A42758:197
An assertion of the government of the Church of Scotland in the points of…
An assertion of the government of the Church of Scotland in the points of ruling-elders and of the authority of presbyteries and synods with a postscript in answer to a treatise lately published against presbyterial government.An assertion of the government of the Church of Scotland in the points of ruling-elders and of the authority of presbyteries and synods with a postscript in answer to a treatise lately published against presbyteriall government.
Edinburgh: printed for James Bryson, 1641Edinburgh: printed for Iames Bryson, 1641
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
CHAP. I. Of popular Government in the Church.
There be some that call in question the Warrant and Authority of classical Presbyteries, of provincial Synods and National Assemblies, as they are used and maintained in the Church of Scotland. I mean not the Prelatical faction, whom we set aside, but even some who are as Antiepiscopall as we are. The Scrupulosity of such (at least of many such) herein doth (we conceive) proceed not from any ⟨p. 109⟩perverseness of mind, but only from certain mistakings, which better information may remove.
THere bee some that call in question the Warrant and Authority of classicall Presbyteries, of provinciall Synods and Nationall Assemblies, as they are used and maintained in the Church of Scotland. I meane not the Praelaticall faction, whom we set aside, but even some who are as Antiepiscopall as we are. The Scrupulosity of such (at least of many such) herein doth (we conceive) proceed not from any ⟨p. 109⟩perversnesse of mind, but onely from certaine mistakings, which better information may remove.
But first of all we require those, whom we now labour to satisfy, to condescend upon another point, viz. that the exercise of Ecclesiastical power and jurisdiction in a particular Congregation, ought not to be committed to the whole collective body thereof, but is peculiar to the Eldership representing the same; for in vain do we debate the other point concerning Presbyteries and Assemblies, if this latent prejudice still occupy their minds, that the Government of the Church must needs be popular, exercised by the collective body, which happily may in some sort be done within the bounds of a well limited Congregation, but is manifestly inconsistent with classical Presbyteries & Synods, because the collective Bodies of all particular Congregations within the bounds of a shire, of a Province, of a Nation, cannot be ordinarily, nor at all ordinately, assembled together, and if they could,