A42758:338
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.
As for that common expression of Divines,1 that the Elders are the Church representative, ⟨p. 14⟩we desire not to wrangle about names, so that the thing it self (which is the power and authority of the Officers sitting and judging apart from the people) be condescended upon. Yet let us see upon what grounds the name of a representative Church is by this man so superciliously rejected. First, he saith that no godly, no nor reasonable man will affirm, that this representation is to be extended to any other acts of religion, than these which are exercised in the governing of the Church. But quo warrant•? shall a man be both ungodly and unreasonable, for affirming that the Elders may and ought to represent the Church where they serve, in preferring a petition to the King and the Parliament, for a Reformation, or in bearing witness of the desolate condition of the Parish through the want of a ministry, or in giving counsel to a Sister Church, though these be not acts of governing the Church. Well: be it, as he saith, what great absurdity shall fellow? then (forsooth) it appertains to the people primarily and originally (under Christ) to rule and govern the Church, that is, themselves. But who saith he will so say of a government not personal, but public, and instituted as the Churches is. Surely, ⟨p. 15⟩they who think the power to be originally in the people, might here easily reply that this is no more strange than to say, that the power which is primarily and originally in the body of a Kingdom, is exercised by the Parliament, which is the representative thereof. But because many learned men deny the power of Church government to be originally in the people, though others, (and those very learned too) do affirm it: therefore to pass that, I shall serve him with another answer. For as we can defend the authority of Presbyteries and Synods without wrangling about the name of a representative Church, so can we defend the name of a representative Church, without debating the question, whether the people have the power originally or not.
As for that common expression of Divines,1