Church-history of the government of bishops and their councils abbreviated including the chief part…

§. 5. Christ summed up the Essentials of Christianity in the Baptismal Covenant, in which we give up our selves in Faith, Hope, and consenting Love, to God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, our Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier, and in which God receiveth us in the Correlations as his own. And all that are truly thus baptized are Christened, and are to be esteemed and loved as Christians, and to be received into Christian Communion in all Christian Churches where they come, until by apostasy or impenitency in certain disobedience to the Laws of Christ, in points necessary to Christian Communion, they forfeit that privilege. Nor are men to deprive them of the great benefit thus given them by Christ, on pretence of any wit or holiness, or power, to amend Christs terms, and make the Church Doors narrower, or tie men to themselves for worldly ends. Yet must the Pastors still difference the weaker Christians from the stronger, and labour to edify the weak, but not to cast them out of the Church.

§. 5. Christ summed up the Essentials of Christianity in the Baptismal Covenant, in which we give up our selves in Faith, Hope, and consenting Love, to God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, our Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier, and in which God receiveth us in the Correlations as his own. And all that are truly thus baptized are Christened, and are to be esteemed and loved as Christians, and to be received into Christian Communion in all Christian Churches where they come, until by apostasie or impenitency in certain disobedience to the Laws of Christ, in points necessary to Christian Communion, they forfeit that priviledge. Nor are men to deprive them of the great benefit thus given them by Christ, on pretence of any wit or holiness, or power, to amend Christs terms, and make the Church Doors narrower, or tie men to themselves for worldly ends. Yet must the Pastors still difference the weaker Christians from the stronger, and labour to edifie the weak, but not to cast them out of the Church.

§. 6. The sacred Ministry is subordinate to Christ in his Teaching, Governing, and Priestly Office, and thus essentiated by Christs own institution, which man hath no power to change: Therefore under Christ they must teach the Church by sacred Doctrine, guide them by that and sacred Discipline, called The power of the Keys (that is of judging who is fit to enter by Baptism, to continue, to partake of the Communion, to be suspended or cast out) and to lead them in the public Worship of God, interceding in Prayer and speaking for them, and administering to them the Sacraments or holy Seals of the Covenant of God.