A42758:216
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
Part 2 › Chapter 2: Of the independencies of the Elderships of particular Congregations.
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.
WE have now rolled away one stone of offence, but there is another in our way. It were most strange, if the collective body of a Congregation, consisting it may be of 10, 20, 30, or 40 persons, according to the grounds of these with whom we deal, should be permitted to exercise independently all Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction: but it is almost as great a Paradox, to say, that the representative of every Congregation, which is the Eldership thereof, consisting it may be of a Pastor, and two or three Ruling Elders, ought independently ⟨p. 113⟩to exercise the foresaid jurisdiction in all points.
WEE have now rolled away one stone of offence, but there is another in our way. It were most strange, if the collective body of a Congregation, consisting it may bee of 10, 20, 30, or 40 persons, according to the grounds of these with whom we deale, should bee permitted to exercise independently all Eccleasisticall Jurisdiction: but it is almost as great a Paradox, to say, that the representative of every Congregation, which is the Eldership therof, consisting it may be of a Pastor, and two or three Ruling Elders, ought independently ⟨p. 113⟩to exercise the foresaid jurisdiction in all points.
I am debtor to D. Field, for answering one of those questions before propounded, concerning Ruling Elders, and here it falls in my hand. He asketh whether the power of Church-government and jurisdiction, doth belong to the Pastor and Elders of every Congregation, or to the Pastors and Elders of many Congregations joined together in a Common Presbytery. I believe his expectation was, that while as we would sail through betwixt the Charybdis of Episcopal tyranny, and the Scylla of popular Anarchy, we should not know ho• to direct our course, but should certainly either be swallowed up in the waves of mighty difficulties, or split our selves upon hid Rocks of division. Our danger, I hope, is not so great as he did imagine; for we hold that the particular Elderships of several Congregations have their own power and authority of Church-government, but with a subordination unto the common or greater Presbytery, whose power is superior and of a larger extent.