The power of Congregational churches asserted and vindicated in answer to a treatise of…

4. To a Wife, whether espoused or married. All espousals and marriages, are by a voluntary mutual Covenant, Prov. 2.17. Mal. 2.14. So it is in the Church of God, Isa. 62.5. Hence Paul stileth the particular Church at Corinth, a Virgin espoused, 2 Cor. 11.2. To show that all the members were joined, as one Virgin, into one body, and that Virgin-Church, into a Covenant of espousals with Jesus Christ, as their Head and Husband, in all his Offices, and one with another, in him, mutually. Thus, we see, the phrases and similitudes, in the New Testament, do strongly confirm this truth, That the first Christian Churches planted by the Apostles, were constituted, in respect of their ⟨p. 38⟩essential form, in one body among themselves severally and respectively, by an holy Covenant. If any demand, why the Apostles did not expressly mention the word, Covenant. Two reasons are given for that; 1. That it was not necessary; seeing it had been so clearly and fully expressed in the old Testament, as that which gives essential being to the Church. And it is usual in Scripture, that duties, which are grounded upon a natural, or moral, and common reason and equity, and have been largely expressed in the old Testament, are but briefly and implicitly pointed at in the New: as the Baptizing of Infants, the Christian Sabbath, and the manner of sanctifying it; so this of the Church-Covenant. Yet concerning all these, sufficient light is held forth in the New Testament, for manifesting the mind of God unto his People.

4. To a Wife, whether espoused or married. All espousals and marriages, are by a voluntary mutual Covenant, Prov. 2.17. Mal. 2.14. So it is in the Church of God, Isa. 62.5. Hence Paul stileth the particular Church at Corinth, a Virgin espoused,