The progress of divine providence, set out in a sermon preached in the Abbey…The progresse of divine providence, set out in a sermon preached in the Abbey…

3. Gods increasing goodness may give some satisfaction to such as make question of Church Governors, ¹proper and peculiar to the Church.

3. Gods encreasing goodnesse may give some satisfaction to such as make question of Church Governours, ¹proper and peculiar to the Church.

1. 13 It is worse to have no Church-governors, then such as the Jews had.3 It is worse to have no Church-governours, then such as the Jews had.

Of such I demand, whether it be a good, useful, and needful thing, for the Church to have Governors of its own; and secondly, whether the Church of the Jews had such Governors, or no. Surely, me thinks neither of these should be denied. Have not families, schools of learning, Colleges, Universities, Cities, Towns, all manner of Corporations, Companies and Societies, Governors proper and peculiar to themselves: besides the public Magistrates, who are also over them? Is it not by experience found, that such proper and peculiar Governors are needful and useful, and so good in their several spheres? And shall the best Society on earth, the militant Church, be without Ecclesiastical Governors, proper and peculiar to it? I suppose none will deny, but that the Church of Israel had such Governors: instance their Priests and Levites. In Jehoshaphats time there is an express ⟨p. 25⟩distinction made betwixt Ecclesiastical and Civill Governors under these two phrases,¹ matter of the Lord, and matters of the King. If Church-Governors were an evidence of Gods good Providence under the Law, surely his Providence in this kind, would not be more scanty to the Church under the Gospel: for he hath promised to do better then at her beginnings. A change of Governors there may be, and that for the better; but an utter abolishing of all Governors, proper and peculiar to the Church, cannot be to the better. We expressly read that God hath set in his Church,