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Unless a Church have Divers Elders, the Church Government must needs become either Prelatic or Popular; and that a Church needs but one Elder is an opinion contrary to the sense of the Church in all Ages. Now let us repair unto the Law and the Testimon•• see what Elders we ought to submit unto. I shall […] before you, but One Text, which (as the great […] observes) Would be of uncontrollable Evidence, if it had any thing to conflict withal, but prejudice and Interest, it is that in 1 Tim. 5. 17. Let the Elders that Rule well, be counted worthy of double Honour, especially they who labour in the Word and Doctrine. Behold a Scripture that is not so easily to be ⟨p. 166⟩Avoided and Evaded, as the Sophistry of some Opposers has represented it. The most of them, who put in Exceptions against the plain sense of the words, yet will not fix any other sense of their own, by which they dare abide: if they would fix upon any other, I durst undertake the disproving of it; nor do they indeed, Agree among themselves. But he must be very Immodest, who do's not grant, that Divers kinds of Elders are intended in these words; and there is this Unanswerable Argument advanced in them.

Unless a Church have Divers Elders, the Church Government must needs become either Prelatick or Popular; and that a Church needs but one Elder is an opinion contrary to the sense of the Church in all Ages. Now let us repair unto the Law and the Testimon•• see what Elders we ought to submit unto. I shall 〈…〉 before you, but One Text, which (as the great 〈…〉 observes) Would be of uncontrolable Evidence, if it had any thing to conflict withal, but prejudice and Interest, it is that in 1 Tim. 5. 17. Let the Elders that Rule well, be counted worthy of double Honour, especially they who labour in the Word and Doctrine. Behold a Scripture that is not so easily to be ⟨p. 166⟩Avoided and Evaded, as the Sophistry of some Opposers has represented it. The most of them, who put in Exceptions against the plain sense of the words, yet will not fix any other sense of their own, by which they dare abide: if they would fix upon any other, I durst undertake the disproving of it; nor do they indeed, Agree among themselves. But he must be very Immodest, who do's not grant, that Divers kinds of Elders are intended in these words; and there is this Unanswerable Argument advanced in them.