The Divine Right of Church Government / Wherein it is proved that the Presbyterian government, by preaching and ruling elders, in sessional, Presbyterial and synodical assemblies, may lay the only lawful claim to a divine right, according to the Holy Scriptures

by Unknown

That therefore it ought to be so among us, is as plain: for the dangers and difficulties that they were involved in without a government, and for which God caused that government to be set up among them, are as great if not greater among us, and therefore why should we want the same means of prevention and cure? Are not we in greater danger of heresies now in the time of the New Testament, the churches therein being thereby to be exercised by way of trial, as the apostle foretells, 1 Cor. xi. 19? Doth not ungodliness in these last times abound, according to the same apostle's prediction? Is there not now a more free and permitted intercourse of society with infidels than in those times?

Nor are the exceptions against this argument of any strength: as, 1. That arguments for the form of church government must yet be fetched from the Jewish Church; the government of the Jews was ceremonial and typical, and Christians must not Judaize, nor use that Judaical compound of subordination of churches: the Mosaical polity is abrogated now under the New Testament. Not to tell those that make this exception, 1. That none argue so much from the Jewish government as themselves for the power of congregations, both in ordination and excommunication, because the people of Israel laid hands on the Levites, and all Israel were to remove the unclean; 2. We answer, the laws of the Jewish church, whether ceremonial or judicial, so far are in force, even at this day, as they were grounded upon common equity, the principles of reason and nature, and were serving to the maintenance of the moral law. 'Tis of especial right, that the party unjustly aggrieved should have redress, that the adverse party should not be sole judge and party too, that judgment ought not to be rashly or partially passed upon any. The Jewish polity is only abrogated in regard of what was in it of particular right, not of common right: so far as there was in their laws either a typicalness proper to their church, or a peculiarness of respect to their state in that land of promise given unto them. Whatsoever was in their laws of moral concernment or general equity, is still obliging; whatsoever the Jewish Church had not as Jewish, but as it was a political church, or an ecclesiastical republic, (among which is the subordination of ecclesiastical courts to be reckoned,) doth belong to the Christian Church: that all judgments were to be determined by an high-priest, was typical of Christ's supremacy in judicature; but that there were gradual judicatories for the ease of an oppressed or grieved party, there can be no ceremony or type in this. This was not learned by Moses in the pattern of the Mount, but was taught by the light of nature to Jethro, Exod. xviii. 22, and by him given in advice to Moses. This did not belong unto the peculiar dispensation of the Jews, but unto the good order of the church.

To conclude our answer to this exception, if the benefit of appeals be not as free to us as to the Jews, the yoke of the gospel should be more intolerable than the yoke of the law; the poor afflicted Christian might groan and cry under an unjust and tyrannical eldership, and no ecclesiastical judicatory to relieve him; whereas the poor oppressed Jew might appeal to the Sanhedrin: certainly this is contrary to that prophecy of Christ, Psal. lxxii. 12, 14.

Argum. III. A third argument to prove the subordination of particular congregations, is taken from the institution of our Saviour Christ, of gradual appeals, Matt, xviii. 17, 18, where our Saviour hath appointed a particular member of a church (if scandalous) to be gradually dealt withal; first to be reproved in private, then to be admonished before two or three witnesses, and last of all to be complained of to the church: whence we thus argue:

If Christ hath instituted that the offence of an obstinate brother should be complained of to the church; then much more is it intended that the obstinacy of a great number, suppose of a whole church, should be brought before a higher assembly: but the former is true, therefore the latter. The consequence, wherein the strength of the argument lies, is proved several ways.

1. From the rule of proportion: by what proportion one or two are subject to a particular church, by the same proportion is that church subject to a provincial or a national assembly; and by the same proportion that one congregation is governed by the particular eldership representing it, by the same proportion are ten or twelve congregations governed by a classical presbytery representing them all.

2. From the sufficiency of that remedy that Christ here prescribes for those emergent exigencies under which the Church may lie; since, therefore, offences may as well arise between two persons in the same congregation, Christ hath appointed that particular congregations, as well as members, shall have liberty to complain and appeal to a more general judgment for redress: the salve here prescribed by Christ is equal to the sore; if the sore of scandal may overspread whole churches, as well as particular persons, then certainly the salve of appeals and subordination is here also appointed. If a man be scandalized by the neighbor-church, to whom shall he complain? The church offending must not be both judge and party.

3. From that ecclesiastical communion that is between churches and churches in one and the same province or nation, whereby churches are joined and united together in doctrine and discipline into one body, as well as divers particular persons in a particular congregation; since, therefore, scandals may be committed among them that are in that holy communion one with another, most unworthy of and destructive to that sacred league, certainly those scandals should be redressed by a superior judicatory, as well as offences between brother and brother.

4. He that careth for a part of a church must much more care for the whole; he whose love extends itself to regard the conversion of one, is certainly very careful of the spiritual welfare of many, the edification of a whole church; the influence of Christ's love being poured upon the whole body, bride and spouse, by order of nature, before it redound to the benefit of a finger or toe, viz. some one single person or other. Nor are the exceptions against this institution of gradual appeals of any moment.

The grand one, and that makes directly against our position is, that our Saviour would have the controversy between brother and brother to be terminated in a peculiar church, and that its judgment should be ultimately requested, he saith, Tell the church, not churches. The subordination here appointed by Christ is of fewer to more, but still within the same church, not without it. To which we answer, our Saviour means not by church only one single particular congregation, but also several, combined in their officers, as appears by these following reasons.