Five disputations of church-government and worship

Prop. 14. None of these General Officers did take away the Government from the fixed Presbyters of particular Churches; nor kept a Negative vote in their own hands, in matters of Government: for if no fixed Bishop (or Presbyter) could excommunicate any member of his Church without an Apostle, then almost all Churches must remain polluted and ungoverned, through the unavoidable absence of those twelve or thirteen men.

The Apostles therefore did admonish Pastors to do their duties, and when themselves were present had power to do the like, and to censure Pastors or people that offended: but they did not take on them the full Government of any Church, nor keep a Negative vote in the Government.

Prop. 15. It seems utterly untrue that Christ did deliver the Keys only to the twelve Apostles as such, and so only to their Successors, and not the seventy Disciples or any Presbyters. For 1. The seventy also were General unfixed Officers, and not like fixed Presbyters or Bishops: and therefore having a larger Commission must have equal power. 2. The Apostles were not single Bishops as now they are differenced from others: but they were such as had more extensive Commissions, then those now called Arch Bishops or Patriarchs. If therefore the Keys were given them as Apostles, or General Officers, then they were never given to Bishops. For Bishops as fixed Bishops of ⟨p. 27⟩this or that Diocese are not Successors of the Apostles, who were General unfixed Officers. 3. It is granted commonly by Papists and Protestants, that Presbyters have the power of the Keys, though many of them think that they are limited to exercise them under the Bishops, and by their Direction and Consent, (of which many School-men have wrote at large) 4. The Key of Excommunication is but a Ministerial Authoritative Declaration, that such or such a known Offender is to be avoided, and to charge the Church to avoid Communion with him, and him to avoid or keep away from the Privileges of the Church; and this a mere Presbyter may do: he may authoritatively Declare such a man to be one that is to be avoided, and charge the Church and him to do accordingly. The like I may say of Absolution: if they belong to every authorized Pastor, Preacher and Church guide, as such, then not to a Bishop only, but to a Presbyter also. And that these Keys belong to more then the Apostles and their Successors, is plain, in that these are insufficient Naturally to use them to their Ends. An Apostle in Antioch cannot look to the censuring of all persons that are to be Censured at Athens, Paris, London, &c. so that the most of the work would be totally neglected, if only they and their supposed Successors had the doing of it. I conclude therefore that the Keys belong not only to Apostles and their Successors in that General Office, no nor only to Diocesan Bishops: for then Presbyters could not so much as exercise them with the Bishops in Consistory, which themselves of late allow.