A42758:236
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 3: Of greater Presbyteries which some call classes.
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.
These things premitted, I come now to that which is principally intended, viz. by what warrant and qu• jure, the Classical Presbytery among us, made up out of many neighbouring congregations, should be the ordinary Court of Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction, at least in all matters of highest importance, which do concern either all or any of those congregations.
These things premitted, I come now to that which is principally intended, viz. by what warrant and qu• jure, the Classicall Presbyterie among us, made up out of many neighbouring congregations, should be the ordinary Court of Ecclesiasticall Jurisdiction, at least in all matters of highest importance, which doe concerne either all or any of those congregations.
For resolution hereof we must understand ⟨p. 137⟩1. That causes common to many congregations, ought not to be judged by any one of them, but by the greater Presbytery common to them all. 2. It is to be supposed that particular congregations (at least the far greatest part of them) have not in their proper Elderships so many men of sufficient abilities, as are requisite in judging and determining the cases of the examination of Ministers, of ordination, deposition, excommunication, and the like. 3. When one appealeth from a particular Eldership, out of persuasion that he is wronged by the sentence thereof, or when that Eldership finding its own insufficiency for determining some difficult causes, resolveth to refer the same into a higher Court: reason would that there should be an ordinary Court of a Classical Presbytery to receive such appellations or references. 4. Congregations which lye near together, ought all as one to keep unity and conformity in Church policy and government, neither ought one of them be permitted to do an injury, or to give an offence unto another: and for these ends, it is most necessary that they be governed by one common Presbytery. 5. There may be a competition or a controversy not only betwixt one congregation and another, but in the same