An assertion of the government of the Church of Scotland in the points of…

CHAP. IX. The fifth Argument, taken from Geometrical proportion.

CHAP. IX. The fifth Argument, taken from Geometricall proportion.

AS is the proportion of 3. to 9. so is the proportion of 9. to 27. of 21. to 81. &c. This rule of Geometrical proportion affordeth us a fifth Argument for the point in hand. If we should grant the government of the Church to be popular, then by what proportion, one or two are subject to a whole congregation, by the same proportion is that congregation subject to a provincial▪ or a national congregation. I mean, if all ⟨p. 185⟩the congregations in a province or a nation were assembled into one collective body (as all the males of the Jews did assemble thrice in the year at Jerusalem, and as in the days of the Judges,¹ the whole congregation of the children of Israel was assembled together in Mizpeh, as one man, from Dan even to Beersheba, four hundred thousand men, to try the cause of the Levite, and to resolve what to do there-anent, which meeting of the Nation, was ordered by Tribes, the Tribes by families, the families by persons) in that case any one particular congregation behoved to be subject to the general congregation, by the same reason whereby one man is subject to the particular congregation, whereof he is a member, because the whole is greater then a part, and the body more then a member. Now the same rule holdeth in the representatives of Churches, whether we compare them with the collectives, or among themselves. If we compare the representatives with the collectives, then as one congregation is governed by the particular Eldership representing the •ame, by the like proportion are 14. or 16. congregations governed by a Classical Presbytery representing them all: by the same proportion are all the congregations in a province subject