The Government of the Churches of Christ

CHAP. I.

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 Subdivision 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 Politick, and a Kingdom in the Total Consideration of it, and being a Similar Body, 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 Proportion, 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 Authorize and Endow all such particular Subordinations with Ecclesiastical Power; only left the Distribution of this vast and great Common-Wealth and Pody Politick, 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 Judicatory 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 Consistories and Associations, even from Congregational 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 Honor 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 Principle (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 Politick Model, as an Invention of Man, (which Reareth up a Worldly Frame and Theater for Elders, through several Stairs, to enter upon the Heritage 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 Consideration a Church, nor to any other End, Use, or Purpose, than is the Universal: 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 into 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 •• at 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 Congregational 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 in that forementioned General Principle, yet do differ, as two Extreams. The one, as we conceive, diffuseth a pretended Instituted Policy too vastly, engaging 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 particular 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 ought 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 Ames (and others who have been Esteemed Orthodox Divines) we conceive that the notition or consideration of Church, which the Universal Body of Saints stands under, is merely 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 Professors 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 politick 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 Scandalls; And the Honor 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 Scandalls.

3. And further we conceive, that the gathering of Saints into such particular 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 Organization of this body, what kind of Officers or Original 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 serve to, 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 answerable special blessing (which special promise of blessing doth indeed, if there were no more, make an Institution and Ordinance of that thing to which 'tis made) of being with such Assembl ••• of his, over and above the blessing which from the Virtual Catholic Relatio • 〈◊〉 Communion between Christians in general, and on occasional ways, 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 acco • 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 punishment, 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 Administred, 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 Administred, it is null, and of no force. And these bodies thus Endowed hath Christ appointed, as un •••• ••• ols 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 University, 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 Institution, 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 Priviledged 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 Saints, in case of offense, 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 politice, or as Arm'd by Christ with a Judicial Power of giving up to Satan; but they proceed and deal each with other, modo Mystico, 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 obligeth 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 whole, and all the parts, to be a Political Instituted Body, Arm'd with Government, as the first Opinion doth; or on the other side, to make the Communion 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: apprehending 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 constitution; 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 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 correspondency, and are by Christ obliged to all sorts of Communion, and which accordingly 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 what ever else they shall prove to be) are to hold their constitution and formation 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 Superadded Institution, for the constitution of particular Churches, and for the endowing 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 proportion of these Churches that are the Seat of Government, must also necessarily be set forth by such a special Divine Institution.

CHAP. II.

THE Church universal, is a Church by an higher ground than by that Institution, 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 Efficacious 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 latter day, as it is said of Christ, Ps. 2. As their Worship, 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 themselves 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 Incorporation 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 imbodying of Men into societies, and the enabling them to Act in them. And so the constitution of these Spiritual Bodies, 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. 3. 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 promise. 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 Synhedrim 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 •• ey taught nothing but what Christ commanded them, Matth. 28 ult. And when they • ad taught them to become Churches, they wrote to them as 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 20. 28. Therefore ordained 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, Rev. 1. 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 • ody▪ 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 bigness, 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 Congregational 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 show 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 super-added Institution of Christ.
• 6. I shall at last show that a Congregational Church, is by Christ's Institution 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 her Government, but hath established them in his Divine Word of the Scriptures, I shall lay down, and demonstrate these following Propositions.

Propsition 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. 16. 18, 19. And by Excommunication Men Bind and Loose, as well as by Preaching or by Praying. 2. This Act of Government, Excommunication, is parallel'd with Prayer; The Agreement of the Church to cast out is parallel'd with this, What two shall agree to ask, Mat. 18. 19. 3. Excommunication 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. 28. 19. So as the Lord's Supper also is constituted. 4. In Rom. 12. all is called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , 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. 9. 12. (the word is 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ) 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 Excommunicate, there is some Rule to direct us.

Prop. II. The Law of Nature is not sufficient to set up anything 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 us how to manage Ordinances that Christ hath erected, according 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 Prophecying; but the Laws of Nature would not be sufficient to erect an Order of Prophecy in the Church, which Jesus Christ hath not appointed, 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 Instituted 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 would 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 institution, 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 exceedeth 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. Natural gifts, and natural parts may be subservient unto Grace that sanctifieth 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 Government of the Churches of Christ.

For all Church Power and Government which hath 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. 18. 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 God 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 delivering 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 away, 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 Institution upon it. Thus also the gifts out of out which Men Preach and Pray, they are common to multitudes of Men, and are given in a providential way, and not by Institution; but yet that Men should exercise these by way of Office, in a constant selected way, and separated hereunto, this is by special Institution. 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 supernatural way further than naturally they serve to. So that Christ's Institutions 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. 14. 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 alledgeth these for Ministers Maintenance, 1 Cor. 9. 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. 5. 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 Corinthians compared with, Chap. 6. this differing 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. 6. he speaks of taking up differences about things of this Life, though he would have the Saints do it among themselves by way of Arbitration, 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 Canon 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 efficacy that doth accompany it over and above what is promised in an ordinary 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 supernatural quality indeed, but it is a relative respect, whereby a company of Men are called by God, and enabled unto a supernatural administration, 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 Mans 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 Pet. 2. 12. But yet still Church Admonition, and Excommunication, 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 5. 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 Monarchical, 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 Peoples power is engaged in it; and hence as Solomon saith, in the Word of a King there is power, Eccles. 8. 4. Hence they are called Human Creations, though an Ordinance of God, 1 Pet. 2. 13. Rom. 13. 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 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 Common-wealth, then indeed the several Administrations 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 punishments 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 general 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, immediately 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 Chancellors; 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 company 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 Administred in a certain way defined; because of all Ordinances, it is the greatest. If therefore for Preaching, who shall Administer it, and where, there 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 Institution, and that which makes Ecclesiastical Authority to be properly Government and Jurisdiction, lying in a power so to Excommunicate; none may therefore take upon them to Administer this Ordinance, without a special Commission and Institution; And in this lies the knot of the difference 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 hath not in itself a power inherent, to work without the Spirit accompany it. There is this difference between Civil power and Ecclesiastical; that 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 Magistrates 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 God, having in us a readiness to revenge all Disobedience, 2 Cor. 10. 4, 5, 6. As therefore if the powers of a Kingdom 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 then they have appointed, 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 being for Worship, the other for Government; the one a Representative Church (for so the Elders in a Classis are) the other of the People, or consisting of People and Elders both; and being all so truly several Forms of Churches in respect of Government, as Oeconomical 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.

Ans. 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. 7. 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 2 & 3. chap. Rev. He not only calls them seven Candlesticks, as being all 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, Revel. 22. 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, Revel. 4. As the Form of the Tabernacle was shewn unto Moses in the Mount; where there are 24. Elders, and 4. 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 Thess. 2. 14. That they became followers of the Churches of God, which in Judea are 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 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 constitution of the Churches of Christ.

CHAP. III.

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, Colos. 2. 5. Where by Order among them, he means that which we call Discipline, or ordering the Administration or Government of the Church and Worship: And by Faith, that which we call Doctrine, or the System of Truths to be believed and practiced, for so everywhere the word is used. And so in 1 Cor. 11. 34. Having Treated of matters pertaining to Worship and Discipline, the Administration of the Lord's Supper, &c. he concludes, the rest will I set in order when I come. So 1 Cor. 14. 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, Tit. 1. 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 prophesying in that, 1 Cor. 14. 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 usage. As they had the Ark, so they had direction how to carry it, 1 Chron. 15. 2. None ought to carry the Ark but the Levites, for them hath the Lord chosen; and because they carried it in a Cart, he tells them they sought not the Lord after the due Order, v. 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 delighting himself with a rare and worthy sight, worthy an Apostle's Joy, Col. 2. 5. Though I be absent in the Flesh, yet am I present with you in the Spirit, joying and beholding your Order, and the stedfastness of your Faith in Christ. Whereby Spirit, if his own mind and heart be meant, then the meaning is, that both those were Established 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 his Spirit. Or if the Holy Ghost be meant more immediately, 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 Setled amomg 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 Colossians 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 herein, 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 Savior, so in submitting to his Orders and Rules for their Church Government, they had received 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 Arbitrement, 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, v. 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 them 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 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 Taught, or to coin new Doctrines. ver. 8. And because that take them, quà 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 affairs, to come the nearer to the Model of Wordly Governments. Ay, but the Apostle tells them that they 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 soever 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 prevent any of what sort soever forever) 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. 12. 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 professedly 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 scattered, which put together will rise up to a Platform, whereas for ordering of Commonwealths there are only general Rules, as to be subject to the higher Powers, &c. but neither directions nor examples left or intimated how they are to be governed. Thus in 1 Tim. 2. 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 place of Worship, not in places dedicated as Holy with difference 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 splendor, and costliness as elsewhere, ver. 9. and that they keep silence in all administrations whatever, v. 10. and that they be not Rulers nor Teachers of the Church, v. 11. Then in chap. 3. he gives directions about Officers; their Distinction, Bishops and Deacons; their qualifications when to be chosen. And chap. 5. he adds many more of the like nature, both about Officers and Church Censures. And what was the scope of all this? Even to show that the ordering and disposing of all such things, are fixed some where 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. 3. 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 another 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 left unto their Wisdom or Arbitrement, to dispose or give such directions as these in Church Affairs and Administrations; but they were tied to the directions 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 behave thyself, &c. 1 Tim. 3. 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 ordering 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 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , 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 insinuates the reason why he left these things in Writing, because the Spirit foretold 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 Apostolical Order and Worship set up in the first Churches, he instancing in some particulars for the rest, 1 Tim. 4. 1. which Daniel (whence he quotes it) instanceth in; Dan. 11. 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 condition again.

The like we have delivered by Paul to Titus another Evangelist, Tit. 1. 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, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 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 was he to order all things? And by what rule? 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , 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 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 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 some where or other all the directions they gave to them by Word of Mouth, there had not been sufficient 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. 3. 1, 2, 3. which comes fitly in to second this reason, and confirms it; As Moses is said to be faithful 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 7. 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 are called, with respect to Christ, his House, For Heb. 10. 21. The Apostle there showing 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 Assembling 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 because 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 particular directions how to behave ourselves in this House of God, as much as the Jews of old did in that House which God built then for Public Worship, as that place in Timothy shows, That thou mayest know how to behave thyself in the House of God, 1 Tim. 3. 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 shows. 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 Government of that Church, and ordaining all things in the worship of it (He made all things according to the Pattern in the Mount, Exod. 25. 40. Heb. 8. 5.) therefore, so hath Christ done also. Faithfullness implies going exactly according to Directions given, and Christ, his Faithfullness 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 God's House, under the New Testament, 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. 4. v. 12. and all the Ordinances of it, 2 Cor. 10▪ 26. as by the Doctrine of Faith and good Manners. Neither is the comparison of Christ with Moses, as to giving Rules for a Common-wealth, (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 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 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 everything therein, 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 Apostles here suggests. For,

1. In Reason says the Apostle, Every House is built by some Man, Heb. 3. 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. 28. 12, 13, 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, or New Testament, could have Man for its builder; for no Man hath either power to do it, nor skill to give the 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. Therefore 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 Honor and Prerogative due only to God and Christ, and shall Man Arrogate it? ver. 3. This Man, (naming Christ) was counted worthy of more Glory than Moses was, in as much as he who hath Builded the House, hath more Honor than the House, ver. 3. under the word Building, he includes giving the Pattern, for Moses was but Faithful 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. 9. 3, 4, 5. When the Queen of Sheba had seen the Wisdom of Solomon, and the House that he had Built, the Meat of his Table, Attendence 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 certainly in Christ'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, shown 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 Honor 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 direction 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 Counselor? 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, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , he that built [all these things] 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 multitude of particular directions, either in examples, or in more express Rules 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 had blessed him on the first day of the week, rather than on another day, &c. 1 Cor. 16. 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 Testament 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 what ever 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 perfect, 2 Tim. 3. 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 dispens ••• of Ordinances, the Ministers; and therefore likewise the things dispensed; Obey them that rule over you, for they watch for your Souls, Heb. 13. 17. And then for their end, they are to be for the Edification of Men's Souls, and to convey the Spirit, 1 Cor. 2. v. 5, 7. And therefore are wholly Supernatural and Spiritual. And the Ministers, which are to be the means to effect those ends, should therefore not be left to the Arbitrament of Natural Reason, or Human Wisdom, though never so much Elevated, as the ordering of a Family or Common-wealth 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 Supernatural in an immediate way, then all the means should be Supernatural also in their Appointmenr 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 so ever, as the wisdom of Man invents; with such a power. And therefore the Apostle speaking of all means Spiritual, (and by a Metaphor calling those things Weapons, which Logicians call Instruments or means) opposeth these two, 1 Cor: 10. 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 anything to a spiritual end, as it is for God the Father to Create, or the Son to Redeem; and therefore for Man to appoint anything to a spiritual end, is as Derogatory to the Holy Ghost in his work, as the like would be to the other persons in theirs.

4. It was expressly forbidden, for Man to go about to make anything of his Invention like unto God's, not Like-Oil, not Like-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.

CHAP. IV.

POwer Spiritual is an impress of, or an investiture with the Authority of Christ, merely out of his Will, whereby Men are Authorized 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 Conscience 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 it. 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 Efficacy to Encourage; but that the Priests should blow Trumpets when the People of Israel went to War, had a Blessing beyond the natutural 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 accompanying it.

Institutions are not only express Commands in the letter of them; for Examples and Promises, Hints, and Implicite 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 Commands 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 declared concerning 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 special Efficacy in them. But to have the Death of Christ set forth by way of Preaching, that's not an Institution simply as such: But that there should a peculiar blessing go along with the Apostles in Preaching, or with Evangelists, 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. 6. 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 Sacrifice; 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 Cultus Naturalis in them, as to fear God, and to love Him, obey Him, to hear His Word, &c. So also there is Cultus institutus, 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 Churchyard, 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 differ only in the matter; that the matter of institutions are such things as are exercised above the common Nature, to some Spiritual end and Efficacy. 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 Scripture, 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 Interpretation 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 the first. But the Apostles did not so; they delivered these Rules to the Churches, by way of Tradition, 1 Cor. 11. 1. They Converted Men by Preaching, 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 writing, 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 positively, 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. 11. 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 primitive 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. 18. 18. John 20. 23. which is beyond the Efficacy of the Sentence of Men upon Earth; this evidently argueth a Church, and their Sentence to be by Institution. And so also when Christ saith, where two or three are gathered together in my Name, I will be in the midst of them, Mat. 18. 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.

Object. If you will make everything a promise is made to, to be an Institution, we shall then have too many Institutions:

Answ. 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 Efficacy, with promise of a Supernatural power to accompany them; then they are Institutions. If that promises be made to any Action, As to Honor 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 Institution, 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 Implicite Directions; as when the Apostle saith, do not ye Judge them that are within? 1 Cor. 5. 12. that is, Have not you power amongst you? It is but an Implicite Institution; 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 together, deliver such an one to Satan, 1 Cor. 5. 3. 4, 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. 4. 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 Institution. As in those words; What you bind, shall be bound, go and Teach all Nations. Therefore there is an Institution of a Church, in Matth. 18. 18, 19, 20. For there is a Commission given to bind. And if Apostolical power be an Institution by virtue of that in John 20 23. Whose sins ye remit, are remitted, &c. then here also by virtue of these words; If thy Brother offend, 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 watch 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 necessary consequence, 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 altogether, do necessarily infer something else, then that also is 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 excommunicate and deliver to Satan, and this delivering to Satan be by Institution, 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 supposeth some 4th or 5th 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 necessarily implies that this company thus meeting are a Church by Institution in relation unto 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 offenses 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 Lord's are made Lord's being called up by a Writ, so here. Therefore all such directions as we find in the Epistles, as in 1 Cor. 5. to do thus and thus, implies them to 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, concerning 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, Psal. 118. 24. or appointed, by Prophesy, he had said today if you will hear his Voice, in another Psalm, and if not, that they should not enter into his rest, and this in Heb. 6. 4. is by the Apostle made an Institution of; He hath appointed, saith the Apostle, another day, in opposition to the seventh day which he had spoken of in the 5th and 6th verses. So Clement answerably in his Epistle speaking of the Institution of the Offices of Bishops and Deacons, quoteth the Prophesy in Isa. 60. 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. 9. 8. the Holy Ghost thus signifying) we may infer an Institution from them. So when it is said in Isa. 66. 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 ordinary 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 Institution to Baptise, 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 'tis 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. 18. Because we find in 1 Cor. 5. 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 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 contrary, 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 are nigh a kin, since the other is of as nigh a kin, 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 Ordinances (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 the Lord's Supper and Baptism are both Sacraments; Elders and Deacons are, both Officers of the Church, they are things Co-ordinate, Ejusdem ordinis, 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 another kind, there Par 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 Antient Times did a Bishop. And so neither will it follow, that because God hath set up a Court in a particular 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 Judicial 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 therefore 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 Authorizing this, as God hath done another thing, whereas we should be content 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 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 endeavor to give reason and demonstration, that the example of the practices 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 Patriarch's is; And also those examples bind not which we find expressly contradicted by a Law, or which we find blamed, as that of Peter 's dissembling, Gal. 2. 11: and that of John 's Worshipping the Angel, Rev. 19. 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 Apostle's ways in Churches and ordering of them, yea and of the Churches erected by them, are propounded and professed to be recorded as patterns and rules to us. Neither needs there a particular warrant to make everyone a rule whilst the general one that propounds all to be such will sanctify all. I shall first prove my assertion, and then show 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. 28. 20. with the Book of the Acts, the Title and Preface to it, and Matter in it. In Mat. 28. 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, Mark 16. 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 practices 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 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 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 practiced 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 gathering 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 practices in and about Churches, and the Officers of them recorded but by way of story, and hints of examples to show us what was the order of Churches in the Apostle's times: We may be well assured that these were written on purpose to show what the Apostle's 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 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Practices of the Apostles. That Book contains 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 are 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 Doctrine, 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 renewed 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 evidently this, that these Apostles being thus thoroughly furnished with Commands from Christ, and especially about the things of his Kingdom, in governing his Saints (all which when as 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 Commands 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 Kingdom of God, and which they taught the Churches to observe, were by their ways and practices here recorded, and mentioned as practiced 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 Scripture, 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 Apostle's 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 6. and Elders we read mentioned, chap. 11. 30. which are mentioned but historically, and yet we read of the same kind of Officers, Deacons and Elders, in other Churches of the Gentiles, at Philippi, Phil. 1. 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. 1. 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, ond 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 intitled 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 recording 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 further confirms this same, being thus warranted and consigned, for the rest to show 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 6. 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 show 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. 3. and on the contrary, that which Christ gave a Precept and an Institution about, Mat. 18. namely Church Censure and Excommunication, you have it in a directive example given to the Church of Corinth, 1 Cor. 5.

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. 11. Paul when he was to Write to the Church of Corinth, about ordering matters of Order, as ver. 34. shows, and also all the particulars in that chapter do show it (for they are matters of that nature, as about covering 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 in Christ: So as about all, for 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 condemns 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 that Incestuous Member in the Church, which you read of, chap. 5. and other particular directions that follow in that Epistle, he tells them chap. 4, that though they may have many thousand Instructers, 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. 4. 9. Those things which you have both learned and received, and heard, and seen in me, do, what you have received by hearing and learned by seeing.

1. I observe, his ways and practices in all the Churches were regular and alike in, 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 Way, 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 Epistle 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. 11. and the matters of this first Epistle to the Corinthians are much about order, The rest will I order when I come, 1 Cor, 11. 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 Tit. 3. 10. But thou hast fully known my Doctrine, manner of Life, Purpose, Faith, Long-fuffering, Charity, Patience. The word is, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Juxta sequi, vestigiis insistere, hast followed it step by step. 1. In Doctrine, 2. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , in Converse or ways in the Churches, as that place, 1 Cor. 4. 17. shows 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, 4. Yet further, to show 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 then were Apostolical; and such Customs in such Churches, so directed infallibly, 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. 10. 16. We have no such Custom, nor the Churches of the Saints, that is, thus founded by Apostles. Thus, 1 Thes. 2. 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 almost exact according to the pattern. Of other Churches he says, Came the Word of God out from you? 1 Cor. 14. 36. Now from the Churches of Judea it did. And he speaks it generally of all their imitations 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 difference?

And to show 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 Cirections to one Church, adds, As I Ordain in other Churches of Christ also. Thus 1 Cor. 16. 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 Ordain in the Churches of Galatia, so do ye also. So in giving those Rules about Prophecying, to speak one by one, and the lesser number of Prophets, to submit to the greater, he enforceth it by this, in 1 Cor. 14. 33. as we see in all the Churches of the Saints; and ver. 37. let him that is Spiritual, acknowledge that these are the Commands of God. To this doth that old saying agree, Constabit id esse ab Apostolis traditum quod Ecclesiis, Apostorum fuit sacro sanctum. 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. 3. 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 flackness of Discipline, whereby they suffered Men to Teach or Practice amiss.

Now the general Reason of this, why the Apostle left these things in Example, 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. Consider 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 Coherences, 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 's case was otherwise, who had a People already gathered, the Nation of the Jews, which were in one place, whom he could therefore deliver a Law unto, in Precepts, yet the Apostles Disperst themselves to several places; and their first Work was 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 first in Judea, then among the Gentiles; and everyone 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 Histiorcally, (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 show their Diversity, by Exhorting them to their several Duties, as Rom. 12. and elsewhere; which yet because they were erected by Apostolical direction, 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. 11. 2. And after upon occasion, writing to some of them as Churches already Constituted, 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 Compleat Direction, either in Hints and Records of those Examples, 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 practice, and Administration of Holy meetings on that day; as in that of Collection of Saints, upon the first day of the Week; and Acts 20. 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.

3. The same appears in many particular explications of the Moral Law. All that write upon the Commandments, though for greater things of the Law, these follow the express Rules; yet the lesser explications are but from examples of Holy Men. Now allow but the same liberty in these Evangelical Precepts; that for the great things, there are express Precepts for; as for the Sacraments, for Institution of Churches, Matth. 18. for Officers in Timothy, and Rom. 12. for Censures, Matth. 18. 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.

4. We find our Savior Christ and the Apostles, arguing from examples of first Patterns. Thus, 1. To prove what is lawful, Mat. 12. 3. Christ argues from David's example, in breaking a Law, in eating when he was Hungry the show-bread (which was not otherwise lawful for him to eat, Exod. 29. 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, Matth. 12. 5. that is, not found fault with: And though Christ annexeth 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 Pet. 3. 3, 4. Exhorts Wives, that their Adorning should not be that of putting on Apparel, but the Ornament of a meek Spirit,; for v. 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 Day, Morning and Evening, says Paul, 2 Tim. 1. 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 Fore-fathers, 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 Primum in quolibet genere est mensura 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 Creation, of but one Woman for Adam, as a rule for us, Mal. 2. 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, is not Sanctified from the first Institution. And so our Savior Christ, Matth. 19. 4, 8. In the beginning 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, Matth. 19. 4. Have ye not read, that he that made them one 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 Interprets it) was the Law given; yet so as Adam's example is made the Foundation of it; because Primum in isto genere, what Adam did then by God's appointment, is a Rule forever.

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 Worship, we have express and direct Rules. As for the Institution and Constitution of a Church, Mat. 18. For the Administration of Censures by Admonition, Excommunication, for the chief Officers thereof; Bishops and Deacons, for the Sacraments, public 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 Interpreting 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 particular Sins and Duties, it will be hard to fetch 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 Commandments, 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 Affairs.

2. We must be careful that we take such Examples, as are written and not blamed, supposing this to be the Rule, that what is not blamed or contradicted by a Rule doth bind us. Christ arguing from an Example of the Priests, alledgeth that for a Warrant, you read (saith he) how that the Priests profaned the Sabbath, and are blameless, Matth. 12. 5. Hence because Apostolical Examples in the converse in Churches are Recorded as Rules; therefore such Examples of theirs as were faulty are blamed, and took notice of, as Peter's Example in a Church matter at Antioch, Gal. 2. Paul reproved him to his Face, and that upon this ground, because his Example being an Apostle, Compelled Men, Gal. 2. 14. it had the force of an Argument in it.

3. We must get Characters to distinguish between Extraordinary, and Ordinary Examples, Recorded of Churches and the Apostles. As we do make a Distinction of Christ'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 Christians 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 Ordinary, for the things Distinguish themselves; as 1 Cor. 12. speaking of Gifts, he promiscuoufly reckons up Ordinary and Extraordinary, ver. 8, 9, 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 afford. The Gifts that remain still in the Church, are Ordinary, they that do not are Extraordinary. So for Officers, 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 Government 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 continue, 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 hast 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, show 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 show 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 finding express order taken about small things, (as to Carnal Eyes they may seem to be) we may be directed in greater as how and when to order the Collection for the Saints, on the first day of the week, and to Treasure up by 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 blest a Man, at the Months 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 of 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 Rules about such things, or have left a complete Rule, if we could find it out. That in Digging, we find such small Meddals as these, here and there, stamped by God's Authority, and bearing the Image of his Wisdom and Soverainty, doth encourage 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 Coyn by Human Wisdom and Authority, and the like Institutions, lest we should set up our posts by God's, and eat 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 Faithfulness to deliver all of the like Nature. And 3ly We are to be careful in doing what we find a Rule and Examples for, and so whereunto we have Attained, walking. 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 wholesome words in all particulars we should be ever learning, and never come to the knowledge of, and assent to any truth.

And therefore our desires is, that the Churches of Christ would in this Age (wherein these things are inquired into, and the Reformation of Discipline 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 differ or want that light that 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, Th • se 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.

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 of means of its actual existence by reason of the Season, so Ordinances have a Right of being in the Church, but Anti-Christ, 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 besides what the Prophecy of Jude and other holy Apostles Paul and Peter have given in caution concerning these, Jude 18, 19, 20, 21, ver. How that they told you, there should be mockers in the last time, who should walk after their own ungodly lusts. The • e be they which separate 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 Believers 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 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 position, and prove the existency, and continuance of Gospel Ordinances, as Baptism, the Lord's Supper, &c. I will begin with that Scripture upon which I have discoursed on another occasion, namely, to show 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 show both the existence and continuance of Ordinances, of Baptism, and the Lord's Supper, under the New Testament.

1 Cor. 10. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Moreover Brethren, I would nor that ye should be ignorant, 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 ihe 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 evil 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 show 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 lived under, only with that difference 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 Types, as their Baptism then pointed forth immediately, 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 into Christ (of whom Moses was a Type) and the deliverance 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 observations, which to me seem natural as to this assertion out of the Scripture, concerning these two Ordinances of Baptism and the Lord's Supper here particularly specified, and so consequently concerning all other parts of Instituted Worship under the Gospel.

Obser. I. Observe first, That these Ordinances were generally received, and practiced by the Christians of those times.

Obser. II. Observe secondly, That these Ordinances are to continue to the end of the World.

To prove the first Observation, I remark the Note of Universallity 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 Types 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. 12. 13. We are all baptized by one Spirit, into one body, and do all drink, &c. And Rom. 6. 3, 4. Know ye not, that so m • ny of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ, were baptized into his death? Therefore ••• we • uried with him by baptism into death. He argues from the known and g •••• ally 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 Us there, is the generality of Christians, distinguished usually by that word from Heathens, as Rom. 14. 7, 1 Cor. 8. 6. To Us there is but one God, &c. that is, we Christians profess all, and generally so. And his scope being to show how Sanctification flows from being in Christ; His argument is drawn from a general principle of the [Us] 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 generality 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 into his death.

I observe also out of this, 1 Cor. 10. 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 Sacrifised to Idols, ver. 21. Ye cannot Drink the Cup of the Lord, and the Cup 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, forever 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 Renounce 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 practice 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 forsake 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 you, 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, as this one, whist 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 had put it into the Heads of any in these Days; unto such the Apostle Paul's Argument 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 his Table. And indeed these 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. Tne 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 say's, that in these they were 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 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 Subjoyns, 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 interpreting that place in Matth. 28. 20. Go Preach and Baptize, I am with you in all things, to the end of the World. (The words being in the Original, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 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 World, or as Paul say's, 1 Cor. 11. 26. until Christ come. In Matth. 13. 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, Matth. 24. 3. And Christ also adds in this place, of Matthew 28. 20. the word always, which means All the days or times to the end of the World: And so all the Ages between are implied. Well but further, here you see that in 1 Cor. 10, 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 that first Age comparatively should. We have lived 1600 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 his Head. You see he plainly Parallels our Sacraments, and their's 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, Psal. 105. 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 'twas 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 Ordinances 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 Wilderness, and 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 World.

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, or 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 show 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, Hebr. 3. 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. than presently upon it, chap. 9. 1. he goes on thus. Then verily the first Covenant had also Ordinances of Divine Service, which was the Tabernacle, and the Worship performed there, so, ver. 2. to ver. 7. For there was a Tabernacle made, the first wherein was the Candlestick and the Table, and the show Bread; which is called the Sanctuary. And after the second Vail, the Tabernacle which is called the Holiest of all: Which had the Golden Censer, and the Ark of the Covenant, overlaid round about with Gold, wherein 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 their's first in time. For he say's not, the New Covenant hath also; but the Old had also; for ours were more the Substance, their's 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 Commandment is utterly Obliterated under the Gospel, or under the times of the Gospel, in which these Ordinances are supposed to cease. What is the difference between the first Commandment, and the second? The first Commands such Worship to God as is always, and forever due to him, as he is God, and we Creatures, which is Termed Cultus Naturalis, Natural Worship; because due upon the account of our being Creatures, and so Indispensible 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 thorough 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 Worshipit; yet so as in all States on Earth, there have been some or other such Duties belonging to the Commandment in force; which sufficiently 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 evil, were two Sacraments Admonishing Adam, the one of his mutable condition; the other Sealing up the promise of Life. Under the Law, 'tis 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 in the Name of us all, as Head; say, Thus it becomes (us) to fulfill all Righteousness, and he began an Example 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 Worship 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 Institutions 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. 2. Paul bids them to take heed of Will-worship, and voluntary Humility not commanded, ver. 21, 22, 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-worship and Humility, and neglecting of the Body, not in any Honor 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 Joh. 5. 21. 'Twas 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. 9. 20. and for which Rome also is Threatned, Revel. chap. 17, & 18.

3. If there were no Ordinances, God should have no provision for his public 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. 15. 3. and therefore all are Exhorted to Worship him, ver. 4. In Heb. 3. 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 the Old. The Apostle makes an Inference from this, Heb. 10. ver. 21, 22, 23, 24, 25. By a new and living way which he had Consecrated for us, through the Vail, 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 without wavering: (for he is Faithful that promised) and let us consider one another, to provoke unto love and to good Works. Not forsaking the Assembling 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 Worshipt 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 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 signifies. And now such Assemblies must have Ordinances to converse with God in, as they accordingly had Preaching and singing of Psalms, 1 Cor. 14. 23, 26. and Sacraments of the Lord's Supper, 1 Cor. 11. to which all were bound; for they were to tarry one for another, ver. 33. And they being the Top Ordinance of the Gospel, their whole Assembling or Meeting was Denominated from it, Acts 20. v. 6. When the Disciples met to break Bread, and 1 Cor. 11. 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, are promiscuously put one for the other. So among the Ancients, this did bear the Denomination, being Termed Sacra 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , and is put for the whole of Gospel Worship in the Prophesy, 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 offered unto my Name, and a pure offering: For my Name shall be great among the Heathen, saith the Lord of Hosts, Mal. 1. 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 Adjoyned his promise to them both. Christ's promise is annexed, to that of Preaching, Matth. 28. 20. Teaching them to do what ever I have Commanded you, and Lo I am with you to the end of the World; and as for the Lord's Supper, Paul expressly says, As I received of the Lord, so I deliver to you, 1 Cor. 11. 23. It is therefore one of these Commands of Christ; And do this (said Christ, Luke 22. 19.) in Remembrance of me, which is there expressed as a Command, and implied by the Apostle, 1 Cor. 11. 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 that Chapter. And writing to the Thessalonians, and giving a warning to them, and to those that should live in the times when Popery should over-spread the World, (of which speaks, 2 Thess. 2. 3. to 13.) He Admonisheth a Remedy against these Seducements, 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 Innovations, then is the proper season for it. And therefore though it concerned those Thessalonians in these 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 therefore, 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. 11. 26. For (says he) as often as ye eat this Bread, and drink this Cup, ye do show 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 manner of coming that is, which puts the Period to this his absence, the Angels hath resolved us, and also how he will come, Acts 1. 10, 11. And while they looked steadfastly towards Heaven, as he went up, behold two Men stood by them in white Apparel, 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 like 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 this end, to fulfill all Righteousness, and he seems also to speak in the Name of us, i. e. of all Believers, and so it becomes us to fulfill, &c. Matth. 3. 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 3. 34. yet he lived under the Observation of all the Jewish Ordinances of Worship, as going to the Feasts, eating the Passover, &c.

CHAP. VI.

THO' this Ordinance of Excommunication be described many ways, As 1. Let him be to the as an Heathen and a Publican, Mat. 18. 17. And 2. With such an one no not to eat, 1 Cor. 5. 11. And 3. It is expressed as a Casting out of the Church, John Epist. 3. ver. 10. yet over and above all this, it is called a delivering unto Satan, 1 Cor. 5. 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 apparent, 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 Damn'd) so in the Sentence of Excommunication, there is more implied than a casting 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 Tormentor. Thus when God speaks to Satan of Job, he is in thine hand (saith he) I have given him up unto thee, Job 1. 12. and ch. 2. 6.

But you will say, the bare casting of a Person out of the Church still imports 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's 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 deliver 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 Sentence, 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 casting out of the Church. But a Person's being Excommunicated, is a differing 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 different 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. 2. 2. therefore we are said, Col. 1. 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 difference 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, are not to eat, 1 Cor. 5. 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 Disobedience, 2 Cor. 10. 4, 3, 6. As will be evident, if we do but lay all these following things together. 1. That Satan is ready to punish the Man in his Spirit by Terrors,, and to fet 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. 1. 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 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 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, implies 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 punishment opposite unto joy in the Holy Ghost, which is the fruit of obedience; that as the Kingdom of God is Joy and Righteousness, and Peace, Rom. 14. 17. The Peace of God shall guard your hearts through the working of the Holy Ghost, Phil. 4. 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 efficiente, by whom this should be done? This sentence of delivering him unto Satan, implies, that Satan hath power given him to set his Sin on upon his Conscience, and that he is able to set Sin on upon the Conscience is evident from other Scriptures.

7. Again we do find by experience, that where Excommunication is not Administred 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. 2. 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 art 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 Pet. 5. 8. Whom he may drink up, so the word signifieth, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 .

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 Anathema Maranatha, 1 Cor. 16. 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 suspension; 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 extrinsical 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. 2. They are not simply to pass an Act of Forgiveness, and to Receive him again, but to comfort him also.

If it be Objected, that we do not always see this effect, of a Spiritual punishment 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 of it, And those Excommunications which have been Administred by the Rightful Persons, yet have not been due, because proceeding on too flight 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, or to horning of a Man as in Scotland, Banishing him, or depriving him of his Estate, &c. they 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 say's, the Weapons of our Warfare, are mighty through God to Revenge all Disobedience,) 2 Cor. 10. 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 effectual 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 Magistrates punishment hath.

3. It is with this, as with all other Ordinances, which do not always's 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. 10. 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. 18. 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 Excommunication hath usually its effect 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, 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. 10. 25, 26, 27. When they were thrown out, they could come at them no more, and so were given up unto Satan forever.

Object. In Matth. 18. 17. all that is said is only, let him be to thee, as an Heatben and a Publican.

Answ. 1. There he speaks in the Language of the Jews, and so expresseth Excommunication only, by what casting 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, Matt. 5. 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 Matth. 18. 17.

But 2. One place expounds another, and that which he calleth there, Matth. 18. 17. Let him be to thee an Heathen and a Publican, is in 1 Cor. 5. 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 15. 6.

4. Though our Savior Christ expresseth it to them in the Jewish Language, in Mat. 18. 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 couverse 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 Church of the Gospel in the privileges of it, exceedeth that of the Law, and that privilege they had in the Synagogues, so the dispriviledging of a Man from the Communion of the Saints under the Gospel, hath an higher punishment, than the Synagogues 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. 5. 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 by 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 ordering proceedings in Civil Causes.

1. For the matter of Christ's Censures, what we are to convert 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, (say's Paul to Timothy, 1 Tim. 5. 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. 24. Doubtless Dispensations 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, 1 Tim. 25. but Admonition only for sins taken for granted, and professed to be sins by the light of Nature, and the common light of Saints, 1 Cor. 5. 1, 8, 3. For how also shall all fear? 1 Tim. 5. 20.

2. For the ways of dealing with such sinners, we have Admonition, Excommunication, and Rejection prescribed.

• 1. Admonition, Them that sin Rebuke, 1 Tim. 5. 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, Tit. 3. 10. After the first and second Admonition Reject, which in 1 Cor. 5. 5. 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. 11. 15. Go and tell him his fault, between him and thee alone, if he hear and Repent, (as 'tis, Luke 17. 3.) thou shalt forgive him, and it shall go no further. This provision hath Christ took, to prevent 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 17. 4.

If 2. 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 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-cognizance, 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. 5. 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. 5. he shows, and also 1 Tim. 5. 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 Officers are to cast it out of the Church proceeding, and not to receive it, Receive 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. 5. 19: But it regards also every Man else, Matth. 18. 16. Then, when any sin is thus made of public Cognisance, 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 endeavor a Reformation, when the Order and Discipline 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 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , as the Apostle calls it, Heb. 9. 10. Nor could we produce any Warrant to Advance the Spiritual Scepter and Kingdom of our Lord Christ, if we did not know, by the Rules and Laws of his own Institution, what it is.

CHAP. I.

THEY, who assert the General Church to be a Political Body, seem to be divided into those two several ways of explaining it. 1. That it cometh to be a Political Body Ascendendo, so making a Congregation to be Ecclesia prima, 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 Ecclesiae ortae, removes from and representations of those that are Ecclesiae primae, 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 Institution first a Church, and particular Congregations have it but by a derived right, as lesser Leases have their's 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 multiplied 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 fundamental 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. Nor did Christ give such command, that when they did arise to such a number, 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 together 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 first suited their condition, when they were no more than could meet in one place, suiteth their condition afterward, when they are multiplied.

2. They could not then meet Qua Universal Catholic Church, for the Universal Catholic Church, is called such in respect of it's 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

2. 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 Universal Church.

For 1. Under the New Testament there was never 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 practiced, nor extant de facto, neither at first nor at last.

Then 3. We may observe that God did frame the Institution of his Churches, according to what, in the Wisdom of his Counsel, he hath determined, 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 Worship and Ordinances, by virtue of a Charter given first to the Church Universal, 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 Obligation 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: Therefore for them to have a fixed special Tye 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 Sanhedrin. And suppose that they had been the Church Universal, yet that they were cast into a National way, was 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 Membership, 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 Institution, 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, when as he saith, tell the Church, Matth. 18. 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 particular Church, (and the Christian 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 expressed 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 Assertion of our Presbyterian Brethren.

5. The truth is, that the meeting of the Universal, is but occasional, for in all the Ages, that the Church was to run through, it hath seldom been, yea, could never be: And when that which we call General Councils have been, they were rather for matter of Doctrine, than for Government, or for Appeals about persons, and that the Institution could not fall upon. It's true in Matth. 16. 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.

CHAP. II.

IF any were to set down the Model of any Government whatsoever, the first and most necessary thing is, to set out first what Common-wealth, Corporation, or Body Politick, should be the Substratum, the Seat of that Government, (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 it's 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 Government, 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 Jurisdiction, (which Phrase yet strengthens this use of it) but in Allusion to that Scripture Phrase, 1 Tim. 3. 15. where he calls the Church 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 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 my Discourse, and upon the finding the true Abuttments 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 Patterns 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. 16. 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.

1. Where first, he 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 an 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 purpose, the Apostle in like manner alledgeth, Heb. 3. 3, 4, 5. Christ, as the Son over his own House, 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 molded 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 show 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. 3. 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, shows his Prerogative by declaring the Old to be done away, 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 bequeath 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 Believers, as unto whom all Church power should be first given. Others 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 the other Apostles, yet therein Representing his supposed 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 Savior 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 Bar-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, or Rock, which was a New and Mystical Name, as the word following show, upon this Rock. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , answering each to other, as fides and fidelis. 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 this 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 someone 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, Rom. 4. 13. And accordingly he did upon it change his Name from Abram, 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 6. 69.) 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 Honoreth 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 Honor was peculiarly his, and he is singled out to be this common Representer of all others under the New Testament, which Honor he doth bear to this Day in his Name, even as Abraham had the like Honor under the Old Testament. And to evidence this the more by the event, Christ did, in an especial manner, honor 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 Multitude at one Sermon, Acts 2.

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 Representatively, (and therefore it was not necessary that all power should be in Peter's person as an Apostle, otherwise than Representatively) and that not Repraesentatione Reali, as if he received all power for the Church, over her, as a King or a Parliament doth, who Represents a Common-wealth, (as the Papists and Episcopal Divines, and others say of the Officers, that they Represent the Church) but only Repraesentatione 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, I give, which if he had spoken to him only as an Apostle, constituting him such thereby at present, he would have done; but I will give 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 Apostles.

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 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 17. 26. and in Deut. 23. 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 way.

1. As first, where he saith, He will Build his Church, it is hard to know how to limit it, for he means all sorts of Churches: he means the Mystical Church, for he saith, The Gates of Hell shall not prevail against it, wwhich 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, answerable 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 Bellarmine, 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 Matth. 18. It is there meant of a Church political, but the keys here in Matth. 16. 19. have relation to the opening the Door of Faith, as in Acts 14. 27. it is called, and therefore implies all means of conversion. And accordingly the opposite thereunto is the Gates of Hell, which shall not prevail: 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 Matth. 18. where, go tell the Church 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 Persons to build up one another, keys given to Officers of all sorts, Apostles and others, are all here intended. And therefore Melanchthon well saith, Claves Ecclesiae datae sunt, sed juxta electionem a christo institutam. And it is certain that in Matth. 18. He instituteth a Church power, as touching the Persons 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 Officers 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 Subject of a personal privilege? We say all these are here intended by Christ, 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 Argument 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 his 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 ground 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 Arguments 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. Austin's Expression, non tantum Petro, sed Ecclesiae, 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 himself 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, when as Peter here did not intend to speak it in their Names, as in John 6. 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 Petros, Peter, which Christ here anew gives him with the Reason of it, viz. upon the Rock, &c. in an Allusion to Petra, 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 Building 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, Thou 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, considered 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, and it is farther observable, that of all the Apostles, this Peter, here spoken to, should, as if only intended alone, use this very similitude, to this particular purpose, and in effect, apply what is said here of himself, [Thou art Peter] to all Believers in 1 Pet. 2. 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 intended, it was not spoken to me, but unto you all. And his expression in 2 Pet. 2. 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 1 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 bonum Ecclesiae, for the good of the Church, but unto the Officers of it.

Obj. 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.

Answ. The Answer is, First, when it is said the keys are given to a Believer, it is to be understood not Reduplicative, 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, after 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. 14. 34. which being an Exception, it must be from a Rule, and so firmat regulam, argues and confirms 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 Tit. 2. 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 Conversion, 1 Pet. 3. 2. Yea, and as Members of a Church, they have power to bind sin upon a Man, in private personal Admonition; 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-fellowship, (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 Chuach 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 Authority, the public power of the keys; that therefore they have no pow-of the keys committed to them, whereas none hath all that others have, not the Apostles themselves.

Obj. 2. If further it be Objected, that the keys are given to others than Believers, as to Ministers, though not true Believers.

Answ. 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, 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. 2. 2. Just, Sober, Holy, Tit. 1. 18.

Obj. 3. And if it be said further, That then they are given to Believers singly, and out of Church-fellowship.

Answ. 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 everyone singly, whether they be in Church-fellowship or no. Now Christ's grant here being general and indefinite, though it takes in all, yet each according to Christ's order; and so if the Judiciary keys are said to be intended, they must be understood to be here given, as Christ afterwards should particularly design, how they should be 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.

CHAP. III.

THis first Charter or Grant of the keys both to the Saints and Officers, being but indefinite, and given unto them but as materially considered, as the command and blessing to multiply, is to Men, Gen. 1. 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 warrant 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, Quod non est formatum, non est vere unum, 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 Homogenial, and of one and, the same kind; and the other consists of several materials, Hetrogenial, 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 fitted to be joined each to other; the Beams and Rafters by their Tenants and Mortesses, 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. 9. 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. 16. 19. cannot be like to that which Cain, through the Horrour of his Conscience feared, that any Man, or every Man that met him next, 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 politick, according to the nature or kind of the Government, or politick exercised in it; if Civil, then 'tis a Common-wealth or Corporation, &c. if Ecclesiastical, it is a Church. A politick 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 politick. Yea, a judicial power doth as much depend upon a Formality 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 us 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 this 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-Clark of Ephesus, when the Men of that City met in 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 like; yet) because then they met not according to the Order of that City, he says of it, that it was an illegal 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Assembly.

2. Without this Union, and Order of Society, Persons offended, that ought to complain, should not have whither to go to accuse; nor the party offended be obliged to come. Nor would it be known, whose the Care and Duty were, to take on them the cognizance, and judging of it; and whose the sin 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 Imbodying, so as, all being 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 today, should meet in one place another day, when all 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 anymore, 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 proceed 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 relation to, and for his Censure's sake, should meet so often rogether, as that he may be publicly Admonished by them, so many times as in the end deservedly to be thrown out?

Yea, 3. 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) by a Sentence publicly agreed on; but the Sentence, then in use in the Primitive Churches, was to cast out of the Church, ver. 3. John 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 forementioned principles.

First, The very Denomination of Churches, (as of Churches in