N00779:177
The order of the Gospel, professed and practised by the churches of Christ in…
The order of the Gospel, professed and practised by the churches of Christ in New England, justified, by the Scripture, and by the writings of many learned men, both ancient and modern divines; in answer to several questions, relating to church discipline / by Increase Mather, president of Harvard College in Cambridge, and teacher of a church at Boston in New England. ; [Five lines of Scripture texts]The order of the Gospel, professed and practised by the churches of Christ in New England, justified, by the Scripture, and by the writings of many learned men, both ancient and modern divines; in answer to several questions, relating to church discipline / by Increase Mather, president of Harvard Colledge in Cambridge, and teacher of a church at Boston in New England. ; [Five lines of Scripture texts]
Boston: printed by B. Green for Benjamin Eliot, 1700
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
QUESTION. XV. IS not the asserting that a Pastor may Administer the Sacrament to another Church besides his own Particular Flock, at the desire of that other Church, a declension from the First Principles of New-England, and of the Congregational Way?
Answ. Not at all. For our Platform of Church-Discipline does not at all contradict it, but rather approve of it, Chapt. 15 S. 4 And some of the First Eminent Ministers in New-England have defended the lawfulness of such a practice. So Mr. Norton in his Answer to Apollony, Mr. Shepard of Cambridge, and Mr. Allin of Dedham in their Answer to Mr Ball. And my Father in a Letter of his to Mr. Hooker, bearing Date Nov 6 1645. Giveth such Reasons for it as are not easy to be answered. Dr. Goodwin who was a Pillar amongst Congregationals, declares his Judgment fully in the Affirmative, and this not only in a Letter written not long before his Translation to Glory, of which I have elsewhere given an account, but in his Discourse of Church-Government, in his fourth Volum• lately published, which was written long before that Letter, and where in he shows that such an occasional Exercise of Ministerial Power in another Church at their Request will not Infer any such Jurisdiction as that which the Presbyterian Brethren plead for. We shall for the satisfaction of those that have not that Book of the Doctors, cause his words to be Transcribed. He thus speaks, (y)It is one thing that there may Occasionally be an Exercising of an Elders Power in another Congregation, and it is another thing that it should be assumed and challenged, which is the thing that remains further to be proved ⟨p. 115⟩by the Presbyterial Divines. As it is one thing for a Child under Age, tho' he should not Govern himself, to have Liberty to choose a Guardian for the Time, but it is another thing that a Company of men should assume to be his Guardians for ever. It will be one thing for a Corporation to send to another Corporation for their Recorder, a man skilful in the Law, to perform the Office of a Recorder with a Jury at their Session, they now wanting one, or there falling out a Case of difficulty, wherein their own does need Assistance; but it will be another thing for the Recorders of several Corporations in a County to go and challenge by virtue of Association, and the Common Law of Communion in the Kingdom, a constant power of Jurisdiction to be Exercised over them.