A42758:202
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.
First, in every Christian Congregation, there are some Rulers, some ruled, some Governors, some governed, some that command, some that obey, as is manifest from Hebr. 13.17. 1. Thes. 5.12. 1. Tim. 5.17. But if the whole Congregation have the Rule and Government, who then shall be ruled and governed? It will be answered, that in the exercise of jurisdiction, every Member is to act according to it's own condition, the head as the head, the eye as the eye, &c. that the Rulers and Governors of a Congregation are to have the principal condu• of business, and to be Heads, Ears, Mouths, &c. to the Congregation.
First, in every Christian Congregation, there are some Rulers, some ruled, some Governors, some governed, some that command, some that obey, as is manifest from Hebr. 13.17. 1. Thes. 5.12. 1. Tim. 5.17. But if the whole Congregation have the Rule and Government, who then shall be ruled and governed? It will be answered, that in the exercise of jurisdiction, every Member is to act according to it's owne condition, the head as the head, the eye as the eye, &c. that the Rulers and Governors of a Congregation are to have the principall condu• of businesse, and to bee Heads, Eares, Mouths, &c. to the Congregation.
But this simile maketh rather for us then against us, for though every member be useful and steadable in the body according to it's own condition, yet every member neither can nor doth exercise those principal actions of seeing, hearing, tasting, &c. I say not that other members cannot see, hear, taste, as the eyes, ears, and mouth do, but they cannot at all see, hear, nor taste. So if the Rulers of a Congregation be as the eyes, ears, mouth, &c. then other members of the Congregation cannot at all act those actions of government which they act. Hence it is that some, who make the whole Congregation the first subject of the power of spiritual Jurisdiction, do notwithstanding hold that the whole Church doth exercise the said jurisdiction as Principium quod, the Eldership alone, as Principium quo, even as the whole man seeth, as Principium quod, the eye alone, as Principium quo, and so of all the rest. Thus do they put a difference betwixt the power it self,