1. If the Church hath a duration and stability, then Ordinances and Ministry are perpetual. Ministers may be thrust into corners, clapped up in prison, hurried to their graves; but the Sepulchres of Ministers are not the graves of the Ministry. A Ministry, and a Church, Ordinances and a Church, cannot be separated; they run parallel together to the end of the world; for Zion cannot be supposed without Divine Officers, and Divine Institutions; the one cannot be established without the other. Christ walks in the midst of the seven golden Candlesticks, Rev. 2.1. in the seven States of the Church, to the end of the world*. As there are seven States of the Church, so there are seven Stars in the hand of Christ for all those States; the Ministry have the same support, the same Guardian as the Church her self. What was in the Ephesian and Primitive State, is also in the Sardian State, the State of the Church rising from corruption of Doctrine and Ordinances*. Christ hath still Stars to shine, and seven Spirits to gift them; hath at present, not had; hath in the State we are, which seems to be the end of that Sardian State. 'Tis true, the Church is in a wilderness condition, and hath been so for above 1200 years; but hath she yet seen her Funeral? No, she hath a place for her residence, and food for her nourishment, and both provided for her by that God that framed her, by that God that stood by her in the pangs of her travel, and sheltered her Man-child from the fury of her enemies*. They should feed her; she is not starved in the desert, she hath Manna to comfort her, her Caterer to provide her food, and some to administer the Banquet of the Word and Sacraments to her. For any Member of Zion to deny a Ministry, and deny Ordinances, and therefore to neglect them, is to conclude her dead in a grave, and not living, in a desert, utterly famished, and not fed. Though there be a smoke in the Temple, a cloud and obscurity, the Truths and Ordinances of God not so clear, so efficacious as they have been, as some understand, Rev. 15.8. or as they shall be; yet there is a Temple still. A smoke in the Temple supposeth a Temple standing, and Ordinances in it: The obscurity of a thing nulls not the being of it, nor a cloud upon the Sun the stability and motion of it.
1. If the Church hath a duration and stability, then Ordinances and Ministry are perpetual. Ministers may be thrust into corners, clapt up in prison, hurried to their graves; but the Sepulchres of Ministers are not the graves of the Ministry. A Ministry, and a Church, Ordinances and a Church, cannot be separated; they run parallel together to the end of the world; for Sion cannot be supposed without Divine Officers, and Divine Institutions; the one cannot be established without the other. Christ walks in the midst of the seven golden Candlesticks, Rev. 2.1. in the seven States of the Church, to the end of the world*. As there are seven States of the Church, so there are seven Stars in the hand of Christ for all those States; the Ministry have the same support, the same Guardian as the Church her self. What was in the Ephesian and Primitive State, is also in the Sardian State, the State of the Church rising from corruption of Doctrine and Ordinances*. Christ hath still Stars to shine, and seven Spirits to gift them; hath at present, not had; hath in the State we are, which seems to be the end of that Sardian State. 'Tis true, the Church is in a wilderness condition, and hath been so for above 1200 years; but hath she yet seen her Funeral? No, she hath a place for her residence, and food for her nourishment, and both provided for her by that God that fram'd her, by that God that stood by her in the pangs of her travel, and shelter'd her Man-child from the fury of her enemies*. They should feed her; she is not starved in the desert, she hath Manna to comfort her, her Caterer to provide her food, and some to administer the Banquet of the Word and Sacraments to her. For any Member of Sion to deny a Ministry, and deny Ordinances, and therefore to neglect them, is to conclude her dead in a grave, and not living, in a desert, utterly famisht, and not fed. Though there be a smoke in the Temple, a cloud and obscurity, the Truths and Ordinances of God not so clear, so efficacious as they have been, as some understand, Rev. 15.8. or as they shall be; yet there is a Temple still. A smoke in the Temple supposeth a Temple standing, and Ordinances in it: The obscurity of a thing nulls not the being of it, nor a cloud upon the Sun the stability and motion of it.
- *I do not question but that the whole is prophetical, it would not else be called Mystery, as it is, Rev. 1.20. were it meant of those particular Churches.
- *Rev 3.1. These things saith he that hath the seven spirits of God, and the seven Stars.
- *Rev. 12.6. And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God that they should feed her there 1260 days.
