A42758:358
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.
The second distinction which I have to propound is concerning the assumptions of the arguments now in hand. The Apostolic Churches did indeed ordinarily exercise Ecclesiastical government and all the ordinances of Christ, in and for themselves, yet so that when the occasion of a Synod did occur for determining a question ⟨p. 32⟩which was too hard for particular Churches, and was also common to many Churches, in that case they did submit themselves to the authority of he Synod. Which hath also before been made plain from Act. 15. To practise all the ordinances of God in a Church is one thing, and to practise them independently so as never to be subject to the authority of a Synod, is another thing. My antagonist doth after take it for granted & saith, that all learned men have granted that the Churches of the Apostolic constitution were independent bodies.1 But whence are you Sir that would make your Reader believe there are no learned men in the Churches of Scotland, France, the low-countries, and the other reformed Churches which have the government of Presbyteries and Synods, conceiving it to be most agreeable to the Apostolical pattern? Have you put out of the category of learned men all Protestant writers who in the controversies about Councils dispute against Papists from Acts 15.2. Why did you not among all your impertinent allegations, cite some few of those learned men who grant the Apostolic Churches to have been independent bodies? But we must hear what more you have to say.
The second distinction which I have to propound is concerning the assumptions of the arguments now in hand. The Apostolick Churches did indeed ordinarily exercise Ecclesiasticall government and all the ordinances of Christ, in and for themselves, yet so that when the occasion of a Synode did occurre for determining a question ⟨p. 32⟩which was too hard for particular Churches, and was also common to many Churches, in that case they did submit themselves to the authority of he Synod. Which hath also before beene made plaine from