their Power i. e. their right of Governing this Society not meerly from consent and confederation of parties but from that Divine institution on which the Society depends The want of understanding the right notion of power in the sense here set down is certainiy the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Erastianisme and that which hath given occasion to so many to question any such thing as Power in the Church especially when the more zealous then judicious defenders of it have rather chosen to hang it upon some doubtful places of Scripture then on the very nature and constitution of the Christian Church as a Society instituted by Jesus Christ. This being then the nature of power in general it is I suppose clear that an outward coactive force is not necessary in order to it for if some may have a right to govern and others may bee obliged to obedience to those persons antecedently to any civil constitution then such persons have a just power to inflict censures upon such as transgress the rules of the society without any outward force It is here very impertinent to dispute what effects such censures can have upon wilful persons without a coactive power if I can prove that there is a right to inflict them in Church officers and an obligation to submit to them in all offenders I am not to trouble my self with the event of such things as depend upon divine institutions I know it is the great objection of the followers of Erastus that Church censures are inflicted upon persons unwilling to receive them and therefore must imply external and coactive force which is repugnant to the nature of a Church But this admits according to the principles here established of a very easie solution for I deny not that Churchpower goes upon consent but then it s very plain here was an antecedent consent to submit to censures in the very entrance into this Society which is sufficient to denominate it a voluntary act of the persons undergoing it and my reason is this every person entring into a Society parts with his own freedome and liberty as to matters concerning the governing of it and professeth submission to the rules and orders of it now a man having parted with his freedome already cannot reassume it when hee please for then hee is under an obligation to stand to the Covenants made at his entrance and consequently his undergoing what shall bee laid upon him by the Laws of this society must bee supposed to bee voluntary as depending upon his consent at first entrance which in all societies must bee supposed to hold still else there would follow nothing but confusion in all Societies in the world if every man were at liberty to break his Covenants when any thing comes to lye upon him according to the rules of the Society which hee out of some private design would bee unwilling to undergo Thus much may serve to settle aright the notion of power the want of understanding which hath caused all the confusion of this controversie The next thing is in what notion wee are to consider the Church which is made the subject of this power As to which wee are to consider This power either as to it 's right or in actu primo or as to it's exercise or in actu secundo Now if wee take this power as to the fundamental right of it then it belongs to that universal Church of Christ which subsists as a visible Society by vertue of that Law of Christ which makes an owning the profession of Christianity the duty of all Church members If wee consider this power in the exercise of it then it being impossible that the universal Church should perform the executive part of this power relating to offences I suppose it lodged in that particular Society of Christians which are united together in one body in the community of the same Government but yet so as that the administration of this power doth not belong to the body of the society considered complexly but to those officers in it whose care and charge it is to have a peculiar oversight and inspection over the Church and to redress all disorders in it Thus the visive faculty is fundamentally lodged in the soul yet all exterior acts of sight are performed by the eyes which are the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Overseers of the body as the other are of the Church so that the exercise and administration of this power belongs to the special Officers and Governours of the Church none else being capable of exercising this power of the Church as such but they on whom it is setled by the founder of the Church it 's self This Society of the Church may bee again considered either as subsisting without any influence from the civil power or as it is owned by and incorporated into a Christian state I therefore demand whether it bee absolutely necessary for the subsistence of this Christian society to bee upheld by the civil power or no And certainly none who consider the first and purest ages of the Christian Church can give any entertainment to the Affirmative because then the Church flourished in it's greatest purity not only when not upheld but when most violently opposed by the civil power if so then it 's being united with the civil state is only accidental as to the constitution of a Church and if this bee only accidental then it must bee supposed furnished with every thing requisite to it 's well ordering antecedenty to any such union and abstractly from it For can wee imagine our Blessed Saviour should institute a society and leave it destitute of means to uphold it's self unless it fell into the hands of the civil power or that hee left every thing tending thereto meerly to prudence and the arbritrary constitutions of the persons joyning together in this society Did our Saviour take care there should bee a society and not provide for means to uphold it Nay it is evident hee not only appointed a society but officers to rule it had those officers then a Right to Govern it or no by vertue of Christs institution of them if not they were rather Bibuli than Caesares Cyphers than Consuls in the Church of God If they had a power to govern doth not that necessarily imply a Right to inflict censures on offenders unless 〈◊〉 will suppose that either there can bee no offenders in a Christian Church or that those offenders do not violate the Laws of the society or there bee some prohibition for them to exercise their power over them which is to give power with one hand and take it away with the other or that this power cannot extend so far as to exclude any from the priviledges of the Church which is the thing to bee discussed Having thus cleared our way I now come to the resolution of the question its self in order to which I shall endeavour to demonstrate with what evidence
should think as much of calling any thing a Law but what hath a civil sanction But I suppose all those who dare freely own a supreme and infinite essence to have been the Creator and to bee the ruler of the World will acknowledge his Power to oblige conscience without being beholding to his own creature to enact his Laws that men might bee bound to obey them Was the great God fain to bee beholding to the civil authority hee had over the Jewish Common-Wealth their government being a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to make his Laws obligatory to the consciences of the Jews What had not they their beings from God and can there bee any greater ground of obligation to obedience than from thence Whence comes civil power to have any Right to oblige men more than God considered as Governour of the World can have Can there bee indeed no other Laws according to the Leviathans Hypothesis but only the Law of nature and civil Laws But I pray whence comes the obligation to either of these that these are not as arbitrary as all other agreements are And is it not as strong a dictate of nature as any can bee supposing that there is a God that a creature which receives it's being from another should bee bound to obey him not only in the resultancies of his own nature but with the arbitrary constitutions of his will Was Adam bound to obey God or no as to that positive precept of eating the forbiden fruit if no civil Sanction had been added to that Law The truth is such Hypotheses as these are when they are followed close home will bee found to Kennel in that black Den from whence they are loath to bee thought to have proceeded And now supposing that every full Declaration of the Will of Christ as to any positive institution hath the force and power of a Law upon the consciences of all to whom it is sufficiently proposed I proceed to make appear that such a divine positive Law there is for the existence of a Church as a visible body and society in the World by which I am far from meaning such a conspicuous society that must continue in a perpetual visibility in the same place I finde not the least intimation of any such thing in Scripture but that there shall alwaies bee some where or other in the world a society owning and professing Christianity may bee easily deduced from thence and especially on this account that our Saviour hath required this as one of the conditions in order to eternal felicity that all those who beleeve in their hearts that Jesus is the Christ must likewise confess him with their mouths to the world and therefore as long as there are men to beleeve in Christ there must bee men that will not bee ashamed to associate on the account of the Doctrine hee hath promulged to the world That one Phrase in the New Testament so frequently used by our blessed Saviour of the Kingdome of Heaven importing a Gospel state doth evidently declare a society which was constituted by him on the principles of the Gospel Covenant Wherefore should our Saviour call Disciples and make Apostles and send them abroad with full commission to gather and initiate Disciples by Baptism did hee not intend a visible society for his Church Had it not been enough for men to have cordially beleeved the truth of the Gospel but they must bee enter'd in a solemn visible way and joyn in participation of visible Symbols of bread and wine but that our Saviour required external profession and society in the Gospel as a necessary duty in order to obtaining the priviledges conveyed by his Magna Charta in the Gospel I would fain know by what argument wee can prove that any humane Legislator did ever intend a Common-wealth to bee governed according to his mode by which wee cannot prove that Christ by a positive Law did command such a society as should be governed in a visible manner as other societies are Did he not appoint officers himself in the Church and that of many ranks and degrees Did hee not invest those officers with authority to rule his Church Is it not laid as a charge on them to take heed to that flock over which God had made them Overseers Are there not Rules laid down for the peculiar exercise of their Government over the Church in all the parts of it Were not these officers admitted into their function by a most solemn visible rite of imposition of hands And are all these solemn transactions a meer peece of sacred Pageantry and they will appear to bee little more if the Society of the Church bee a meer arbitrary thing depending onely upon consent and confederation and not subsisting by vertue of any Charter from Christ or some positive Law requiring all Christians to joyn in Church Society together But if now from hence it appears as certainly it cannot but appear that this Society of the Church doth subsist by vertue of a Divine positive Law then it must of necessity be distinct from any civil Society and that on these accounts First because there is an antecedent obligation on conscience to associate on the account of Christianity whether Humane Laws prohibit or command it From whence of necessity it follows that the constitution of the Church is really different from that of the Common-wealth because whether the Common-wealth bee for or against this Society all that own ir are bound to profess it openly and declare themselves members of it Whereas were the Church and Common-wealth really and formally the same all obligation to Church Society would arise meerly from the Legislative Power of the Common-wealth But now there being a Divine Law binding in conscience whose obligation cannot bee superseded by any Humane Law it is plain and evident where are such vastly different obligations there are different Powers and in this sense I know no incongruity in admitting imperium in imperio if by it wee understand no external coactive power but an internal power laying obligation on conscience distinct from the power lodged in a Common-wealth considered as such An outward coactive power was alwayes disowned by Christ but certainly not an internall Power over Conscience to oblige all his Disciples to what Duties hee thought fit Secondly I argue from those Officers whose rights to govern this Society are founded on that Charter whereby the Society its self subsists Now I would willingly know why when our Saviour disowned all outward power in the world yet he should constitute a Society and appoint Officers in it did hee not intend a peculiar distinct Society from the other Societies of the world And therefore the argument frequently used against Church-power because it hath no outward force with it by the constitution of Christ is a strong argument to mee of the peculiarity of a Christian Society from a Common-wealth because Christ so instituted it as not to have it Ruled at
2. I prove the divine original of this power from the special appointment and designation of particular officers by Jesus Christ for the ruling this society Now I say that Law which provides there shall bee officers to govern doth give them power to govern suitable to the nature of their society Either then you must deny that Christ hath by an unalterable institution appointed a Gospel Ministry or that this Ministry hath no Power in the Church or that their Power extends not to excommunication The first I have already proved the second follows from their appointment for by all the titles given to Church Officers in Scripture it appears they had a Power over the Church as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all which as you well know do import a right to govern the Society over which they are set And that this power should not extend to a Power to exclude convict offenders seems very strange when no other punishment can bee more suitable to the nature of the Society than this is which is a debarring him from the priviledges of that Society which the offender hath so much dishonoured Can there bee any punishment less imagined towards contumacious offenders then this is or that carries in it less of outward and coactive force it implying nothing but what the offender himself freely yeilded to at his entrance into this Society All that I can find replyed by any of the Adversaryes of the opinion I here assert to the argument drawn from the institution and titles of the Officers of the Church is that all those titles which are given to the Ministers of the Gospel in the New Testament that do import rule and government are all to bee taken in a spirituall sense as they are Christs Ministers and Ambassadors to preach his Word and declare his will to his Church So that all power such persons conceive to lye in those titles is onely Doctrinal and declarative but how true that is let any one judge that considers these things 1. That there was certainly a power of discipline then in the Churches constituted by the Apostles which is most evident not only from the passages relating to offendors in Saint Pauls Epistles especially to the Corinthians and Thessalonians but from the continued practice of succeeding ages manifested by Tertullian Cyprian and many others There being then a power of discipline in Apostolical Churches there was a necessity it should be administred by some persons who had the care of those Churches and who were they but the several Pastors of them It being then evident that there was such a power doth it not stand to common sense it should be implyed in such titles which in their natural importance do signifie a right to govern as the names of Pastors and Rulers do 2. There is a diversity in Scripture made between Pastors and Teachers Ephes. 4.11 Though this may not as it doth not imply a necessity of two distinct offices in the Church yet it doth a different respect and connotation in the same person and so imports that ruling carries in it somewhat more then meer teaching and so the power implyed in Pastors to be more then meerly doctrinal which is all I contend for viz. A right to govern the flock committed to their charge 3. What possible difference can be assigned between the Elders that rule well and those which labour in Word and Doctrine 1 Tim. 5.17 if all their ruling were meerly labouring in the Word and Doctrine and all their governing nothing but teaching I intend not to prove an office of rulers distinct from teachers from hence which I know neither this place nor any other will do but that the formal conception of ruling is different from that of teaching 4. I argue from the Analogy between the primitive Churches and the Synagogues that as many of the names were taken from thence where they carried a power of Discipline with them so they must do in some proportion in the Church or it were not easie understanding them It is most certain the Presbyters of the Synagogue had a power of ruling and can you conceive the Bishops and Presbyters of the Church had none when the Societies were much of the same constitution and the Government of the one was transcribed from the other as hath been already largely proved 5. The acts attributed to Pastors in Scripture imply a power of Governing distinct from meer Teaching such are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 used for a right to govern Matth. 2.6 Revel 12.5 19.15 which word is attributed to Pastors of Churches in reference to their flocks Acts 20.28 1 Pet. 5.2 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is applyed to Ministers when they are so frequently called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which notes praesidentiam eum potestate for Hesychius renders is by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 at Athens had certainly a power of Government in them 6. The very word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is attributed to those who have over-sight of Churches 1 Cor. 12.8 by which it is certainly evident that a power more then doctrinal is understood as that it could not then be understood of a power meerly civil And this I suppose may suffice to vindicate this argument from the titles of Church-officers in the New Testament that they are not insignificant things but the persons who enjoyed them had a right to govern the Society over which the Holy-Ghost hath made them Over-seers 3. I argue that Church power ariseth not meerly from consent because the Church may exercise her power on such who have not actually confederated with her which is in admitting members into the Church For if the Church-officers have power to judge whether persons are fit to be admitted they have power to exclude from admission such whom they judge unfit and so their power is exercised on those who are not confederated To this it may be answered That the consent to be judged gives the Church power over the person suing for admission I grant it doth as to that particular person but the right in general of judging concerning admission doth argue an antecedent power to an actual confederation For I will suppose that Christ should now appoint some Officers to found a Church and gather a Society of Christians together where there hath been none before I now ask Whether these Officers have power to admit any into the Church or no This I suppose cannot be denyed for to what end else were they appointed If it be granted they have power to admit persons and thereby make a Church then they had power antecedently to any confederation for the confederation was subsequent to their admission and therefore they who had power to admit could not derive their power from confederation This argument to me puts the case out of dispute that all Church-power cannot arise from meer confederation And that which further evidenceth that the power of the Church doth not
2. I grant the Jews had very many priviledges above other Nations Nay so far that the whole body of the people were looked upon as Gods chosen and peculiar and holy people and from thence I justly infer that whatever exclusion was among the people of the Jews from their society will far better hold as an argument for excommunication under the Christian Church then if it had been a meer debarring from their Levitical Worship And that I should far sooner insist upon from the reason assigned as the ground of excommunication then the other infirm and profligated argument and so the exclusion out of the Camp of Israel and the Cerith among the Jews whatever we understand by it may à pari hold to a ground of exclusion from the Christian Society In imitation of which I rather suppose that exclusion out of the Synagogues was after taken up rather then as a meer Out-lawry when they were deprived of Civill power The question then being thus clearly stated it amounts to this Whether under the Gospel there be any power in the Officers of the Church by vertue of divine institution to exclude any offenders out of the Christian society for transgressing the Laws of it And according to our former propositions I suppose it will be sufficient to prove that power to be of divine institution if I prove it to be fundamentally and intrinsecally resident in the society its self For what ever doth immediately result from the society it self must have the same original which the subject hath because this hath the nature of an inseparable property resulting from its constitution For the clearing of which I shall lay down my thoughts of it as clearly and methodically as I can and that in these following hypotheses 1. Where there is a power of declaring any person to be no true member of the society he is in there is a formal power of excommunication for this is all which I intend by it viz. an authoritative pronouncing virtute officii any convict offender to have forfeited his interest in the Church as a Christian society and to lose all the priviledges of i◠So that if this power be lodged in any Church officer then he hath power formally to excommunicate 2. Where the enjoyment of the priviledges of a society is not absolute and necessary but depends upon conditions to be performed by every member of which the society is judge there is a power in the rulers of that society to debarr any person from such priviledges upon non-performance of the conditions As supposing the jus civitatis to depend upon defending the rights of the City upon a failing in referente to this in any person admitted to Citizen-ship the Rulers of the City have the same power to take that right away which they had at first to give it because that right was never absolutely given but upon supposition that the person did not overthrow the ends for which it was bestowed upon him 3. The Church is such a society in which communion is not absolute and necessary but it doth depend on the performance of some conditions of which the Governours of it are the competent Judges And that appears 1. Because the admission into the Church depends upon conditions to be judged by Pastors as in case of adult persons requiring Baptism and the Children of Infidels being baptized in both which cases it is evident that conditions are prerequisite of which the Pastors are Judges 2. Because the priviledges of this Society do require a separation from other Societies in the world and calls for greater holiness and purity of life and those very priviledges are pledges of greater benefits which belong only to persons qualified with suitable conditions it would therefore be a very great dishonour to this Society if it lay as common and open as other Societies in the world do and no more qualifications required from the members of it 3. We have instances in the sacred Records of Apostolical times of such scandals which have been the ground of the exclusion of the persons guilty of them from the priviledges of the Christian Society And here I suppose we may notwithstanding all the little evasions which have been found out fix on the incestuous person in the Church of Corinth As to which I lay not the force of the argument upon the manner of execution of the censure then viz. by delegation from an Apostle or the Apostolical rod or delivering to Satan for I freely grant that these did then import an extraordinary power in the Apostles over offenders but I say the ground and reason of the exercise of that power in such an extraordinary manner at that time doth still continue although not in that visible extraordinary effect which it then had And whatever practice is founded upon grounds perpetual and common that practice must continue as long as the grounds of it do and the Churches capacity will admit which hypothesis is the only rational foundation on which Episcopal Government in the Church doth stand firm and unshaken and which in the former discourse I am far from undermining of as any intelligent Reader may perceive now I say that it is evident that the reasons of the Apostles censure of that person are not fetched from the want of Christian Magistrates but from such things which will hold as long as any Christian Church which are the dishonour of the Society 1 Corinth 5 1. the spreading of such corruptions further if they pass uncensured 1 Corinth 5.6 and amendment of the person 1 Cor. 5.5 Upon these pillars the power of censures rests it self in the Church of God which are the main grounds of penalties in all Societies whatsoever viz. the preservation of the honour of them and preventing of further mischief and doing good to the offending party And that which seems to add a great deal of weight to this instance is that the Apostle checks the Corinthians that before the exercise of the Apostolical rod they were not of themselves sensible of so great a dishonour to the Church as that was and had not used some means for the removing such a person from their Society And ye are puffed up and have not rather mourned that he that hath done this deed may be taken away from among you 1 Corinth 5.2 Therein implying that whether there had been such a thing in the Church or no as the Apostolical rod it had been the duty of a Christian Society to have done their endeavour in order to the removing such a person from their number But further I cannot understand how it should be a duty in Christians to withdraw from every brother who walketh disorderly and Church-officers not to have power to pronounce such a person to be withdrawn from which amounts to excommunication It is not to me at all material whether they did immediately relate to Civil or Sacred converse concerning which there is so much dispute for in which