, that, should they that have done thus and thus now come
to this, how would their spirits rise in indignation against God's ordinance ;
but God thinketh he doth us the greatest honour when he putteth us into
any office, to be put into a spital to tend upon sick persons. Little do men
think what honour God then putteth upon them. It is a great honour to be
doing good. If you have been diligently following every good work, you are
at the last the fitter to be put into this work, Luke xvii. 7-10, It is Christ
that is to eat and drink in these poor Lazaruses ; he is to be washed. She
that is wearied in the field of Christianity for threescore years together, let
her betake herself a little to God's work, and then she shall rest for ever in
God's kingdom. And this trains up a woman to holiness of mind after
many years' continuance in any employment, and God will reward it abun-
dantly.
Use 3. To teach the church what kind of officers you yet want. You have
yet none of these widows ; the church hath sometimes need of such, and
great need too, or else God would not have appointed the office. Many come
from the ships sick, and have no servants, and we may have amongst us many
of our own brethren sick to be looked unto ; therefore we are to desire this
of God, that he would supply us with such in due time, of such years and
strength as may be fit for this employment. And also, you see whom and
what manner of persons you are to choose unto this place in the church.
Use 4. To teach women what God calleth them to do. God looks whe-
ther a woman nurse her children or no : it helps you to preferment in God's
eye ; they must not put out their children if God give strength and ability
themselves. Love hospitality, not only to poor and kindred, but to stran-
gers also; help the afflicted, relieve them with your purses, counsel, apparel;
think not scorn to do a work of love, live by faith, grow humble and diligent
in good works ; so you shall have a good report, and be called mothers in
Israel : so was Deborah called. If the church have need of them, let them
not scorn to be chosen in this office. The sister of Theodosius the emperor
did not disdain it, and it was the fairest flower in her garden that in her old
age she was fit to do the church service. This will add to their comfort in
this world, and to their crown of glory in the world to come ; and this also
may teach you, that if the lowest officers of the church should be thus quali-
fied, what should be the spirit of other officers whom God calleth to higher
places in the church ? And whatever their employments be, yet should their
spirit be honourable. The definition of the church hath been laid open, and
the distribution of it into the integral parts, which are the officers of the
church and the members of it. Of the officers of the church, their qualifica-
tions and several duties hath been spoken hitherto.
Quest. What manner of mm are they irliom God hath apjwinted fur to be
received as brethren and members of his church?
Ans. Such as are called of God out of the world unto the fellowship of
Jesus Christ, and do willingly offer and join themselves, first to the Lord
and then to the church, by confession of their sins and profession of the
faith, and laying hold of his covenant.
Here is a double qualification : 1, They are such as are called out of the
world to the fellowship of Jesus Christ. 2. They that willingly offer and
join themselves, first to the Lord, and then to his church. For the first, it
appears from the ordinary notion of the word eccJesia, used for a church,
which is a company of men called out. The church is a congregation as
they are met together in a body, but ecclesia as they are a company called by
God out of the world ; so are they styled, Rom. i. G, 7. And he tells you to
IN A WAY OF CATECHISM. 51&'
what you are called: 'to the fellowship of his Son,' 1 Cor. i 9. They are
called out of the world, Acts ii. 40. When he calleth them to be members
of the church, he saith, Save yourselves out of the ignorant or malignant
world, for so all the world lieth either in ignorance or malignancy, 1 John
V. 19; save yourselves from such; and they are called out by the ministry of
the word and the Spirit of God, and they are knit into the fellowship of
Jesus Christ, as he is the head of his church, 1 Cor. xii. 12. Christ, to
whose fellowship we are knit, is not of one member, but of many, and they
are called one Christ; they are joined to Christ, not as the hair to the head,
but so as to be knit also to the rest of the members. That they are so
called out before they are members, appears by this : Saul was circumcised,
and an Hebrew, and was called out, though the church knew it not ; and
when he essayed to join himself to the church, they were afraid of him, not
knowing that he was a disciple. A disciple is not one that heareth one
lesson only, but a disciple is a constant hearer, and one that taketh himself
bound to take out all the lessons that he heareth, and to submit to the dis-
ciphne of the school. They doubted Paul was not such a disciple that was
a constant hearer of God's word, or if he were, yet that he was not one
that submitted himself to the discipline of the school of Christ ; therefore
they were afraid of him. The church may not receive any one that is cir-
cumcised, if he be ignorant, or hath not been joined in fellowship to Christ,
and submitted himself unto him ; he must be a disciple, a constant hearer,
an obedient learner, and one that submits to the discipline of the school
of Christ ; such an one should be received. But it may fall out men may
in, hypocrisy hear constantly, and practise what they hear, and profess sub-
jection to the discipline of the church ; therefore, though this be enough for
the church to receive, yet it is not enough for him to offer him self, unless he
can say that Christ is his portion, or that he truly waits upon Christ for
the revelation of his grace unto his soul. Such a soul is invested with Christ,
and such should they be that offer themselves. Mat. xxii. 11,12. If a man
be not found clothed with the wedding- garment of Christ's righteousness, of
justification, of sanctification, then saith Christ, ' Friend, how earnest thou
in hither, not having thy wedding-garment ?' Though he fall not out with his
servants for bringing him in, yet he saith to him, ' Friend, how camest thou
in ?' 2dly, They willingly join and ofler themselves, first to the Lord, and
then to the church. First to the Lord : Isa. Ivi. 6, they must join to the
Lord before he brings them to his holy mountain, and this they do willingly.
Ps. ex. 2, 3, God's people are a willing people. Acts ii. 41, ' They that
gladly received the word were baptized ' unto Christ, and so received into ■
the church. Barnabas tells the church how Paul had seen the Lord by the
way, and then he is received, after he is joined to the Lord, and then to the
church. Acts ii. 41, 47, though they were before of the church of Israel,
yet they were not received into the Christian church before they repented and
made a covenant with God, and received the seal of the covenant, and then
they were added to it ; Acts ix. 26, 27, though his sins were pardoned in
bis baptism, yet when he cometh to Jerusalem he essayed to join it, it was
bis own voluntary act ; though you read. Mat. xxii. 9, that Christ said,
* Compel them to come in, that my house may be full,' Luke xiv. 23.
Though there be a compulsion to be used for the filling of Christ's church,
yet this is not the compulsion of the civil sword, for it is the compulsion of
the servants that are sent to call, and they are the ministers of Christ. And
how must they compel ? By convincing them *of their natural state, by
driving them out of themselves, and driving them unto Christ, partly by the
law, partly by the gospel. It is a compulsive persuasion, by terrors, by
520 CHUKCH OBDER EXPLAINED
threatenings, and by promises, &c. The magistrate may compel men to
hear, but to compel tbem to come into the church is not compatible to the
name of the church ; for they must be such as are called out of the world,
and when they are called, they will readily desire it; and it is a sign that they
are not called, if, when they have opportunity, they do not desire it, Rom.
i. 15. God commandeth, and requires it of them, and will charge it upon
them for sin if they do it not ; but neither the church nor the civil magis-
trates may compel them ; for God's people are ' a willing people,' and it is
no more but reason that no man should be compelled to subject himself to
any government that he is not willing to submit unto.
Now to the manner how they must join. Three things they used in the
primitive church, and long after. 1. Confession of their sins. Mat. iii. 6.
They were members of the church of Israel before that, yet they were not
admitted to baptism, and to be his disciples, unless they confessed their sins,
and their subjection to take out such lessons as he should teach them ;
therefore they said unto him, Luke iii. 10-12, * What shall we do ?' Acts
xix. 18, they that believed, confessed their witchcraft and whoredoms before
they were received into the fellowship of the church. 2. Profession of their
faith. The eunuch was a proselyte and member of the Jewish church, yet
he must profess his faith before he is baptized ; Acts viii. 37, 38, and
thus he was made fit for church-fellowship. 3. By taking hold of the cove-
nant. What covenant ? Read Isa. Ivi. 6, 7 ; he requires that they be joined
to the Lord, and love the Lord, and keep his Sabbaths, and then take hold of
his covenant. And what is the covenant which God made with the house of
Israel ? Deut. xxix. 10-13, you there see what it is ; they come to be estab-
lished his people by entering into covenant with him. Ps. 1. 5, they are not
his people till they enter into covenant with him. It is God's covenant, be-
cause, as in marriage God is the third party in the covenant between man
and woman, so in the church covenant it is tripartite, between God, and the
church, and the member received. They may not receive into the church
but those whom God receiveth in, nor dismiss those but whom God dis-
misseth ; therefore a man must take hold of the covenant, and then God
bringeth him to be joyful in the house of his ordinances ; they shall then re-
ceive more joy and comfort than ever. God hath not promised any constant
supply of comfort and blessing from his ordinances, but to those that not
only join to the Lord, but also lay hold of his covenant, that is, the cove-
nant he hath made with his church. And thus you see the meaning of the
phrases in the New Testament, they did join, and they were added to the
church ; that is, the Gentiles, who were before joined to the church of Is-
rael, were joined to the Christian church by laying hold of this covenant.
Usel. This serveth to confirm and justify the lawfulness, and in truth
the necessity, of this course that is taken in admitting your church members.
Look not at it as a work of supererogation, as a thing uncomely to be done,
or as devised by men, but as an ordinance of God for preparation of men
for the church, and admission of them into the church, that hath its institu-
tion from the Holy Ghost. What need we be admitted, will you say, when we
are members of a church before ? Therefore consider, Paul was a member
of a church of Christ, yet they were afraid of him. A man may not thrust
himself upon a church whether they will or no, and they may also not
receive him, unless they persuade themselves that he is a disciple, a learner,
a constant hearer, and a submitter to the discipline of the church. Barnabas
must make that plain to flie church that he is a disciple, and then they
receive him into the church. Those that are received, must either be such
as approve themselves by their conversation, or by the testimony of some
IN A WAY OF CATECHISM.
521
whom the church dare trust ; you also compel none to be members of
the church. Compel them by conviction, by strength of argument, and
bonds of conscience ; but they must freely offer and join themselves when
they have been called, and have obeyed the call. The Lord is the head of
the church ; and to be joined to the head, or joined to the members, and not
to the head, will not make a man a living member, but he will be a dead
member, that will rather be a burden than any help to the church. You
see also evident practices of confession and profession. Where there is little
notice of any man's sins, there is not that need of large confession; but not-
withstanding, they must make profession of their faith in Christ.
Use 2. To direct such as desire church fellowship, to teach you what
persons you must grow up to be, such as are called out of the world. You
must confess your sins as you have been known to live in, and profess your
faith, lay hold of the covenant, come not in till you be clothed with the gar-
ment of Christ's righteousness, to wait and trust upon him for his grace, or
else God will ransack you, and say, ' How came you in hither ?' All profane-
ness, all malignancy, all ignorance must be laid aside ; give up yourselves
to God, and then to the church.
Use 3. To comfort the people of God that do thus come into the church.
God saith that he will make their souls ' joyful in the house of prayer,' and
that he will accept their offerings, Isa. Ivi. 6, 7. If we find our hearts un-
comfortable, consider, have we not sat loose from God, or have we not sat
loose from his covenant since we last received comfort from it ? Our joying
was but for a fit, and we sat loose from God, from his ordinances, from his
Sabbaths, and from our brethren; then no wonder that we are uncomfort-
able. But come thus, as you have heard, into God's presence, and then
we may comfortably expect that he will make us joyful in the house of
prayer.
Quest. What is the office or duty uhich God calleth the brethren unto, the
memliers of the church ?
Ans. To brotherly love, and to the fruits thereof, brotherly unity, brotherly
equality, and brotherly communion. First, brotherly love. This the Holy
Ghost presseth upon the brethren of the church in divers places : 1 Peter
iii. 8, ' Love as brethren,' if you be brethren. 1 Peter ii. 17, ' Love the
brotherhood;' in that whole society in which God hath joined you, love them.
1 Thes. iv. 9, ' Ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another.' Heb.
xiii. 1, love is such an aflection of the soul, whereby we offer communion
one with another, and communication of good one to another. On the other
side, hatred is that whereby one cannot endure to have fellowship with
another, nor communicate any good to him ; but when we love the brethren,
then are we in heart with them, and desire to do good unto them, and to re-
ceive good from them. Add to the fruits thereof brotherly unity : Eph.
iv. 3, ' Endeavouring to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace ;'
Ps. cxxxiii. 1, ' Behold how pleasant a thing it is for brethren to dwell to-
gether in unity ;' Col. iii. 15, ' Let the peace of God rule in your hearts,
to the which you are called in one body;' Acts vii. 26, 'Sirs, you are
brethren, why do you wrong one another ?' It is against the nature of
brethren for to harm one another ; and this Christ beggeth of his Father for
those that should believe on his name, John xvii. 20, 21, that they may be
one with the Father, and one with the Son, and one another. This is the
main petition in which he desires the fruit of his suffering might break forth.
There is no greater testimony of Christ's coming to save his people than
this, that all the churches of God, and all brethren, are all of one mind, of
one heart, and of one judgment. This is that convinces the world that Christ
522 CHUECH ORDER EXPLAINED
came in the name of the Father, when brethren dwell together in unity.
The second fruit of brotherly love is brotherly equality ; and this God hath
respect unto in all the members of the church. Though there be a difference
in outward respects, yet in the church privileges, as they are all brethren,
they are all equal. Deut. xvii. 19, 20, the king, the chief governor, must
read in the book of the law all his days, ' that so his heart may not be lifted
up above his brother.' And for the ministers of the word, Christ says unto
them, ' Be ye not called Rabbi, for one is your Master, even Christ, as ye
are all brethren ;' and therefore, being all brethren, they must not take up
masterly authority one over another. And the apostle hath great regard to
this, that there might be an equality, so that the whole burden might not
lie upon some, while other go eased. And this is the equality that God
requires of the members of the church. The third fruit of brotherly love
is brotherly communion or fellowship, which is also the fruit of both the
other fruits of brotherly unity, and brotherly equality : Acts ii. 42, ' They
continued stedfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in prayers ;
and, ver. 46, ' They continued daily with one accord in the temple, and
breaking bread from house to house,' and they had constantly fellowship
together ; and this also God requireth of brethren that are knit in covenant
together in church fellowship
Quest. Wherein standeth that brotherly unity which members are to hold one
with another ?
Ans. To be perfectly joined together in one mind, and one judgment, and
one speech, in one truth ; and where we cannot be of one judgment, still to
be of one heart; not provoking or envying one another, but forgiving and
forbearing one another; not judging or despising one another in difference of
weakness, but so far as we are come to walk by the same rule, and teach
and learn one of another the way of God more perfectly, ' till we are grown
up in the unity of the faith, unto a perfect man in Christ Jesus.' First,
they must be perfectly joined together in one mind, one judgment, one
speech, in one truth, 1 Cor. i. 10. He would have them to be of the same
mind, and same judgment, and that not in a common error, but in one
truth. You may see what is the difference betwixt mind and judgment,
therefore the apostle doth exhort them to be of one mind, to be of the same
judgment, for sometimes men are not of a contrary judgment because things
are clear, yet they have a mind to conceive and judge otherwise, and so to
express themselves ; but he would have them have a mind to be all of one
judgment. So should also their speech be the same, for he knew that differ-
ence of expression might breed diversity of mind. He would not have men
express them otherwise than as things commonly received. He would have
them avoid Babylonish confusion, and to be all of one speech. This also he
earnestly desires of the Philippians, that they would mind, think, and speak
one thing, Philip, i. 1,2. He would have them willingly frame their hearts,
and judgments, and speech like one to another; and see what weight he lays
upon it, * If there be any consolation in Christ,' &c. There is no consolation
of Christ in their hearts, where there is a willingness to be of a contrary
mind ; there may be truth, but no consolation ; this will darken their con-
solations, where there is not a mutual consolation in their words, speeches,
and thoughts. He adds further, ' If any comfort of love,' &c. Hath not
this comforted your hearts, the love of God, and the love of your brethren ?
If you ever had comfort from these, then be of one accord. If any fellow-
ship of the Spirit. If you be all of one spirit, then let the spirit in all your
words, minds, judgments, and speeches be all one. If any bowels of mercy.
If you have any bowels to me, or yourselves, to your brethren, be of one
IN A WAY OF CATECHISM.
523
mind, j And this it was that fulfilled apostolical joy, to see them all of one
mind. Eph. iv. 23, ' Be renewed in the spirit of your mind ;' that is, the
inclination and bent of their minds, that they may be willing to see the
truth, and yield to the truth, and to be of one judgment. James iv, 5, there
is a spirit in man that lusteth after error, there is a spirit that lusteth to be
of a contrary mind to another man's mind ; therefore, saith the apostle, 'Be
ye renewed in the spirit of your minds ;' this is a ground of much affliction to
any humble soul, when he is forced to be of a contrary mind or judgment.
It calls to mind the corruption of nature ; if it be truth in me, then why
should not he see it as well as I ? And it is a great temptation, for it makes
a man to call into question his own judgment, and the truth. But suppose
we cannot be of one judgment, nor of one speech (for a man must speak as he
judgeth ; if he must judge, he must not prevaricate), yet still we must be of
one heart, we must be of a bent to draw as close one to another as may be,
and to drive it as far as truth will bear. Philip, iv. 1, he desires they may
be of one mind, though they judge differently, and speak differently, yet that
they be willing to close one with another ; they did not affect to be of one
mind and -heart, and therefore he beseecheth the pastor to help them an-end,
that they might mind one thing in the Lord ; mind unity when it may be
attained. But to help forward this brotherly love, the apostle exhorts them
not to provoke one another, not to envy one another. Gal. v. 26. Let there
be no wrath to provoke, no pride to envy, and this will maintain brotherly
love ; but because provocation will arise from those that have attained least
degrees of grace, therefore we should forbear and forgive one another, Eph.
iv. 2. If a man seeth that if he should speak any further, it would break
love, then he forbeareth to speak his judgment in a thing. Men should take
their times to speak, and not to exasperate the spirit of one another ; so also
must we forgive one another, Eph. iv. 32. When any one hath provoked
another, let him forgive him, although he is not bound to express his for-
giveness till the other desires it. Again, there is another rule, not to judge
nor despise one another in differences of weakness, Rom. xiv. 3. He doth
not require that they should be of one judgment ; but they should not ex-
press their judgment if they see it will hinder edification, Rom. xiv. 22. But
the rule is, let him not judge if the differences be not fundamental : ' Let not
him that eateth,' &c. So great is the moderation of the apostle, he doth
not bind them to be of one judgment and speech in such things ; and there-
fore to bind all men to be of their own judgment and practice, be the things
never so circumstantial, is against the nature of brotherly love, and not to
be of an apostolical spirit. So far as we are come to ' walk by the same
rule,' Philip, iii. 15, 16, he would have their mind one, and their rule one,
and that will much help to unity. And what is that rule ? Gal. vi. 16, it
is in both places the rule of a new creature that saith, ' Neither circumcision
availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but faith, which works by love ; ' and
the meaning is, he looks at all things as empty of true spiritual comfort,
but faith in Christ, and then all rents about circumcision and uncircumcision
will in due time fall to nothing. Stick to this rule, count Christ all in all,
that his name might be magnified, his grace sanctified, and then they that
plead for ceremonies will quickly come to be of one heart, although not of
one judgment. What maketh a man to have a mind to differ ? Is it to
magnify the name of Christ ? No ; but to walk by that rule, ever preserveth
unity of mind (to teach and learn one another the way of God more per-
fectly), this is another means to maintain unity of mind. Acts xviii. 26,
Apollos and Aquila they both minded Christ, and that maketh him willing to
learn, and them willing to teach him. Though he was a learned man in the
524
CHURCH ORDER EXPLAINED
Scriptures, they took him unto them, and would not suflfer him to be of
another mind, but they expounded the way of God more fully unto him ;
they were not afraid of suspicion of arrogancy, that they should teach a
learned man, but knew that he being a good man would be willing to learn
of them, though they were but tent-makers. This that hath been spoken
will not reach only to difference of mind, but to different practice also. If
I know anything will grieve and offend my brother, and will be a stumbling-
block unto him, it is good not to do it, Rom. xiv. 21. AVhatsoever is offen-
sive in judgment or practice should be removed ; and therefore we should
covet to be of one judgment. If we cannot, we may forbear the practice of
many things that may be offensive ; if there must needs be a difference, yet
let there be one heart, endeavouring to be of one mind, not provoking, envy-
ing, or despising one another, but to grow up to the state of perfection that
God calleth us unto : Eph. iv. 13, ' Till we all come in the unity of the
faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the
measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.' This is the end that
ministers look at, that Christians in their edifying should look at. Until we
come to that unity, we are not perfect ; but when we are, then we are come
to the ' full measure of the stature of Christ.' Do but follow faith and love,
and then when we come to believe, mind, and practise one thing, then are
we perfect. It argues, that brethren should have a care one of another's
faith, love, knowledge, that we may be all fit to be presented unto Christ.
Num. xii. 29, I would that all God's people could prophesy. If we desire
to help one another in the ways of grace, it is an evident sign of the work
of grace in our own hearts ; and till a man come to this, his work is not
done.
Quest. Wherein standeth the hrotherhj equality which ue are to hold one icith
another ?
Ans. In submitting ourselves alike to all God's ordinances, in enjoying
alike all Christian liberties, in preferring others before ourselves, in seeking
one another's welfare, and feeling their estates as our own, in bearing the
burdens one of another's estates, and imposing no burdens but in equal pro-
portion. The sum is, that brotherly equality standeth in equal submission
to all God's ordinances, in equal fruition of all Christian liberties, in giving
equal honour to all alike, to feel one another's estates as our own, and to
bear an equal proportion of burdens. First, for equality, in equal submis-
sion to all God's ordinances, and equal fruition of all Christian liberty. Gal.
iii. 28, 'There is neither Jew nor Greek, bond nor free, there is neither
male nor female : for they are all one in Christ Jesus.' There is no differ-
ence between nations, nor between masters nor servants, nor between male
or female in Christian liberties; one hath as much right to Christ, and the
means of enjoying Christ, as the other ; to the same covenant, to the same
seals of the covenant, to the same admonitions and exhortations. What is
administered to one is free to another, without respect of persons. These
words the apostle useth also in another place, to shew equality of duty in
submission to God's ordinances. Col. iii. 10-12, he exhorteth them all to
put on the new man, and to put off' ' anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy,' &c.,
and to put on ' bowels of mercies, and kindness, and humbleness of mind,'
&c. ; he calleth upon them all as one, all the faithful alike, every one to be
clothed with these duties, and to put off these sins : for ' in Christ Jesus
there is neither Jew nor Greek, circumcision nor uncircumcision,' &c.
What duty one Christian owes, that another owes ; what grace one should
put on, that should another put on ; and this equality is a spiritual equality.
Deut. xvii. 19, 20, there it is said that the king should read the book of the
IN A WAY OF CATECHISM. 525
law all the days of his life, ' that his heart be not lifted up above his
brethreu,' though he be king. Solomon in all his royalty must not be ex-
alted above his brethren ; every commandment of God is alike given to the
king as to the meanest man. It is said of kings, that they * did evil in the
sight of the Lord.' Threatenings and commandments belong alike to them ;
and the consideration that God putteth no difierence between kings and
peasants, will make him not to count his subjects like dogs. But the same
inheritance is for them, the same church privileges ; they are all one in
privilege, all one in duty; and this they are and should be. Ezek. xlvi. 10,
' And the prince in the midst of them, when they go in, shall go in ; and
when they go forth, shall go forth ;' they must not stay for him, neither
must he be gone before them, but upon necessary occasions, as any other
member of the church may. This is the rule, God by this means accom-
modating the spirit of great kings to frame themselves to brotherly equality
in the house of God, with alike reverence and subjection, and alike to claim
all the privileges of God's house. This is true spiritual equality. Not but
that they may sit in a more eminent place in the house of God, that are of
greater authority in the commonwealth. Joash, by the pillar, 2 Chron.
xxiii. 13, which was the place for the king to sit in. It may be lawful in
difference in that kind ; not that men should be ambitious of the highest
places ; for it is spoken of the pharisees. Mat. xxiii. 6, and that with dis-
like, that they affected the chiefest seats in the synagogues ; yet a confusion
of civil difference is not comely. There are no other meetings, but in
spiritual duties and privileges they are all alike, there is equality; they may
not stay for him, nor he go out before them, but they should come in and
depart together.
TWO LETTERS
WHICH PASSED BETWEEN THE REVEKEND MR JOHN GOODWIN AND THE AUTHOR,
CONCERNING
A CHUKCH COVENANT.
To the Reverend Mr Thomas Goodwin.
My dear friend, whom I love and honour, if not enough, yet (certain I am)
exceeding much in the Lord. I am sorry, there being differences between
us otherwise, that in this we should so long agree neither to send so much
as the smallest piece of his mind to other in writing for a token. Upon
which of us the law of love and Christian acquaintance rather imposed it to
have first appeared in breaking this agreement, the same law prohibits to
dispute. Whether it will ease the burden on my part or no, I leave to your
ingenuity to consider and determine ; but this I may truly say unto you,
that I have had many thoughts from time to time since your departure from
us that have dearly longed after your bosom, and would hardly have been kept
from their longing till now, but by a strong hand of indispensable occasions
and employments otherwise. And if my respects to you did not command
me to entreat you the more gently in this behalf, I might truly charge upon
yourself (in part) the occasion of my silence hitherto. Your authority,
grace, learning, parts, judgment, and example have holpen to make the stone
of separation so massy and heavy, that we are constrained to be at double
pains and labour in removing and rolling it from off the consciences of our
people. A great part of our employment is to stanch the issue of thatioun-
tain of blood, which you and some others of your conformity have opened in
the womb of our churches here. We, hoping again your re-union with ua
and return unto us, through the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is able
to give you light to comprehend your darkness in those things which yet lie
under dispute between us, are willing to save you what sorrow we can against
your return, and for this purpose endeavour ourselves to make your mistakes
as innocent as may be (in respect of execution), by keeping as many as we
can from stumbling or falling thereby. Dear brother, that there were a heart
in us to lay our heads together for the finding out of some course (if possible)
that the sword may not always thus devour ! Doubtless there are waters to
be digged that would much assuage the heat, if not wholly quench the flames
of these contentions and divisions. How deeply is it to be lamented, that he
by whom God hath reconciled the world to himself should be made a means
of dividing this reconciled world in itself ! The heavens (I doubt not) will
TWO LETTEKS CONCERNING A CHURCH COVENANT. 527
accord us ; yet were it our greater comfort and glory if the eartli herein
might prevent the heavens. I verily believe it would go far, and strike a
great stroke in compromising between the parties at variance, if the great
men and chief leaders on both sides could be persuaded but to take fast hold
upon this ingenious, free, and noble resolution (which yet I suppose we all
pretend to do), rp oKriQua dhuv /^aXXov, ri dovXsvsiv hiro&i&n, rather to do
sacrifice to the truth than to be servile to suppositions. I know not how
to open my mouth wide enough to shew you the whole enlargement of my
heart unto you. If we saw the truth clearly with you, you should not reign
alone ; we would doubtless (at once) divide such a kingdom with you
and reign too. Many indeed of your party are ready to say (in effect), that
as it is heaven that separated you from us, so it is the world that separates
us from you ; but if you have the truth with you (which indeed if you have,
at least in many of your best-beloved maxims, woe be to my wits, reason,
and understanding ; never poor man so strangely misused by such friends in
this world), it will never be a debtor to such interpreters or agents for it.
As for the world, if it be as little on that side of the sea as it is on this, it
•will never be so much as a mote in your eye to hinder you from seeing any
truth of God clearly. But as little as it is with us, we think it too great and
too good to be sacrificed upon the service of an error at any time (if yet
those that forsake us do it not rather out of a desire and intent to spare the
world than to sacrifice it), otherwise I doubt not but the servants of God in
England tread as light upon the earth as you do in Holland, and are as ready
to buy the truth and give as good rates for it as the best merchants amongst
you. But however, I know that this left-handed spirit rules much in men
of your party, who, not content to make our standing nought, labour much
to make us worse than our standing ; yet I make no question but your
anointing teacheth you more Christian thoughts concerning us ; and if we
judged it any advantage to the truth or cause we maintain against you, we
durst vie moral imputations with you, and are confident that we could assign
and suggest against you both as many and as likely indirect and fleshly
grounds for your departure from us, as you can against us for keeping our
first standing and profession. But the truth will never be made great by
such demonstrations as these on either side. Sometimes the truth is there
where a man for many reasons would think there were least hope to find it ;
and again many times the fairest overtures and pleasingest inducements will
but deceive and disappoint in this kind. And as for that kind of truth
which we inquire after and toil in the fire of contention to find out, viz.
spiritual and divine, there is no substantial or satisfying means for the
discovery of it but by a holy, humble, and impartial consultation with the
oracles of God about it ; yea, if it be of that species or special kind of divine
truth which is not spread (as manna was) upon the face of the Scriptures,
but lieth low amongst the deep things of God, 1 Cor. ii. 10 (as it seems the
truth in those questions depending between us doth), now it is not sufiicient
simply to consult or ask the Scriptures concerning them ; but they must be
examined and re-examined again and again, both solitary and in concert ;
they must be put home to it, and urged and pressed close together before
they will speak their mind plainly in this case, or deliver out any of this
treasure ; yea, in many cases a man must be content to go to the one end of
them to know what they mean in the other ; yea (that which is much con-
siderable, and I fear much wants that which belongs to it), they may seem
to deliver many pleasing and plausible answers, under the shadow whereof
the judgment and conscience of a man may be much refreshed for a season,
so that they may be ready to shout for joy, and congratulate themselves with
528 TWO LETTERS CONCERNING
his acclamation, that cried ' su^riKo,, su^^jxa,' he had found, he had found ;
and yet none of these answers be the ro i^yjrovfLsvov, true, direct, and bottom
meaning of them. As Samson gave Delilah answer upon answer to her
question or demand, which pleased her for a time, carrying a plausible
semblance and reality of truth in them, but still her experience discovered
the insufficiency of them, and then she rejected them, and would not give
over till she had the true answer indeed, Judges xvi. 7, 8, &c. ; so (doubt-
less) the Scriptures may in many places to our apprehensions affirm many
things, and deliver out man}' notions of choice approbation to us for a time,
the weakness and defects whereof notwithstanding further time and experience
and a clearer light may discover ; yea, there may from the very same
Scriptures rise up many meanings and interpretations before us one after
another that may be in our eje as Eliab, Jesse's eldest son, was in Samuel's
(when he was sent to anoint one of his sons for king), ' Surely' (saith he,
lookin» on Eliab) ' the Lord's anointed was before him ;' but he was yet
a great way oflf from the Lord's anointed. There was Eliab, and Abinadab,
and Shammah, and more than as many more presented before him before
David came in sight (who was the Lord's anointed indeed) ; he was behind,
and a great way off in the field, and must be sent for before he comes ; so
the anointed sense and meaning of the Scriptures may be yet far off when
■we persuade ourselves with the greatest confidence that it is before us. And
as he said of benefits, multa j)erdenda sunt,ut semel jJonas bene, a man must
bestow many amiss, that he may bestow one well ; so many times a man
must be content first to take up and then to cast away many interpretations
of Scriptui'e (and those sometimes such which otherwise he would not
willingly part with), that he may interpret at last as he ought to do. I make
no question but you have had experience of these things in yourself more
than once. For my part, I confess it hath been a frequent thing with me,
in the course of my studies and meditations, to meet with,'jboth from the pens
or mouths of others, and from mine own conceptions also, several interpre-
tations which have much afi^cted me upon the first greeting, yea, which for
a time I have nourished in my bosom and made treasure of, and yet after-
wards have apparently seen that 6 dr^aav^og, avdsaxig n<!av, my rejoicing was
not good, and by a strong hand of superior conviction have been compelled
to call that darkness, and to cast it from me, which sometimes I called light,
and kept close unto. Wherefore I beseech you, by the tender mercies of
our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and (if it be fitting so to engage you)
by the glory of those many talents given unto you, the strength whereof
(methinks) should work through a napkin, and disdain so weak and con-
temptible an enclosure, once more to survey with a single, impartial, deli-
berate, and disengaged eye (if you can get out whether it be mote or beam
that is gotten into it), your present thoughts and apprehensions concerning
those things that have removed you from off an English table, and put you
under a Holland bushel. Confident I am that there is a light beyond your
light in these matters, if your eyes by long slumber be not over heavy to
open, and that your rods will make but the enchanter's serpents, which
Aaron's serpent will devour. I profess in the sight of God, and in as great
singleness and simplicity of heart as ever man in this world spake word unto
you, that I do as clearly apprehend error and mistake throughout the gi-eatest
part of your way as I do truth in this conclusion, that twice two makes four.
The necessity of your covenant, prolix Confession of Faith, putting men to
deliver their judgments in points of doubtful disputation upon and before
their admission into your churches ; the power of the keys and of ordination
of ministers to be the right and inheritance of the whole body of the congre-
A CHUKCH COVENANT.
529
gation, and of every member promiscuously and indifferently ; the divine
institution or peremptory necessity of your ruling elders, the necessity of
•widows as of officers in the church ; the absolute necessity of one and the
same government or discipline in all particulars whatsoever, in all churches,
in all times and places ; a full and peremptory determination of all things
whatsoever appertaining to the worship of God, with divers like positions
(which are the very life, soul, and substance of j'our way) ; I am at perfect
peace in my thoughts that you will never be able to demonstrate or prove
from the Scriptures to any sober-minded and considering man. I am loath
to overcharge you with words and writings. To desire you to return and
to repair the breach you have made upon us, I confess were a hard motion, and
of slender hope to be obtained, were it not made to a truly great and noble
spirit ; and, cceter is paribus, the request from you to mc, and others with me,
to come over unto you, were more reasonable than that they should desire
you to return back again unto us, because you have suffered already (at least
in the thoughts of many) under the disparagement of some unconstancy ;
and equal it is, where there is not some over-ruling reason to the contrary,
that burdens should not be doubled, but rather divided. But herein I
beseech you consider, your advantage is the greater, that you have by this
means tasIovu '^uitiav, the greater and better sacritice to offer upon the service
of the truth than we, if you can apprehend the truth with us, and deny your-
self the second time in turning back again unto us. And yet give me leave
to say this unto you, though your restitution to us be one of the first-born
of my this-world's wishes, and the day thereof would be above the rest of
the days of the year, yet had I rather mourn over j'our absence still, than
bring you back again any otherwise than by the hand of an angel of light.
I relish no satisfaction from any man to any request, but what I purchase
more b}' reasoning than requesting. And for your part I know that, in the
motions of this nature, a friend and a feather are both alike, except reason
makes the difference. I have made bold upon some words of encouragement
from your mouth, related to me byDr P., to propound a query unto you con-
cerning the head of your way, your church covenant, with some reasons of
my scrupling, partly the lawfulness, but especially the necessity, of your
indispensable exaction thereof. If you be willing to treat with your old
friend in a way of this commerce, I shall hereafter (God willing), as health
and liberty will agree, desire like satisfaction from you in some other par-
ticulars of your way ; but if the motion dislikes 3'ou, neither have I any
further pleasure in it. If you shall suspend your answer, give me leave
so far to please myself as to interpret your silence a ground of hope that your
own coming is not far off; or otherwise, if your answers be too strong for
me, and able to remove my mountains out of my way, they are not the seas
that shall keep friends asunder any longer. I am yours (if 5'ou care to own
me). Send me over the silver and bright shining wings of truth, and upon
these I come flying over to you out of hand. I would be as glad of a bar-
gain of truth at any rate as another, God having taught me how to drown
the world in the least drop of the water of life. Only this I desire may be
the law of this dissertation between us, that since the strength of 3'our con-
fidence in your way is such as to break out into a departure from us (and I
conceive double light to be requisite for a separation in any kind, whereas
single light sufficeth for any man's continuance in his standing), you will go
to work as a prince and not as a beggar, and commend the truth of what
you hold and practise in opposition to us by a high hand of pregnant and
express Scriptures, and not beg anything by any loose or faint interpretation
VOL. XI. L 1
530 TWO LETTERS CONCERNING
or supposition. We look for from you letter for letter, word for word, tittle
for tittle, for the proof of all you maintain against us, and otherwise cannot
but judge it somewhat hard to be so forsaken, only because our logic is more
dull and less piercing than yours. I have used the more liberty of speech
unto you, because I know you are well able to bear it. The queries and objec-
tions which I offer against your church covenant are these.
We doubt by what warrant of Scripture, or otherwise, any church of
Christ can impose any such express and formal covenant upon all those
that desire membership with them, as a peremptory condition of their ad-
mittance, as is now generally practised in all your churches. We conceive
the Scripture will nowhere justify these proceedings, but rather judge there
is much evil, and a manifold inconvenience, in the urging and exacting such
a covenant.
1. Confident we are (as confidence itself can make us) that there is no
command given to the churches for exacting any such covenant of those that
are to be admitted into church fellowship with them. So that we conceive
any such exaction to be a mere human invention, and a strain of that wis-
dom that desires to exalt itself not only above all that is practised by men,
but above that which is written by God himself; yea, though instances and
examples could be produced of such covenant, both demanded and given,
yet this may stand without any warrant of lawfulness, much more without
the imposition of any necessity upon churches at this day, to make the like
demand of their intended members; and most of all it may stand, without
any necessity upon churches to make the demand as of a duty of absolute
necessity, or as a part of the worship and service of God. Because (1.) no
example bindeth but by virtue and in the strength of some commandment.
And if there were any thing necessary to be done which is not commanded
by God, then must there be found weakness and imperfection in his law.
Therefore, to make any thing necessary which the law of God maketh not
necessary, is not to keep the law, but (as James saith) to judge it. (2.) There
may be examples found of many things done by Christians (yea, by whole
churches) in the primitive times, not only lawfully, but with high and spe-
cial approbation ; the doing whereof in these times is not only no ways
necessary, but hable to much question, whether lawful or convenient. The
selling of lands and houses by those that were the possessors of them, and
bringing and laying money at the apostles' feet, was practised (we know) in
the apostles' times. Acts iv. 34, 35 ; and, as Tertullian witnesseth, conti-
nued two hundred years together in the church. But I know no man now
pleads for the necessity of any such practice ; yea, whether it would not be
much more inexpedient for the gospel (and consequently in some degree
unlawful) if now put in practice, a few thoughts would sufficiently discover.
(3.) And, lastly, there is no question to be made but that many times the
diversification of circumstances and aspects of things in the w'orld, and course
of God's providence, have not only a lawful power of dissolving the binding
force and authority of many examples, but of suspending our obedience to
many rules, and precepts, and exhortations. As, for example, that kind of
salutation between men, mentioned Gen. xxvii. 26, 1 Sam. xx. 41, and oft
elsewhere, being generally left and out of use. Those injunctions of Paul,
Rom. xvi. 16, 1 Cor. xvi. 20, and elsewhere, ' Greet ye one another with an
holy kiss,' impose no such literal tie upon the saints in these days, as when
they were written ; neither do I conceive (nor, I suppose, you) that the elders
of the church are now bound to anoint the sick with oil, because this is com-
manded, James v. 14. Neither do I conceive that the French churches lie
under any guilt of sin, for suffering their teachers to have their heads covered
A CHURCH COVENANT. 681
in their public 'ministry, notwithstanding the rule or direction of Paul :
1 Cor. xi. 4, * Every man praying or prophesying, having any thing on his
head, dishonoureth his head ;' because that topical custom among the Gre-
cians, upon which Paul built this rule or assertion, is wholly disused by
their nation, and the contrary generally practised among them. Though I
do not think this scripture is to be restrained to the teachers only, but to
concern as well the whole assembly of men present, who are all here said to
pray or prophesy in a passive sense (as women also are, ver. 5), that is,
to partake of these ordinances with the teachers. Other like instances might
be given. And doubtless the rule that Cameron gives (who was a man of
as much learning, sharpness of wit, and happiness in opening the Scripture,
as any of the retbrmed churches in France, yea, I may say, in any part of
the world, have enjoyed of latter times) is most true.* There are many
things commanded in Paul's epistles whereof there is no use at this day (viz.,
as touching the literal and precise observation), as is that of prophesying,
1 Cor. xiv., and concerning the habit of women prophesying, which belong
not to our times ; but concerning prophesying, we shall (God willing) move
some special queries afterwards. And I verily believe, that one main rea-
son and grand occasion of all separation from us (on that hand you are gone)
is, because the words of the sacred text fitted to particular occasions, and to
the condition of the times wherein they were written, are taken and applied
by such men to themselves and others as they find them, without due respect
had to those weighty and material difi'erences that are between the one and
the other (as might be demonstrated at large if it were any part of our pre-
sent purpose). In the mean season, it is evident by what has been said,
that though particular instances could be produced, that the covenant so
much magnified, so indispensably urged by your churches (generally) upon
their members before their admission, yea, by some great masters of your
way, defended in writing as the very form and essence of a true church (the
writing whereof hath gone a long time under your own name, but of late I
hear you have disclaimed it), hath been practised by former churches, and
put upon those that desired membership with them, yet this is no sufficient
ground to conclude a necessity now lying upon all churches to do the like,
except there be a precept or command found for the doing it ; no, nor yet
to prove a lawfulness of doing it, except all circumstances be clear and fair
for the doing it ; nay, a precept or command itself will not evince a neces-
sity hereof, if any master or grand circumstance be now changed or altered,
upon which the precept was first given.
2. But yet, notwithstanding, I add in the second place, neither do the
Scriptures afi'ord any instance or example wherein any such covenant hath
ever been demanded or exacted by any particular church, of those who desired
fellowship with it. But many instances there are, wherein only upon a sober
profession of their faith in Christ, and entertainment of the gospel, men
have been received into churches, without the least noise or mention of any
such covenant : Acts ii. 41, ' They that gladly received his word, were bap-
tized : and the same day there were added (viz., to the church) about three
thousand souls.' Some of your judgment strongly conceit that they espy
their covenant in these words, icere added ; but surely if they were assisted
by the same imagination, they might as soon discover it in those words,
Gen. i. 1, 'In the beginning God made heaven and earth ;' for to any rea-
sonable and disengaged apprehension, that word T^oasrlhvro, with the num-
ber of Christians joined with it, only expresses the exceeding great work of
God in making so great an enlargement or addition to his church in so short
* Myrotliec. in cap. v. Jacobi.
532 TWO LETTERS CONCERNING
a time ; and doubtless a man must get a dispensation for his understanding,
to enable him to think or believe, that within the compass of half a day, or
a little more at the most (perhaps somewhat less, for the former part of the
day was well spent before Peter began his sermon, and how long be conti-
nued preaching is uncertain ; it seems he was not very brief, ver. 40), three
thousand persons should particularly and distinctly, one after another, in
the same place, and before the same persons, be examined and tried, take a
solemn covenant, repeating your contents and words thereof. Doubtless the
art and method of such dispatch is utterly lost and perished from the world
at this day. Either the covenant they made was very brief, and but an ace
to yours, or else the motion of their tongues, in speaking, much swifter than
our thoughts. You must favour yourself beyond all reason, in both these
suppositions, or else suppose your covenant no longer here. Besides, evi-
dent it is, that those that were added to the church were baptized, before
this is affirmed of them. Now, being baptized, and that in an orderly and right
way (as you will not deny), this did immediately qualify them for church
fellowship according to your own grounds, and the truth itself ; therefore
they needed not the mediation of a covenant to make them capable hereof,
BO that you see an impossibility of any covenant to be implied here. And if
you be not relieved at this door, there is little hope to find more charity in
this kind at others. Philip required no other covenant or condition of the
eunuch to qualify him for baptism, and thereby to give him entrance into the
church, but only to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ with all his heart, and
to profess it to bim, Acts viii. 37. When Paul essayed to join himself with
the disciples at Jerusalem, Acts ix. 26, the reason why they declined him
for a time, was not because they tendered a covenant to him, and he refused
it, but because they were all afraid of him, and believed not that he was a
disciple, implying, that had they believed this concerning him, that he had
been a disciple, i. e. a believer, they would have received him without more
ado ; yea, upon Barnabas his mere testimony of him, without any covenant
subscribed, confession made, or word spoken by himself, he was received,
ver. 27, 28. So again, Acts xi. 24, there is mention made of many that
were joined to the Lord, i. e. were immembered into the church ; but no
more words of any such covenant as you urge than a deaf man may hear.
If you propose the passages of the New Testament further, you will descry
many more stars of this constellation. Neither here can you have recourse
to those covenants mentioned in Old Testament, Ezra x. 3, Neh. ix. 38, &c.,
to pattern yours withal ; for then you fly to a sanctuary which yourselves
have polluted, by destroying all sympathy and agreement between a national
church, and that which you have instituted in particular. And besides, to
forsake the guidance of the Spirit of God under the New Testament, to seek
to make out our thoughts by the Old, is to ask the twilight in the evening,
whether it were light at noon-day. Moreover (if desire of brevity for the
present did not bind my hands), it were easy to demonstrate unto you,
what a solemn disagreement there is many ways between these covenants
and yours, and particularly in that precise circumstance v/hich must have
relieved you.
3. To me there is no imaginable use or necessity of this your covenant,
because believers, willing or agreeing to live together in the same body, are
bound by greater bands a thousandfold than any covenant they can make
between themselves, to perform mutually all manner of Christian love,
service, and duties whatsoever. Christ himself is the greatest of all bands,
and of all manner of obligements and engagements whatsoever, both to knit
and hold Christians together, to make them of one heart and of one soul,
A CHURCH COVENANT.
533
and to keep them so ; by whom (i. e. by Christ) all the body being coupled
and knit together, &c., Eph. iv. 16. And Avhcre the Scriptures speak of
other bands with him, and besides him (yet all relating to him), endearing
and binding Christians together as close as ever their hearts and souls will
pack or work into one, amongst them all your covenant cometh not into
any remembrance. ' There is one body, and one spirit, even as ye are
called in one hope of your vocation. There is one Lord, one faith, one
baptism, one God and Father of all.' Surely, if they had been joined and
jointed together by any such covenant as you speak of, and this covenant
been of divine institution, and of that high and sovereign consequence, as to
give them their life, being, and substance, as a church or body; the apostle
could not so far have forgotten himself as not to have mentioned it amongst
its fellows, especially there being no place (that I can readily call to mind)
more commodious throughout all his writings, to have made a particular and
express mention hereof than here. Add, for my part, I freely and ingenu-
ously, and in the simplicity of my heart, profess to you that I neither know
what further or greater duty or service of love, in any kind I can desire or
wish, of those my brethren in Christ, upon whom the providence of God
(together with my own voluntary election) either hath or hereafter shall cast
me in church fellowship, than what they stand bound by the common band
of our mutual interest in the same God, in the same Lord, in the same
baptism, in the same hope, to exhibit, and tender, and perform unto me,
without the express of any such covenant made with or unto me. Nor yet
can I conceive how possibly I should have any better, richer, or stronger
assurance from them for the performance hereof unto me, by the virtue or
aid of any such covenant, above what I have by the power of that grace or
godliness v/hich (as far as I am able to judge) worketh effectually in them,
and subjecteth them to all the said bands and obligations. Nor can T think
that he whose strength to do evil will serve him to trample under foot the
blood of the Lord Christ, to cast the commandments of the glorious God be-
hind his back, to betray the hope of his own peace and glory, will ever be
kept in a Christian compass towards me, by any promise, band, or covenant
of his own. I know not how to think it a sin in me not to desire or exact
a greater security for my portion in the saints than God himself hath given
me and established me in. If here your answer be, that your covenant re-
specteth as well every man's faithfulness towards God, as discharge of duty
one towards another; and therefore in this regard (at least) there may be a
necessity of it ; to this I answer (in few words), 1, why is not the un-
necessary part (at least) of your covenant (which I conceive to be the great-
est), viz., that which concerns the covenanter's duty towards his fellows,
struck off? 2. If such a covenant as this, with or towards God, be so
necessary a duty, why is the place of it nowhere to be found amongst all
the commandment of God ? Doubtless God requires it not at our hands
to be either more provident or jealous for his glory than he is himself.
8. And, lastly, this covenant is neither lawful before baptism, nor necessary
after ; therefore the necessity of it falls to the ground, and is not defensible.
That it is not lawful before baptism, is evident, because it is not lawful for a
church to receive the unbaptized into fellowship with them, as members of
their body, neither is there example or appearance of warrant in Scripture
for such a thing. As evident it is, that after baptism it is altogether un-
necessary, because baptism doth immediately qualify for church fellowship
(as hath been said, your own pi-inciples not gainsaying), and your church
itself, by admitting any to her baptism, ipso facto, admits into her fellowship.
Therefore, I add,
534
TWO LETTERS CONCERNING
4. That the requiring and exacting of such a covenant of men, and the
imparting of church fellowship upon it, I conceive to be an unchristian
usurpation upon the consciences of men, and a tempting of God, by laying
such a burden upon his people, which he must give strength (more than
otherwise were necessary) to bear, or otherwise they must sutler (at least) if not
fall under it. And I believe, I know some, worthy every ways of the honour
(according to the line of men), who, desirous of entrance into some of your
churches, were turned back by a dislike of that new door of your covenant.
And, lastly, we conceive the exacting and giving such a covenant is not
only a thing unnecessary, and a uts^ o ysygccTra/, a something above any-
thmg that is written, but of worse inconvenience also (at least, as many of
those that are engaged in it are wont to draw and interpret the importance
thereof). For many look upon the covenant they have made with a par-
ticular church as a partition wall, wholly to separate them in care, affection,
dependence, &c., upon all other churches, and the saints of God throughout
the world ; and take it for an authentical discharge and release from heaven,
froni troubling themselves any ways with the affairs of other churches, or
ministering unto their necessities at any time. It was not much short of
this, which a great defender of your faith professed plainly unto me not
long since, and that before some witnesses. Calvin well observes, upon
Rom. xvi. 16, that Paul's study and desire was, by his careful remembrance,
and sending the mutual salutations of one church to another, quantum m
se est, mutuo amoris nexu devincire inter se ovinia Christi membra, as far as
lay in his power, to bind all the "members of Christ wheresoever in one and
the same mutual band and affection together. Now if Paul herein did the
will and commandment of God (which I cannot think you will deny), then
as our Saviour charged the scribes and pharisees that they made the com-
mandment of God of no effect {i. e. they had taken a course to do it, done
that which directly tended thereunto), by their tradition, so (we conceive)
we may justly challenge your covenant, for an ill look or malignant aspect
upon that part of the will of God, wherein he desires that all believers, all
the world over, should desire to maintain a free intercourse of the dearest
love and tenderest affection one towards another. The mighty God and
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ teach us how to make something of no-
thing, and by the use of a miserable, distracted, and broken world, to com-
pass and fetch in the day of eternity. Grace, peace, and truth be multiplied
to you and yours from the great fountain of the heavenly treasures.
I am, yours in the Lord for the greatest services of Christian love and
acquaintance, John Goodwin.
CoLMAN Steeet, London, October 25. 1639.
To the Reverend Mr John Goodwin.
My ancient friend and dear brother in the Lord, and work of the Lord, I re-
ceived from you now about ten weeks since a letter, together with an enclosed
confutation of the church covenant (as you suppose it is) practised amongst
us. Your letter is full enough of provocation to an answer, which you needed
not to have seemed so much to doubt. And yet further to provoke unto
it, and to get ground of us in it too, I hear that copies either of your letter
or query, or both, as by you sent to me, were dispersed everywhere abroad,
and some afore the time they came to my hand. Your letter bears date from
you October 25. ; I received it about the 20th of November. You had indeed
A CHURCH COVENANT.
535
used liberty of speech enough in your letter to me, as yourself excuses it,
because (as you say) you know I am well able to bear it, yea, and this also.
And whereas now you, or at least those who had yours so long afore myself,
may think it high time to expect a full answer, I must ingenuously tell you,
what perhaps in most men's eyes will yet add to that advantage you have
already taken, that I do but now begin to consider by way of study to answer
your objections. You then took me in the very midst of many other notions
upon another subject, which both my own heart and promises had engaged
me in. And truly I resolved that this of yours should not take me oil', not-
withstanding all those urgencies, until I had quitted myself of that which
hath so much took up my thoughts, that (God knows) I have not cast a
thought, more than what arose in the very first reading of it, upon this of
yours. And besides other reasons for this, I thought it a little unnatural
to extrude what I was then a-going with, or to entertain any other concep-
tion that might weaken or abortive it, and I have not strength enough to go
with two together. But now that I am delivered of that burden, I shall, as
health, and many other ministerial labours, which my heart is much more
in, will permit, apply myself, through Christ, to satisfy you in this, and I
long and am straitened till I have accomplished it. But now I must further
tell you, to your greater advantage still for the present, that I foresee the true
and right stating this one particular query, which you have singled out of
the drove as the weakest (which you thought to hunt and pursue to death),
together with the clearing of it according to your mind, will necessarily re-
quire yet a longer time than happily may be expected. It was wisely done
to begin to set down first before this small fort, which being thus singly set
upon, and alone, you made account to carry with an easy and glorious con-
quest ; for indeed it lies somewhat high and remotely up in the regions of
those other fundamental opinions about church fellowship wherein we differ
from you. So as, to speak truth, I cannot so fairly come at you to raise your
siege until I have forced you to give up truths of greater moment, which,
when I shall have done, this about a church covenant shall fall into our hands
again with few or no blows. I could for the present make out an answer
sufficient to your arguments, as in your discourse you will needs state the
questioQ, by nothing but a bare relation of what is our common practice and
judgment here at Arnheim in this particular, which, had you informed your-
self of afore you fell upon us, I am confident you would never have begun
the quarrel with us here, and have made this the great seat of the war. For
as to the putting any to deliver their judgments in points of doubtful dispu-
tations, upon and before admission into our church (I speak it in the words
of the charge in the letter, and by some expressions in the arguments, I per-
ceive it one ground of this quarrel, supposing that this is the manner of our
covenant), we know not what you mean. Look what knowledge and light
agreeing with ours any one voluntarily holds forth, we take and hear with
rejoicing in the unanimity ; but profess in rigour to exact no more assent
and light (I speak in matters of church fellowship) than of being convinced
that church fellowship is an ordinance of Christ, for saints to enjoy other
ordinances in together, which is no more than what is essentially and abso-
lutely necessary to that very act of joining in it, and is in eftect to profess
they understand what they are about to do, that so we may be sure that a
name and ordinance of God is not taken in vain by them. And for any such
covenant (which you blame so for length, that the apostles their dispatch
was but an ace to this covenant of ours, and for tyranny as unchristian usur-
pation upon the consciences of men, and a tempting of God by laying such
a burden upon his people. And for schism, you would accuse it as a par-
536
TWO LETTERS CONCEENING
tition-'wall wholly to separate men in care, affection, dependence upon all
other churches and saints of God throughout the world) it is no more with
us than this, an assent and resolution professed (by them to be admitted by
us), with promise to walk in all those ways pertaining to this fellowship, so
far as they shall be revealed to them in the gospel.
Thus briefly, indefinitely, and implicitly, and in such like words, and no
more or otherwise, do we apply ourselves to men's consciences, not obtruding
the mention of any one particular upon them before or in admission, but
wholly leaving before and after their spirits free to the entertainment of the
light that shines, or shall shine, both to them and us out of the word, and
unto the sweet guidance of the Holy Spirit of Christ to lead both them and
us unto all truth, without either our haling or driving them. Indeed, we
that are to admit, do it upon a conviction and persuasion of the party's true
grace, some way made forth visible to us. And we think any Christian man
may blush to name (now under the New Testament, when types and shadows
are fled away, and the body of the truth is come) a body, and church, and
members of Christ our Head, and not mean saints, and by saints understand
at least such as, by the rules of the word, given by God himself to judge others
by, are visible saints. And we find confession with the mouth of the work of
failh in the heart, a means among other sanctified by God to make any one's
grace evident and visible to others; and the judgment we make hereupon to
admit our members, is no other or more rigorous than what the word holds
forth as meet for us to judge of others by, and but such as I know your con-
science carries about with you, and which you can never lose, and which, as
occasion is given, you do use to judge of the difi'erences of men by ; and we
know that in us it is righteous judgment, being squared by the rule given us,
although it is not infahible judgment, for men may deceive us in our appli-
cations of it. Thus we do and have practised, and this is all for matter of
covenant or confession in use with us, and that from the beginning. And
thus much in effect you grant, or seem to grant, whilst about confession in
the beginning of the second argument you use these words, ' Many instances
there are wherein only (say you) upon a sober profession of their faith in
Christ, and entertainment of the gospel, men have been received into churches,'
speaking of Scripture instances in the apostles' times. And in the beginning
of the third argument you add these words. Believers, wiUing and agreeing
to live together in the same body with you, afterwards instancing in your
own, you do call church fellowship. Well, let them be believers, wilhng and
desirous upon knowledge of each other to be such upon a profession of their
faith, and also what this fellowship is, and let them withal but agree, by
mutual consent and assent expressed to each other (or how else do they agree
to live together in a fellowship and body ?), so to live in that relation, and
all the duties, and you and I are agreed. And now suppose unto this agree-
ing of yours we join covenanting and promise, yet still but with those inde-
finite expressions mentioned, assuredly whatever you and I mutually agree
to do, if it be a matter of moment, we may as well and as lawfully promise
and covenant to do. And therein what do we more than tie a double knot
where you tie a single one ? And yet, that you and I may still agree, if you
or any believer comes to be admitted among us upon the terms aforesaid,
and did scruple the word covenant and promise, we would take your single
agreement without such double security. And this knot and band, thus
firmly by a covenant made to tie us among ourselves as to the duties of this
relation, is yet so far from being a wall of partition (as you would fain charge
both us and it) from all saints and churches else, whom we love, pray for,
hold communion with, and honour as the spouse and churches of Christ, and
A CHURCH COVENANT. 537
yours also (only give ua leave to have our chnrclies not separated, divided,
though in some things differing from yours, which therefore we could not be
permitted to enjoy in our own land) ; it is so far, I say, from being a wall of
separation from all others, that we count it not indissoluble among ourselves
(as that of marriage is), but only obliging us to live together in this fellow-
ship and the duties of it as becometh saints, whilst we are cast to live toge-
ther as men by our outward calling and conditions, which cohabitation, the
first, though remotest ground of church fellowship, and almost of all fellow-
ship else, wherein, if providence maketh any alteration requiring a just
remove, they may lawfully seek, and we do willingly grant a dismission from
us to any other church, notwithstanding this our covenant obhging us to
this particular fellowship ; but whilst we live together, a covenant, and that
made afore God, and an oath unto God, are both and alike ordinances which
may warrantably be used in all affairs human and divine, wherein there
passeth vtutuus coivpactiis, a mutual agreement between men, or any special
relation made up among men by agreement. Thus, if you marry, you make
a solemn covenant of it to perform the duties of that relation ; if you enter
into any new league, even of friendship, you may bind it by a covenant, as
did Jonathan and David. Thus, to be admitted into any body or polity
civil, men make not only a covenant, but do often add thereto an oath, and
such is called the covenant of God, as that of marriage, and the oath of God,
as that between prince and people in a commonwealth. Now, if this church
fellowship be a body, and that to be entered into by believers agreeing to
live in the same body, as your words and the truth express, and such a body
as superadds anything of a special relation mutual between each other of
that church more than that more common communion and relation of and
unto all saints in the church cathohc (and if it did not so, there were no
need of any such act of agreement to live in the same body, for they were
members of the catholic church without it and before it), why, then, should
not such a covenant, and the use and benefit of it, be allowed to this body,
and special relation of church fellowship, to form up and knit fast the agree-
ment of it, as is common to all bodies and societies and particular relations
made up in the world ? not any of which you can well make up, or not so
well, without a covenant, or at least an agreement, and that passed by way
of words mutually expressing consent, and must needs be confessed most
suiting with and nearest to the very dictate of nature, whilst these societies
shall be made up of men to whom, to that very end that they might be
sociable, their speech was given them. And so this comes to be argued not
barely from the faint illustration of a lifeless and lame similitude and resem-
blance, but from the true and real analogy and like interest and correspond-
ence with the nature of the thing itself, which this divine society, body, and
relation of men doth in common hold and retain in this common bond of all
such societies for their making up, namely, an agreement expressed in
words, and a solemn covenant, and this jure iiaturali, even by a right which
both God and the nature of the thing itself hath endued it withal.
First, Nature doth evince it, the laws and rales of which doth run along
with and are alike common to things spiritual and human, so far as both are
said to agree in one common nature together ; for as when God made speak-
ing to men in a public assembly (as that of preaching and prophesying) a
sacred ordinance, instantly did all the laws of nature and right reason, that
eeem to regulate and covenantly concur to all orderly speeches and orations
of men in public assemblies made, fall upon this ordinance also, as to speak
aloud, not to speak in an unknown or strange tongue wliich the assemblies
understand not, not to speak confusedly two or three at once, but one by
538
TWO LETTERS CONCERNING
one. Even so when God made this fellowship of saints, and this special
relation of a few in a church fellowship and ordinance, instantly doth this of
making up this relation by a joint agreement, and constantly expressed in
words, present itself as the natural and common way of knitting all sorts of
men together in all other relations else in the world.
Secondhj, God hath ordained it ; for, if God hath thus lent in common (as
we may so speak) a solemn covenant, as before himself made, unto all other
relations and societies of any importance unto mankind, which, when in such
civil atiairs used, is to be esteemed sacred and an ordinance of God, a cove-
nant with God (as was said) and an oath with God, hath he not with that
same breath much more allotted and allowed the practice of such a covenant
to have place in the obligation of this divine society and relation, which is
itself an ordinance, and so of the two the more proper element for such a
holy covenant ? so as this is so far from being an i/^rsg 6 yiy^oLirrai, anything
above what is written (as you speak of it), that it rather comes within the
compass of the apostle's %^£/ai' [cdx] 'iy^in y^a^£/v, yea, indeed, which needed
not at all to have been written ; for (as he then speaks of love) ye are taught
it of God in a law of nature spiritualised, who also hath fully, roundly taught
us to acknowledge, if we be spiritual, yea, bnt reasonable, such dictates of
nature and right reason in things wherein divine ordinances and human
do alike partake in common, to be no less than the commands of God, for
of such like rules (even the same we but now instanced in) doth the apostle
there speak. Nor yet is this covenant the renewing that solemn general
covenant of grace entered into at conversion, where the sacraments of bap-
tism and the Lord's supper are the seals which you mention as band sutfi-
cient ; but this covenant is but a particular covenant, and so a branch of
that general one, and but to oblige unto the duties more properly and spe-
cially pertaining unto this fellowship, though all this in the virtue of the
general covenant ; and therefore although (as you say truly) the common
band of our mutual interest in the same God, in the same baptism, &c., do
bind us to all those duties, yet that hinders not a special particular covenant
to be made upon some special duties upon various occasions, even as parti-
cular leases and compacts use to be made out of some general charter ; for
example, baptism, and all those common interests in the same Lord, &c., do
oblige man and wife, master and servant, friend and friend, and also socie-
ties, unto all the duties belonging unto these several relations as they are laid
down in the word, and yet particular and solemn covenants do and may pass
between men for the performance of all these, or (to take your own instance
which in your third argument you have used) for the confirming those duties
and services of love to be performed towards yourself by those your brethren
in Christ, upon whom the providence of God, together with your own volun-
tary election, either here or hereafter, thall cast you into church fellowship
with. To maintain ministers for their labour and work of the ministry is (to
go on to use your own words) one duty and service of love to which they
stand bound by the common band of their mutual interest in the same God,
in the same baptism, in the same hope, to exhibit, tender, and perform unto
you, and which you may expect from the power of grace which worketh
effectually in them, and subjecteth them to all the same bonds and obliga-
tions, and yet I believe you did, at least you might, expressly have cove-
nanted with them that they should perform it ; and yet what is this but a
duty and a branch of church fellowship you have a statute for in the New
Testament ? And doth not the like reason hold for all other duties of that
whole fellowship ? And of this sort were those covenants which, besides
the obligation of the general covenant in the law in Horeb, and in circum-
A CHURCH COVENANT. 589
cision, were made of old by the people of God, tlie Jews, namely, special
covenants upon special occasions made to engage them more expressly unto
some special duties unto God or one another, whereof two instances you cite,
but withal do shut the doors of those sanctuaries upon us, if we should thither
fly for refuge, by alleging the forfeiture of our privilege therein, ' ourselves
having (as you speak) polluted them by destroying all sympathy and agree-
ment between a national church and that which we call instituted or parti-
cular.' But we affirm with all orthodox divines, that all the moral equity of
these covenants do still hold under the New Testament as much as ever, as
all things that were moral under the covenant also do, as a seventh-day-
Sabbath, infant baptism, &c. And the ministers' maintenance is argued
from that of not muzzling the ox's mouth ; and we have destroyed only
that sympathy with what was but typical then, which part of tkis sanc-
tuary God himself both polluted and abandoned, whilst we deny those
wonted arguments drawn from the mould and pattern of the national church
then, and from the universal mixture of all Israel therein, to prove the
like now in any whole national church in the world. And we affirm the
dedication of all that people to be a holy nation and a kingdom of priests,
and so generally to be members of that church, to be done but in a type and
shadow, as most things else were, although a real holiness was commanded
then as now, and required by God of all then as now ; as were their temples
also types of that royal nation, and true priesthood, and living stones, of
saints in truth, and visibly such in reality, as Peter expoundeth it, of whom
alone a particular church, the only instituted church we can find mentioned
in the Nev/ Testament succeeding that national, is to consist, as the only
truth and reality of that type. And as God made persons and actions un-
clean in the type, that morally were not unclean, so on the contrary, in the
like type all the nation holy, who yet morally were neither such, nor by the
saints in those times were judged such ; but the moral part of this sanctuary,
which is still to continue, yourself shall defile and destroy, if you either
affirm the ground of making those special covenants, not to have been moral,
or being moral, not to hold for pastors for a church or society, or society of
men together, to enter into the like now. But I resolved not to write a
scripture, which yet confirms all this, but do now only leave you unto your
own reason, spiritualised, to answer you out of what hath been said, in all
that is materially objected by you, yea, even to that same reason that tells
you that twice two is four, as yourself speaks of, there appearing so clearly
error in the greatest part of our whole way. And now you know both our
judgments and practice, although the difference between you and us in this
particular can prove but small, to have answered all the material things in
the query, so far as they relate unto this covenant, would be but an easy and
no long work ; yet, for their sakes, to whom you have made this challenge
against our whole church fellowship so public, and endeavoured to make as
odious as public, who yet are ignorant of it, I shall, God willing, put myself
to further pains, yet to shew more largely the foundation of our church work,
and so of this practice ; and in doing this, I shall take the larger compass,
and require the more time, because I see you will not allow me so much as
a stick or a stone unto this building, yea, I am to fight for the very ground
I am to build upon ; for notwithstanding what I have took hold of in your
discovery as granted by you, yet I cannot assure myself of any one prin-
ciple from you about church-fellowship, but that there is a catholic church,
and a communion of saints in the creed, which we all acknowledge ; for
otherwise, when we speak of a particular instituted church, you seem to make
it a matter of our making, and not as of God's institution. And besides,
640 TWO LETTERS CONCERNING A CHURCH COVENANT.
if I should go about to beg any one of these principles, even the lowest about
a particular church, I know not what, nor indeed how large I may be denied.
You have enacted a supreme law, as you call it, against all such beggars in
this dissertation ; and if the foundation should be denied, what can we do
till we have established them ? I am resolved, therefore, and must be at
the more pains, and expense of time, who yet am able to take but little
pains in much time, to satisfy and make good, as I go along, all those prin-
ciples which you slight as loose and faint suppositions. And therein I have
but one request to make to you, and by you to make to others, to whom you
have made your letter and objections so common: let not this, my taking a
longer day, add one hair to the stature of your confidence, which is full high
and tall enough already in any man's view, even in the very first words of your
arguments, neither unto your own, or any of their opinions of the strength of
these their arguments. But above all, I beseech you not to draw so hard a
consequence from the suspension of a more full answer, as to expect me sooner
with you than an answer ; for I assure you, did not the merit of the cause
itself, and the condition of it, not being understood by most, require it, that
men may come to a right understanding of us, I should not have needed any
more time for the clearing of any scruple or doubt, which all this your dis-
course had any way begotten in my own reason or conscience, than simply
when I was a reading it first over. And in this my answer, I shall not go
about to contend with you, either in rhetoric, or subtilty of answering, but
in solidity and faithfulness, through the grace of Christ. To say I shall so
answer thus or thus soon, I make account is but the credit of the answer,
which I have learned not to strive with you about, but to give you, as you
see, all the fair advantages ; but to answer you with words of truth and
soberness, that may, through Christ, convince you and others, shall be my
only aim ; and then I know, although I should be long in doing of it, yet
delays and charges will therein be paid with interest and advantage unto the
cause and truth, which I expect more than what I am else in this world.
Neither yet will I undertake to answer you as you expect, letter for letter,
tittle for tittle, word for word, in some things in your letter. I know such
retcrLions are affixable to any person or cause, and never decided contro-
versies; much less will I begin to vie moral imputations with you; no,
though you should begin, and we fear not what you can beside ; but my
endeavours shall be to return you matter for matter, and in that business
alone, through Christ that strengthens me, to give you measure for measure,
pressed down and running over ; and withal, which shall be unto me the
supreme law of this dissertation, to give a new consideration to every grain
that addeth weight in anything you say, yea, and recall and retract also what-
ever I shall find that we are out in. And this kind of inconstancy, however
you should blemish me for, yet I count one of the greatest perfections of us
imperfect men, imperfect in knowledge here below. And all this I shall do
with the greatest candour and simplicity, and which shall also be sacred to
me along this dispute, so to handle matters as to be sure to part good
friends. And, in the mean time, let this be laid up in your bosom, to sweeten
these waters of strife between us, viz., an assurance from me, that you still
hold in my heart as high and full esteem of so great worth, learning, and
piety, as ever you did ; and how much you did, yourself knows, and many
others ; and withal, that I retain as candid a judgment of the truth of your
church state and calling in the ministry, for the essentials of it, as is in any
of your best hearers. Account but of me as the servant of Christ, the un-
worthiest, and one of your most faithful, loving friends,
Tho. Goodwin.
TWO LETTERS
OF THE AUTHOR TO THE REVEREND MR ROBERT ASTY OF NORWICH,
CONCERNING
THE EQUAL AUTHORITY AND POWER OF PASTOR AND
TEACHER IN A CHURCH.
THE FIRST LETTER.
Reverend Sir, — I see you are pressed in your spirit (and it may be from
the Lord) to seek my judgment in the case of your accepting or not accepting
your call at Norwich to the ministry. I perceive you have given up yourself
to serve Christ in the way of preaching, with good and sincere intention ; and
you do only doubt, by reason of the sense of your own inability, whether you
should accept of a fixed place of office to be added to that of preaching without
it. To this case thus stated, I give, according to my present poor judgment,
two answers : the first is, that the great sense of your own inability, though,
as considered in itself, it may deter you, yet that you have this deep sense
beforehand, ought to be a great encouragement to you, that God hath given
you such a spirit. As in the case of profession of religion, the fears of
falling away, and not being able to do anything as we ought (and twenty
such discouragements), ought not nor do they finally keep any that are
sincere from their profession of religion ; but (as saith one) the power and
assistance of Christ they are to live upon for enabhng them. Parallel to this,
whether you should be a Christian or no, is whether you should be a minister
or no. Sensibleness of our insufficiency is a character of such a frame of
spirit as above all fits a man for the ministry ; ' for who is suflftcient for these
things,' as of ourselves? and whei-ein you are weak, you shall find yourself
strong through the power of Christ that rests upon you ; for sufficiency is of
God, and we are not able to think a good thought of ourselves. And with
these apprehensions did Paul both enter into the ministry, and was carried
on in it ; and as for your apprehensions of your gifts for the ministry, and
fitness for that work, you are to take the judgment of a church that have
been used to men of gifts and great gifts, now in choosing of you, and that
as by the Holy Ghost ; for it is the Holy Ghost who makes overseers over
the church. Therefore the church's choice, and the promise that in what
God calls a man to he will not leave him nor forsake him, may be sufficient
satisfaction to you. And then besides there is a special blessing will accom-
pany a man in an office, through the grace of God, more than doth in his
ordinary preaching without office. I use to say the loadstone doth draw,
542 TWO LETTERS CONCERNING
but especially if it be set in steel, 1 Cor. xii. 28, 1 Tim. iii. 15. Sir, I
sbould advise this concerning bim tbat is to be joined with you in office,
endeavour to observe by all ways you can bis temper of spirit, not as to
religion (I suppose sincerity and ability to be in bim), but as to bis carriage,
his natural temper. There are oftentimes very great burdens upon men's spirits
that are yoked together, and breaches from unsuitableness of spirit do often
fall out into sad events in churches. — The man is utterly a stranger to me.
— You know the sad events between Paul and Barnabas ; there was a selfish-
ness in Barnabas to have Mark go with them. He was his sister's son, and
though Barnabas was a good man, an apostle, j^et he stuck unto his selfish
end so much, he was so pertinacious in it, that it caused a breach to part,
and they never met again that we read of; and Paul was in the right. I
beard since you wrote to me, as if there were some discouragements that
you have besides them that you wrote, which I must leave wholly to yourself.
But if you be yoked with your own consent, you are irrevocable ; but yet
you are free as to your own consent, and you have as great a freedom on
your part to accept or not, as the church had of choosing on their part.
For your other query, of the equality or inequality of power in the office
of a pastor and a teacher, and of their administrations, wherein they differ.
For the fi.rst, I know no difference of superiority, and the apostle condemned
it in Diotrephes, 3 John ver. 9, of one above the other, they are prophesying
elders both: Eph. iv. 11, 'Some pastors and teachers;' they are yoked
together alike, whereas the former are single, * some apostles, some prophets,
and some evangelists.' These being extraordinary ministers, they may admit
subordination, as an evangelist was under and lower than the office of an
apostle ; but these two are yoked together in one, ' some pastors and
teachers.' They that labour in the word and doctrine are to have double
honour alike ; lliere is not a third honour to be given to one above the other.
TheCuth and 66th chapters of Isaiah are promises of all the last and best times
of the gospel, which ver. 22 shews sufficiently, and their worship is spoken
in ver. 23, their officers in the 21st, whereof there were two sorts in general,
priests and Levites. The Levites were those that helped about sacrifices,
and were under the priests, but the priests were equal ; and who are the priests
but those whose lips preserve knowledge ? For the substance of their office
they were co-ordinate officers, not subordinate, as the Levites to the priests.
Answerably in Ptom. xii., where the officers of a church are set out at the
6th verse, and so on to the 9th, he says, 'Having then gifts differing according
to the grace that is given us,' for ministerial gifts are always suited, and then
he divides them first into two generals : 1, prophecy; 2, ministry. He speaks
of ordinary officers. Those that have to prophesy have to do with matters of
faith : ' Let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith given us ; or
ministry, ' Let us wait on our ministry.' Then he comes to subdivide these
into these particulars : first, * he that teacheth, to attend on teaching,' as
npon an office ; ' he that exhorteth, on exhortation.' Those are the par-
ticulars belonging to prophecy ; and as pastor is set before teacher in the
Ephesians, here teacher is set before pastor; so that, comparing one with
another, I make them equal with those offices that belong to the ministry.
The other generals are three, as it follows, and are lower and under : 'he
that giveth,' and ' he that ruleth,' and ' that sheweth mercy.' You may see
this opened at large by Mr Cotton in The Way of the Churches of Neiv
England. This for the equality ; only I say this, as to the highest of their
work, which is the word and prayer, they are both equal.
For the second. For the difference in their administrations, this is one
principle with me, that the distinction of officers arises from the distinction
CHURCH GOVERNMENT. 543
of gifts God doth give unto men fitted for ofiice, and I found it upon 1 Cor.
xii. 4-6, ' There are diversities of gifts, but the same spirit ; and there are
difi'erences of administrations, but the same Lord ; and there are diversities
of operations,' successes of God's working upon men's hearts, that is, from
God the Father. All three persons are interested in the ministry as well as
in our salvation. The gifts are what the Holy Ghost gives, and endows a
man habitually withal, and they are divers. The administrations are offices
appointed by the Lord Christ the great Shepherd, and there are differences
of administrations suited for the difference of exercise of gifts. And, thirdly,
the success is from God the Father, who is the God of all grace and the
founder of all, as the Gth verse has it. Now the diversity of gifts for teacher
and for pastor are as apparent, and that before called to office, which is
suited to these diversities of gifts, habitually given by the Holy Ghost, as
Jesus Christ appointed offices ; and happy is the man that is a minister that is
called to that kind of office which his gifts suits, for then they will run in a
more natural channel. The diversity of gifts by the Holy Ghost doth appear.
Some more comparatively have a powerful way of exhorting, persuading,
working upon the affections, and abound in uses ; others have a gift of
handling things in a doctrinal way, to open and fetch out the true meaning
and sense of Scripture, which often needs an acuteness to find out, and to
give reasons for the proof of a thing, an ability to answer objections and untie
knots, have a good judgment in controversies, yet both may have abihty
either way, but with a disproportion one more than the other. Answerably
in that Rom. xii. of the prophesying officers, one is an exhorter, to bend
himself to exhortation ; and exhortation is put for comfort, and for like
reason for reproof, and for what is directly practical. And the teacher he
has ability to establish men's hearts in truth, and they are to bend them-
selves accordingly : ' he that exhorteth, on exhortation ; he that teacheth, on
teaching.' 1 Cor. xii. 8, ' To one is given wisdom, to another knowledge, by
the same Spirit ;' these are meant plainly of ordinary gifts. That which
follows in the 9th verse is healing, and those that are extraordinary. Thus
also that place in Timothy is understood by some of preaching officers that
are'worthy of double honour, that labour in the word, that is, of exhortation
and that labour in doctrine ; and some have stretched the difference to be
set out by that scheme of a church in Rev. iv. of the four beasts ; the fourth
■was like an eagle, that has an eagle's eye into truths, &c.
Thus, Sir, I have given you my thoughts that I have at present (for my
notes about church government at present are not with me, beinf^ I am
removing). With my love remembered to you, and prayers to guide you, I rest
your very affectionate friend and brother in Christ,
Tho. Goodwin.
London, March the 25th 1675.
THE SECOND LETTER.
Reverend Sir, — I received your important letter about two months since,
which was time enough to have answered it if opportunity had served; but
truly I have been weak and sickish ever since, and my eyes fail me that I
cannot WTite myself, so much as to set down my own thoughts and private
studies; and, besides, I did suppose that you had the strength of what I
could say in that letter I wrote you by Mr Berman, which yourself says in
your last satisfied you so much, that I thought I needed to write no more
544 TWO LETTERS CONCERNING
or if I did, I should but fall into the same thoughts again. But you having
now revived it in your letters to the elders in general, and therein required
my cognisance, I strain myself to write again.
This controversy about the authority and power of pastor and teacher
was first started among the Brownist churches in Holland, by Francis
Johnson, one of the rigid separation, who out of the Old Testament went
about to prove the government by pastors and teachers under the New to
be conformed to the analogy of the Old, and so to make a pastor in a con-
gregational church to be as a high priest ; but, as I remember, it took not
with his brethren. This book I have either lost, or it was burnt in the fire
of London, else I would send it you.
The arguments in my present thoughts, to prove that the pastor and
teachers are equal in power (which is the particular point of which you in-
quire), are such as these.
1. The first is taken from what the apostle says, 1 Cor, iv. 1, ' Let a man
so account of us as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries
of God.' 1. He speaks it of the preaching elders of the New Testament,
the ordinary ministers of the word, 2. He speaks what esteem they are to
have according to their order and rank from all men, and then much more
from the church over which they are placed. 8. He speaks universally of
all such as are the ministers to such churches : ' Let a man so account of
us,' &c.
Now their office in common to them all is to be stewards of Christ and of
the mysteries of God, whereby the sacraments are especially intended, as
well as the dispensation of the word and prayer. For the sacraments are, in
a figurative signification, the person of Christ himself, and in a special
manner mysteries ; and the ancients did usually and generally term them
mysteries ; and accordingly that place, Eph. v. 32, ♦ This is a great
mystery,' is interpreted by them a great sacrament ; and thereupon the
papists, who are the great pretenders to antiquity, have made marriage a
sacrament to this day ; but that scripture is genuinely meant of Christ and
his church, as appears by the words spoken alter.
2. "When our Saviour Christ did institute the new ministry of the gospel
in the room of the old, he first chose twelve apostles, who were the extra-
ordinary ministers of the New Testament ; and besides those, he sent out seven
disciples to preach the gospel, and sent them two by two, one having like
authority and equality with the other. And these are, as Bishop Andrews
doth interpret it rightly, the standing ordinary ministers of congregations.
3. When Christ at last, afore his ascension, gave authority to go preach
the gospel, and teach all nations, with the same breath he gives them
authority to administer the sacraments. Go and baptize as well as preach
the word. The commission was for the sacraments and word together, and
for one sacrament as well as another, so as the administration of these are
of like extent, as occasion is ; and correspondently to this, the apostle Paul,
Eph. iv. 10, 11, confirms it: ' When he ascended up on high,' says he, ' and
gave gifts unto men, he gave some, apostles ; and some, prophets ; and some,
evangelists.' These are extraordinary ministers in those times of differing
decrees and order each particular of them, and therefore each particular is
distinguished by the word some. And then he specifies the ordinary stand-
inf^ ministers that were to continue in all ages to the end of the world ;
' piasters and teachers,' about whom the present question is. Now obseiwe
the difference he puts. Indeed, the word sovie is set before pastors and
teachers, to distinguish them from the extraordinary he had spoken of afore,
and to shew they were of another rank than the former. But observe again
/^
CHURCH GOVERNMENT.
545
that he puts no such diflference between the pastors and teachers ; he doth
not say, some pastors, and some teachers.'^' He doth not place the word some
afore each, as he had done afore, but says only pastors and teachers, to shew
they are of equal commission and rank.
4. I might here add that grand record, Rom. xii., which the apostle Paul
left behind him, on purpose as it were to check the pride of the church of
Rome (which the Holy Ghost foresaw would be the mistress of misrule),
and to prevent that disorder of officers in the church rising unto that
grandeur, to which the Roman clergy have ascended, of thrones and
dominions, &c., and to depress and suppress all such attempts in those
officers. The Holy Ghost left a scheme of those several officers and works
of them, first dividing their functions into two heads, ver. G, 7, prophecy
and ministry, and then subdividing them into particulars, that ' he who
teacheth should wait on teaching,' ver, 7. There is one preaching elder,
your teacher ; and ' he that exhorteth on exhortation,' there is your pastor ;
and these two particulars come under that first head of prophecy ; and they
that do so are the two preaching elders, as appears by the following words,
' Let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith.' So as matters of
faith are the subject matter and work of their two offices ; and then follows
the three other particular officers which are to be reduced under the other
general head of ministry, or diaxovsla, which are the inferior officers. ' He
that giveth, let him do it with simplicity,' which we call the deacon; * he
that ruleth, with diligence,' the ruling elder is meant ; ' he that sheweth
mercy, with cheerfulness,' which intends looking to the sick and infirm,
which is a nauseating work. And if any object that this office of shewing
mercy runs in the language of the masculine gender, I answer,
(1.) Whether it be a man or woman who undertakes the work, it is all
one.
(2.) The apostle had begun the enumeration of these officers in the mas-
culine gender.
(3.) It is to be considered, that in all the other particular offices he men-
tions, the officers thereof are males, and therefore at the last he continues
the same gender, noting out a person, to keep to the analogy of the language
with which he had begun. This chapter I thus opened in the assembly,
but you may see it more largely in Mr Cotton's Treatise of the Way of the
Churches in New Enriland.
5. Consider what the apostle says, 1 Tim. v. 17, ' Let the elders that rule
well, be counted worthy of double honour, especially they who labour in the
word and doctrine.' The apostle's scope is to set the differing valuation that
churches were to put upon their officers for their works' sake, and he puts a
special note upon the preaching elders that labour in the word and doctrine.
The difi'erence he puts is only between them and the ruling elders ; but he
yokes them, viz., the pastor and teacher together, as co-ordinate and of like
rank, for their works' sake ; yea (and as I have thought), with a distinction
of their offices, intimated in those phrases, ' that labour,' namely, in the
' word' of exhortation, which is the pastor's office (it is the apostle's phrase
elsewhere), and ' in doctrine,' which the teacher is to apply himself to.
6. The several gifts God gives (which are suited to offices, and officers to
them) do warrant this distinction. Thus, in 1 Cor. xii., he discourses of the
several gifts and offices of those that are the eminent members of the body ;
and by helps in government, ver. 28, I understand the ruling elder assisting
their teachers. In the fore part of the chapter, ver. 4-6, he shews how God
* See A ins worth's Discourse on the Ministry, in 4to.
VOL. XI. M m
51G CHURCH GOVBKNMENT.
has given gifts (that is, infused habits), and they are suited to offices, and
both blessed by God.
Now, among those gifts fitting men for those administrations and opera-
tions, ' to one is given a word of wisdom,' which is more proper to a pas-
tor ; ' to another a word of knowledge,' that is for the teacher, which is a
gift more speculative. And you may find in experience, that some men's
gifts are more for exhortation, and to set home uses ; others to invent rea-
sons for proofs and explanations of truths. And look into your auditors, and
you will find some to affect a ministry that moves and persuades their affec-
tions, and stirs their wills ; and you will find others that affect depths of
knowledge, and each profiteth by either, for that is the rule, 1 Cor. xii. 7.
The ministration of the Spirit in all these administrations is given to every
man to profit withal ; and thus harmoniously doth one thing answer, and
is suited to another, and by these God shews his care and wisdom, by several
gifts and offices suited to men's needs and spirits, and shews his love in
making provision for the defects and wants that are in his poor saints. The
teacher has the care of their understandings, to cure the errors and defects
therein ; and the pastor has their wills and afl'ections principally committed
to his charge, to work upon and move them ; and which of these you will
prefer most in man, the will or understanding to be the more principal
iaculty, you may by the same measure give dignity to these officers for their
work sake.
7. God further shews he has a care of men's lives and conversations, in
setting up the ruling elder to watch over their conversations, for that is his
charge. God shews his care over their bodies and estates, in appointing the
office of a deacon to look to their wants ; and he takes care of their bodily
infirmities, by appointing them that are to shew mercy. And thus God has
taken care for all about his people, b.oth for his own honour, and their good
who are his children. He hath sufficiently provided for their education in
this world, till they come to heaven. As persons that are gi-eat kings and
princes have several offices for every business, though very small, and they
have them to shew their greatness, so Christ will have the like too in his
church.
Let these things be sufficient to answer this my scope and design, and to
prove that these two offices of pastor and teacher, and their gifts and labours,
are co-ordinate in respect of preference of one to the other, or dependence
of the one upon the other, much more are they freed from any subjection of
one unto the other. So that to advance one above the other is an apparent
violation of the sacred order which God has instituted and fixed, and is an
injurious usurpation out of ignorance and pride, such as was in Diotrephes,
whom the apostle John so condemns. The breaking of churches will be
hazarded if this principle prevail ; and let any man take heed how he defile
the temple of God, much more destroy it, for him God will destroy.
I am, yours, &c.,
Tho. Goodwin.
Postscript.
I intended by my letter to take away all precedency whatsoever, and my
reasons do manifestly tend to it, and therefore I make it my conclusion ;
and those words in respect of preference, are all one as if I had said in
respect of precedency.
END OF VOL. XI.
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