The due right of presbyteries, or, A peaceable plea for the government of the…

4. Then how often (saith he) the Officers die, so oft the Church dieth also; to remove the candlestick is to dischurch the assembly; but the death of Officers (which may be in a great persecution) is never said to be a dischurching of an assembly. And all communion of Saints shall perish, when the Officers are removed; for Baptism is without the visible Church; Eph. 4.

4. Then how often (saith he) the Officers die, so oft the Church dieth also; to remove the candlestick is to dischurch the assembly; but the death of Officers (which may be in a great persecution) is never said to be a dischurching of an assembly. And all communion of Saints shall perish, when the Officers are removed; for Baptisme is without the visible Church; Eph. 4.

Answ. 1. When the shepherds are removed, the Tents cannot be called the Shepherds Tents, and persecution often doth deface the visible face of a Ministerial Church, and to remove the candlestick is to remove the ministry, as to take away eyes, and ears and hands from the body, is to hurt the integrity of it, and make it lame. 2. All communion Ministerial whereby we are a body visible, 1 Cor. 10. 16. eating one bread, may well be loosed, when pastors are removed, whose only it is, by your own confession, to administrate the Sacraments, except you allow all to administrate the Lords Supper, and women to Baptise; nor is there a communion in a family betwixt husband and wife, if you remove husband and wife out of the family, except, you mean a communion by way of charity, to rebuke, exhort, comfort one another, which communion is betwixt two independent congregations, who are not in Church-state one to another: but if you mean in Church-communion, take heed that the keys of every christian family, and the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven be not by this, made all one.