2. It is vain to press similitudes while they blood, for Christ properly is the bridegroom and husband of his Church, Eph. 5 6, 27. John 3. 29 Rev. 19. 9. Rev. 21. 9. Is•. 54 5. Pastors are but the [Greek or Hebrew] under suitors for the bridegroom, John 3. 29. This is Popish doctrine to make such a relation betwixt a mortal man and an independent Church. Pope Enaristus and Calix•us saith, while the Bishop liveth, the Church can no more be given to another, without his consent, nor the wife can be given to another then to her own husband, without his consent. And so said Innocentius the third therefore at the consecration, after imposition of hands (saith Vasquez) and anointing of the Bishop, and delivering to him a staff, a consecrated and blessed ring is put on his ring-finger in token he is married to the Church; but what have we to do with such trash as this? For in a word, the comparison of a marriage in this point is either Popish or unseasonable, or both; because the mutual consent betwixt A. B. and his wife, being essentially marriage, as the Canon Law, Divines, and sound Casuists acknowledge, it maketh A B. a husband, and also the husband of such a wife during their ⟨p. 263⟩life-time; but election of the people that A. B. be their Pastor, and A. B. his acceptation of the Church as his charge, maketh him not both a Pastor, and also the Pastor of that Church; because the ordination of the Presbytery maketh A. B. formally and essentially a Pastor, I mean a called Pastor under Christ; but the election of the people and his consent doth not make him a Minister, but doth only appropriate him after he is made a Minister to be the Minister of such a Church, and so the comparison halteth in the main point for which it is alleged; therefore A. B. is made indefinitely a Pastor for the Church, and is obliged to labour the conversion of all, within and without the bounds of his Church, in as far as he is a Pastor: But forasmuch as the Church thinketh good to appropriate his Ministry to this particular congregation, for the more commodious congregating and gathering of the sheep of Christ, he is not so their Pastor, as he cannot exercise Pastoral acts towards others also, neither doth the place, Acts 20. 28. and 1 Pet. 5. 2.
2. It is vaine to presse similitudes while they blood, for Christ properly is the bridegroome and husband of his Church, Eph. 5 6, 27. John 3. 29 Rev. 19. 9. Rev. 21. 9. Is•. 54 5. Pastors are but the 〈non-Latin alphabet〉 under suitors for the bridegroome, John 3. 29. This is Popish doctrine to make such a relation betwixt a mortall man and an independent Church. Pope Enaristus and Calix•us saith, while the Bishop liveth, the Church can no more bee given to another, without his consent, nor the wife can bee given to another then to her owne husband, without his consent. And so said Innocentius the third therefore at the consecration, after imposition of hands (saith Vasquez) and anointing of the Bishop, and delivering to him a staffe, a consecrated and blessed ring is put on his ring-finger in token he is married to the Church; but what have we to do with such trash as this? For in a word, the comparison of a marriage in this point is either Popish or unseasonable, or both; because the mutuall consent betwixt A. B. and his wife, being essentially marriage, as the Canon Law, Divines, and sound Casuists acknowledge, it maketh A B. a husband, and also the husband of such a wife during their ⟨p. 263⟩life-time; but election of the people that A. B. be their Pastor, and A. B. his acceptation of the Church as his charge, maketh him not both a Pastor, and also the Pastor of that Church; because the ordination of the Presbytery maketh A. B. formally and essentially a Pastor, I meane a called Pastor under Christ; but the election of the people and his consent doth not make him a Minister, but doth only appropriate him after he is made a Minister to be the Minister of such a Church, and so the comparison halteth in the maine point for which it is alleadged; therefore A. B. is made indefinitely a Pastor for the Church, and is obliged to labour the conversion of all, within and without the bounds of his Church, in as far as he is a Pastor: But forasmuch as the Church thinketh good to appropriate his Ministery to this particular congregation, for the more commodious congregating and gathering of the sheep of Christ, he is not so their Pastor, as he cannot exercise Pastorall acts towards others also, neither doth the place,
