The dying man's testament to the Church of Scotland, or, A treatise concerning scandal…

If it were asked, What kind of Government that may be most probably, wherein men ought to unite? Answ. We mind not to digress to a doctrinal debate; yet these characters may be given of it. 1. It must¹ be a Government that can extend unto, and reach all the body; for, one main end of Government is union, Eph. 4. 3, 10, 11, &c. and the removing offences which make divisions, Matth. 18. And this union is not to be in this or that particular part of the body, but in the whole, 1 Cor. 12. that there be no schism in the body: therefore it must extend to all, or be in a capacity to do so. 2. It would be in a proportionable fitness to remove these causes that breed divisions, (for, there cannot be union in a Government that is not fitted for that) and therefore must be able to purge corrupt teachers, and the leaven of corrupt doctrine out of the whole Church, or any part thereof. Hence, both in the Scripture, and primitive times, and all alongs, there hath been still a joint authoritative concurrence for removing these causes of this evil in whatsoever place they did appear. 3. It must be such a Government as hath an unity amongst the whole Governors for this end, and so it must answer to the unity of the body: Hence, in the Epistle to the Galatians, Paul commendeth the remedying of that evil to them all in a joint manner, as being one lump, without respect to their subdivision in particular Churches; and if this Authority did not imply unity amongst the Governors wherever they lived, and a capacity to act unitedly upon occasion, there could be no access authoritatively to remove such evils from the Church, nor such weight in the mean applied. 4. It must be a Government wherein there is a coordinateness amongst ⟨p. 372⟩the Governors; because so not only the union of the Church is made up, but her communion is represented; and to place the Government in one, as Papists do in the Pope, doth not make an union in the Government, which implieth a mutual and kindly co-ordinatnesse and associating one with another; but whatever they pretend of union in it, it is really but tyranny, and such as the most arbitrary ruler may have, when by violence he seemeth to keep down all divisions under him, neither so can that body be said to be united in him.