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
first by any outward force or power When Christ saith his Kingdome was not of this world hee implies that hee had a Society that was governed by his Laws in the world yet distinct from all mundane Societies had not our Saviour intended his Church to have been a peculiar Society distinct from a Common-wealth why our Saviour should interdict the Apostles the use of a civil coactive power Or why instead of sending abroad Apostles to preach the Gospel hee did not imploy the Governours of Common-wealths to have inforced Christianity by Laws and temporal edicts and the several Magistrates to have impowred several persons under them to preach the Gospel in their several Territories And can any thing bee more plain by our Saviours taking a contrary course then that hee intended a Church Society to bee distinct from civil and the power belonging to it as well as the Officers to bee of a different nature from that which is settled in a Common-wealth I here suppose that Christ hath by a positive Law established the Government of his Church upon Officers of his own appointment which I have largely proved elsewhere and therefore suppose it now Thirdly I argue from the peculiar rights belonging to these Societies For if every one born in the Common-wealth have not thereby a right to the priviledges of the Church nor every one by being of the Church any right to the benefits of the Common-wealth it must necessarily follow that these are distinct from one another If any one by being of the Common-wealth hath right to Church priviledges then every one born in a Common-wealth may challenge a right to the Lords Supper without Baptism or open professing Christianity which I cannot think any will bee very ready to grant Now there being by Divine appointment the several rights of Baptisme and the Lords Supper as peculiar badges of the Church as a visible Society it is evident Christ did intend it a Society distinct from the Common-wealth Fourthly I argue from the different ends of these societies a Common-Wealth is constituted for civil ends and the Church for spiritual for ends are to be judged by the primary constitution but now it is plain the end of civil society is for preservation of mens rights as men therefore Magistracy is called by St. Peter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but this Christian society doth not respect men under the connotation of men but as Christians The answer given to this is very short and insufficient when it is said that every man in a Common-Wealth is to act upon spiritual accounts and ends For there is a great deal of difference between Christianities having an influence upon mens actings in a Common-Wealth and making a society the same with a Common-Wealth To argue therefore from one to another is a shortness of discourse I cannot but wonder at unless it could bee proved that Christianity aimed at nothing else but regulating men in the affairs of a Common-Wealth which is a taske I suppose will not bee undertaken Lastly I argue from the peculiar offences against this society which are or may bee distinct from those against a Common-Wealth I deny not but most times they are the same but frequently they differ and when they are the same yet the consideration of them is different in the Church and Common-Wealth for which I shall suppose the six arguments produced in the last Chapter of the first part to stand good which will strongly hold to excommunication in the Christian Church though there produced only for the Jewish I would fain know what is to bee done in many offences known to bee against the Laws of Christ and which tend to the dishonour of the Christian society which the civil and Municipal Laws either do not or may not take cognizance of Thus much may serve as I think to make evident that the Church in it's own nature is a peculiar society distinct from a Common-Wealth which was the first proposition to bee proved The second is That the power of the Church over it's members in case of offences doth not arise meerly from confederation and consent though it doth suppose it This Church power may bee considered two waies Either first as it implies the right in some of inflicting censures Or secondly as it implies in others the duty of submitting to censures inflicted now as to both these I shall prove that their original is higher than meer confederation 1. As to the right of inflicting censures on these accounts First what ever society doth subsist by vertue of a divine constitution doth by vertue thereof derive all power for it's preservation in peace unity and purity but it is plain that a power of censuring offenders is necessary for the Churches preservation in peace and purity and it is already proved that the Church hath it's Charter from Christ and therefore from him it hath a power to inflict punishments on offenders suitable to the nature of the society they are of I am very prone to think that the ground of all the mistakes on this subject have risen from hence that some imprudently enough have fixt the original of this power on some ambiguous places of Scripture which may and it may bee ought to bee taken in a different sense and their adversaries finding those places weak and insufficient proofes of such a power have from thence rejected any such kinde of power at all But certainly if wee should reject every truth that is weakly proved by some who have undertaken it I know no opinion would bid so fair for acceptance as Scepticisme and that in reference to many weighty important truths for how weakly have some proved the existence of a Deity the immortality of the soul and the truth of the Scriptures by such arguments that if it were enough to overthrow an opinion to bee able to answer some arguments brought for it Atheism it's self would become plausible It can bee then no evidence that a thing is not true because some arguments will not prove it and truly as to the matter in hand I am fully of the opinion of the excellent H. Grotius speaking of excommunication in the Christian Church Neque ad eam rem peculiare praeceptum desideratur cum ecclesiae caetu a Christo semel constituto omnia illa imperata censeri debent sine quibus ejus caetûs puritas retineri non potest And therefore men spend needless pains to prove an institution of this power by some positive precept when Christs founding his Church as a particular society is sufficient proof hee hath endowed it with this fundamental Right without which the society were arena sine calce a company of persons without any common tye of union among them for if there bee any such union it must depend on some conditions to bee performed by the members of that society which how could they require from them if they have not power to exclude them upon non-performance
arise from meer consent is that Deed of Gift whereby our Blessed Saviour did confer the Power of the Keyes on the Apostle Peter as the representative in that action of the whole Colledge of the Apostles and Governours of the Church of which power all the Apostles were actually infeoffed John 20.23 By which Power of the Keyes is certainly meant some administration in the Church which doth respect it as a visible society in which sense the Church is so frequently called as in that place the Kingdom of Heaven and in all probability the administration intended here by the Power of the Keyes is that we are now discoursing of viz. the Power of Admission into the Church of Christ in order to the pardon of the sins of all penitent believers and the shutting out of such who were manifestly unworthy of so holy a communion So that the Power of the Keyes doth not primarily respect exclusion out of the Church and receiving into it again upon absolution but it chiefly respects the Power of Admission into the Church though by way of connotation and Analogy of reason it will carry the other along with it For if the Apostles as Governours of the Church were invested with a power of judging of mens fitness for admission into the Church as members of it it stands to the highest reason that they should have thereby likewise a power conveyed to them of excluding such as are unworthy after their admission to maintain communion with the Church So that this interpretation of the power of the Keyes is far from invalidating the power of the Church as to its censuring offendors all that it pretends to is only giving a more natural and genuine sense of the power of the Keyes which will appear so to be if we consider these things 1. That this power was given to Saint Peter before any Christian Church was actually formed which as I have elsewhere made manifest was not done till after Christs resurrection when Christ had given the Apostles their commission to go preach and baptize c. Matth. 28.19 Is it not therefore far more rational that the power of the Keyes here given should respect the founding of a Church and admission into it then ejection out of it before it was in being and receiving into it again And this we find likewise remarkably fulfilled in the person of the Apostle Peter who opened the door of admission into the Christian Church both to Jews and Gentiles So the Jews by his Sermon at Pentecost when about 3000. souls were brought into the Church of Christ. So the Gentiles as is most evident in the story of Cornelius Acts 10.28 who was the first fruits of the Gentiles So that if we should yield so far to the great inhancers of Saint Peters power that something was intended peculiar to his person in the Keyes given him by our Saviour we hereby see how rationally it may be understood without the least advantage to the extravagant pretensions of Saint Peters pretended successors 2. The pardon of sin in Scripture is most annexed to Baptism and Admission into the Church and thence it seems evident that the loosing of sin should be by admitting into the Church by Baptism in the same sense by which Baptism is said to save us and it is called the washing of regeneration respecting the spiritual advantages which come by admission into the Church of Christ and so they are said to have their sins bound upon them who continue refractory in their sins as Simon Magus is said to be in the bonds of iniquity 3. The Metaphor of the Keyes referrs most to admission into the house and excluding out of it rather then ejecting any out of it and re-admitting them Thus when Eliakim is said to have the Keyes of the house of David it was in regard of his power to open and shut upon whom he pleased And thus Cyprian as our learned Mr. Thorndike observes understands the power of binding and loosing in this sense in his Epistle to John where speaking of the remission of sins in Baptism he brings these very words of our Saviour to Peter as the evidence of it That what he should loose on earth should be loosed in heaven and concludes with this sentence Vnde intelligimus non nisi in Ecclesiâ praepositis in Evangelicâ lege ac Dominicâ ordinatiâ—ne fundatis licere baptizare remissam peccatorum dare foris autem nec ligari aliquid posse nec solvi ubi non sit qui ligare possit aut solvere That which I now inferr from this discourse is that the power of the Church doth not arise from meer consent and confederation both because this power doth respect those who have not actually consented to it and because it is settled upon the Governours of the Church by divine institution Thus it appears that the right of inflicting censures doth not result meerly ex confederatâ disciplinâ which was the thing to be proved The like evidence may be given for the duty of submitting to penalties or Church-censures in the members of the Church which that it ariseth not from meer consent of parties will appear on these accounts 1. Every person who enters this Society is bound to consent before he doth it because of the obligation lying upon conscience to an open profession of Christianity presently upon conviction of the understanding of the truth and certainty of Christian Religion For when once the mind of any rational man is so far wrought upon by the influence of the Divine Spirit as to discover the most rational and undoubted evidences which there are of the truth of Christianity he is presently obliged to profess Christ openly to worship him solemnly to assemble with others for instruction and participation of Gospel-Ordinances and thence it follows that there is an antecedent obligation upon conscience to associate with others and consequently to consent to be governed by the rulers of the Society which he enters into So that this submission to the power of Church-officers in the exercise of Discipline upon offendors is implyed in the very conditions of Christianity and the solemn professing and undertaking of it 2. It were impossible any Society should be upheld if it be not laid by the founder of the Society as the necessary duty of all members to undergo the penalties which shall be inflicted by those who have the care of governing that Society so they be not contrary to the Laws nature and constitution of it Else there would be no provision made for preventing divisions and confusions which will happen upon any breach made upon the Laws of the Society Now this obligation to submission to censures doth speak something antecedently to the confederation although the expression of it lies in the confederation its self By this I hope we have made it evident that it is nothing else but a mistake in those otherwise learned persons who
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