N02341:471
Ratio disciplinae fratrum Nov-Anglorum. A faithful account of the discipline professed and practised; in…
Ratio disciplinae fratrum Nov-Anglorum. A faithful account of the discipline professed and practised; in the churches of New-England. : With interspersed and instructive reflections on the discipline of the primitive churches. : [Seven lines from Ezekiel]
Boston: printed for S. Gerrish, 1726
Title page typeset from the transcription.
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.
Tho' it has been strongly pleaded, that no Officers of the Churches have a Right upon that Score, to appear as their Delegates, but that the Churches may choose whom they please, for their Delegates, and the Delegates have all of them an equal Power in the Synod for which they are chosen: Yet the Churches do in Fact proceed no otherwise, than as if their Pastors were Ex Officio the Members of the Councils for which their Churches were sent unto. And in the Choice of Delegates for Councils, (as well as in the Call for them) still the Terms run, For Elders and Messengers.
Tho' it has been strongly pleaded, that no Officers of the Churches have a Right upon that Score, to appear as their Delegates, but that the Churches may chuse whom they please, for their Delegates, and the Delegates have all of them an equal Power in the Synod for which they are chosen: Yet the Churches do in Fact proceed no otherwise, than as if their Pastors were Ex Officio the Members of the Councils for which their Churches were sent unto. And in the Choice of Delegates for Councils, (as well as in the Call for them) still the Terms run, For Elders and Messengers.
But then on the other hand, the Pastors of the Churches ordinarily go to no proper Councils, without some other Delegates, chosen from among the Brethren, to accompany them. And once, when in a General Synod of the Churches, there were some Churches who thought it enough that they sent only their Pastors unto it, the Synod asserted, that it was the Duty of the Churches, to have sent other Messengers with them; and Letters were for that Purpose immediately issued out unto these Churches. They knew that in the Primitive Times, in Synods, there were present ⟨p. 176⟩besides the Church-Officers, ΑΙ ΕΚΚΑΗΣΙΑΙ ΘΕΟΥ(as Eusebius expresses it) the Churches of GOD, represented by Brethren belonging to them; And Synods were then held, Consultis et ipsis Laicis (according to Cyprian) and, The People were admitted unto a part in the Consultations. And in allowing of Suffrages to such Members of their Synods, they judged that the Primitive Pattern in the Acts of the Apostles countenanced them: For which Cause also, the Interest of the People (or Laics) in such Conventions, is maintained by our Juel, and Whitaker, and Parker, and others, against the Romanists.