in the way of Communion with God by Christ and an Eternal Enjoyment of him Yet it will not at all follow from hence that the Church of Corinth may judge with Church-Censure the Men of the World that are without the Apostle 1 Cor. 5.12 13. expresly denies it or Excommunicate the Members of the Church of Cenchrea who are not of the same Lump and Body with them No more will it follow that the Pastor of the Church of Corinth may do any Office-acts in the Church of Cenchrea though he abide clothed with that Office and in his holy Administrations in the Church of Corinth be an Ordinance of God for their good as far as Providence gives them an opportunity to partake of the benefit thereof The Lord Mayor of London is the King's Officer or Ordinance for good to all the Kingdom and therefore to all the Citizens of Bristol as far as they have occasion to use his power yet the Lord Mayor of London can do no act of his Office nor put forth any of his Office-power within the City of Bristol Obj. 2. The Pastor of Corinth may as lawfully administer the Supper in the Church of Cenchrea as a Member of the Church of Cenchrea may partake in the Administration of the Supper in the Church of Corinth Ans The Cases are not parallel There is a great deal of difference between a Member's partaking and a Pastor's administring the Supper in another Church For 1. A Member in communicating is not Christ's Substitute but is considered only as a Member of a particular instituted Church whereof Christ is the Political Head 2. The Pastor of Corinth is in his proper place where the Holy Ghost hath set him when he is administring the Supper there which is more than can be said when he is administring in Cenchrea and whom the Church rightly receives to partake with them in that Ordinance he cannot put back nor may he forbear his Duty upon that account 3. There are Instances and Grounds in Scripture for a Member of one Church his being received and owned and his communicating in another Church Rom. 16.1 2. Acts 20.4 5 6 7. But there are none for a Pastor's administring the Supper out of his own Church 4. Receiving the Supper is a Priviledge Administring the Supper is an action wherein Office-power is exerted and hence agai they are vastly different and the one much more confined than the other Receiving unto the Supper each others Members occasionally being but a proper expression of Sisterly Communion between Churches when as Officers mutually acting as Officers in several Churches implies a Coalition of the Churches into one or at least that they are both equally under his Office-power Sharing in a Priviledge and putting forth of power do so much differ as that in a private Member the one is much more limited and restrain'd than the other A private Member of Corinth hath no Power or Right to Vote in another Church than that whereof he is a Member for Excommunication Admission Calling an Officer or any thing else of like nature wherein the Members of that Church are concerned to give Judgment yet a Member of Corinth may there partake of the Lord's Supper And suppose a Member or Forty Members of Corinth should Vote being present in the Church of Cenchrea when an Officer is Called or a Member Received or Cast out their Vote though concurring with the Church of Cenchrea would have no efficiency or causal inffluence at all by virtue of any Institution of Christ to instate such Person in Office-Power or to admit into or cast out from a Member-Relation If therefore a Member of Corinth's being admitted to partake of t he Supper in Cenchrea will not infer his power to Vote or pass Judgment there much less will it infer the Pastor of Corinth's power to act as an Officer there Obj. 3. The Pastor of Corinth is an Officer of the Church Catholick and he administers the Lord's Supper to the Church of Cenchrea as Members of the Catholick Church not as such a particular Churh Ans 1. The Scripture knows but two kinds of Churches viz Mystical and Instituted 2. The Mystical consisting of all and only true Believers hath neither Officers nor Ordinances seated in it though both are designed for it principally but as it is so all its priviledges are spiritual and invisible and not Dispenced by Men but by God himself Nor indeed is it possible That the Church Mystical should be the proper subject of Ordinances dispensed by Mortal Men because then no Man could in Faith dispense any Ordinance to another for no Man can make a Judgment of Faith or certain Knowledge concerning anothers belonging to the Mystical Church And hence the Members of the Church of Cenchrea supposing them all Members of the Church Mystical yet as such they are not Subjects nextly and compleatly qualified for and instituted to this Ordinance of the Lord's Supper Neither is the Pastor of the Church at Corinth an Officer over them for the Mystical Church hath no Officers And by the same reason the Pastor of Corinth may give the Lord's Supper to any that he judgeth Believers where-ever he casually lights on them 3. The Instiuted Church is no other than a Particular Congregation or Church such as that at Corinth and that at Cenchrea which are parts of the general kind and Instituted Churches themselves as Thomas and John are parts of Mankind and Men themselves But look as John's Eye is not set in Thomas's Head nor can it see there so neither is the Officer of the Church of Corinth set in the Church at Cenchrea nor can he do any acts or Office there For though all Officers in the general belong to the Church in the general as all Hands belong to the Body of Mankind in the general or Humane Body yet this and that particular ordinary Officer belongs to this and that particular Church and to them only as this and that Hand belong to this and that particular Body And therefore the Pastor of the Church of Corinth is no more nor otherwise an Officer of the Catholick Church than my Hand or Eye is an Organ of Mankind that is in short He is an Officer to the Church of Corinth and to no other Church besides that 4. If Catholick Church in this Objection be taken in another Notion than either for the Church Mystical or for all particular lar instituted Churches namely for The whole body of visible Bilievers throughout the World I Answer 1. There is no such Church For although the whole body of Believers throughout the World be so called in our common Speech and complying with Custom we may notifie them by that Name yet the Holy Ghost in Scripture tells us of no such Church 2. It was a piece of the Faith of the Congregational Churches in the times of their Liberty which they shall do well now not to depart from that Tho the whole body of visible
A DISCUSSION Of the Lawfulness of a Pastor's Acting as an OFFICER In Other Churches Besides that which he is specially Called to take the Oversight of By the late Reverend Mr. Nathanael Mather LONDON Printed for Nath. Hiller at the Princes Arms in Leaden-Hall Street over against St. Mary Ax MDCXCVIII Academiae Cantabrigiensis Liber TO THE READER THat a Particular Congregational Church is an Institution of Christ is clear in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament Which being granted there must needs be something proper and peculiar unto every such Church which is not common to another For altho every Church hath Ministerial Officers and Ordinances which are all of the same kind yet they are not the same individual Ministry and Ordinances nor in common any more than the distinct Families of two Men each of whom has a Wife Children and Servants One is not the Husband of the other's Wife nor the Father of the other's Children nor the Master of the other's Servants And why should we speak or act less rationally about a Spiritual Corporation or Society than about a Civil one Will we allow that the Master and Wardens and Priviledges belonging to one Company may be challenged or borrowed by another May the Father Husband Master of one Family he challenged or borrowed by another As this Husband Father Master is the proper and peculiar Right of this Family in a correlation and this Magistrate Warden Governour is the peculiar Right by correlation to this Company or Corporation So it is in Spiritual Fellowships this Pastor Elder or Deacon with all his Office-power in Administrations belongs to this Church and to no other so that he is their Officer and related to them and hath no right to administer or exercise his Office in any other Church God being the God of Order and not of Confusion as in all the Churches of the Saints for if God hath not confounded natural and civil relations neither hath he those which are spiritual Since Antichristianism hath blinded the eyes of the Professing World the plainest Doctrines of Faith and Order have met with great Contradictions and Opposition Yea the minds of some who were greatly enlightned in matters of Faith have been left under much darkness about the matters of God's House the Church being still in a great measure fed in a mystical and hidden State and not yet come forth to a fulness of separation from Antichristian entanglements and pollutions as she will when the Mystery of God shall be finished And many who seem to have gone farther than others in the acknowledgment of Truths appertaining to the Churches of Christ and the Forms and Ordinances instituted by Him yet for want of fuller Illumination or being byass'd too much by Worldly Interest and men-pleasing compliance have practised not only short of the Rule but also very ungroundedly and irregularly in these sacred things Not to mention more Instances than the particular Point which is learnedly and nervously discussed in this Treatise Some even of the Congregational Persuasion having extended the Communion of Churches beyond the Bounds which Christ hath set by making it reach to Office-Power have thereby fallen into a Mistake which is in it self destructive to the nature of a Spiritual Corporation For if Ministerial Power be communicable why not the Priviledge of Church Membership much more And so he that Votes to admit a Member in one Church may also by vertue thereof Vote in the admission or rejection of Members or in the Election of Ministerial Officers all the World over and then what becomes of particular Churches and their Priviledges It is true there is such a thing as Communion of Churches in a Sisterly converse and Entertainment of one another whereby they allow of each others Church State without imposing upon one another or parting with any thing which is proper to themselves alone as Church-Membership and Office-power It is one thing to partake of the benefit of Power where it is duly and lawfully exercised and another thing to exercise Power A Man who is a Member of one Corporation may come and sue for his Right in another or have any Friendly Entertainment there But the Mayor of one Corporation cannot come and sit and act as a Magistrate in another Corporation So the Pastor of a Church may partake of the Lord's Supper in a place where he hath no power to administer it Christ's Commission to a Pastor reacheth no farther than the Charge undertaken by him and committed to him feed the Flock over which the Holy Ghost hath made thee Overseer any more than that of the Riding Elder or Deacon Again He that administers doth it as an ordinary Brother or as a Pastor If as a Brother then what becomes of the Pastoral Office Churches may do without it And this will justifie the Irregular Practices of those who call ordinary Brethren to administer the Seals as they have occasion If he administer as Pastor it must be as Pastor of the Church whereto he belongs and then one Church hath power to make a Church-Officer for another and to choose and set a Pastor over it Then also where is co-ordination of Churches Then likewise every particular Church hath power to choose a Catholick Pastor which is absurd And if the Choice of the Foreign Church do give power then a Member of their own might be a fitter Person for this Work having power in the Church as a Member already which the other has not If he administer as a Pastor in standing Office to one Church and occasional only to another then there is more required to make an occasional Officer than a standing Pastor For there 's but one Church required to the choosing a standing Pastor but two are requisite to choose an occasional Pastor there needing the Choice of that Church only to which he is primarily related to make him a standing Pastor but besides that there must be the Choice of another Church to make him an occasional Officer pro hic nunc But I shall not enlarge upon this nor need I it being the Subject of the ensuing Discourse where it is strenuously yet modestly and calmly argued and clear'd which I recommend to the Consideration of the Vnprejudiced and Impartial Inquirer after Truth It was Wrote long since and Corrected and fitted for the Press by the late Reverend and Pious Author whose Name it bears Occasioned by the irregular Practice of some Church or Churches who called in Neighbouring Pastors to administer the Lords Supper to them when they had none of their own Vpon the like Practices here of late and at the desire of some Friends who had seen it He intended to have Printed it had he lived Which Intention of his is Warrant sufficient to Publish it since his Death and indeed neither it nor the Author need any Epistle Recommendatory This Tract is able to speak for it self and as for Him his Name and Memory are savoury and
none by the Church and therefore none from Christ He hath none by the Church of Corinth for they can give him no power for any action in another Church He hath none by the Church of Cenchrea for they do not Call him to Office amongst them And therefore he hath none at all for these are the two only Churches from whom any thing can be pretended in this Case Arg. VII If he may Administer the Supper to and in the Church of Cenchrea he must also fulfil his Ministry towards that Church in all the other acts of his Ministry wherein the Church needs his help For right to administer the Supper supposeth Office but Office-relation inferreth Office-Bonds Office being not a Power or Licence only but carrying in it a Charge Command and Duty But it is evident the Pastor of the Church of Corinth is not bound to fulfil his Ministry towards the Church of Cenchrea he is not bound to Watch there Rule there Guide there Labour in the Word and Doctrine there The other Officers of the Church of Corinth are bound to fulfil their Offices in doing the respective work thereof to the Church of Cenchrea as much as the Pastor and both they and he are as well bound to the other Churches in Achaia as to that at Cenchrea Arg. VIII If this administring the Supper in the Church of Cenchrea by the Pastor of the Church of Corinth be Lawful and Warrantable I demand What is it that makes it so It is plain he doth a special act which none but Persons impower'd and priviledged thereto may do such special acts must have something for the ground of them indeed all acts must else they are unlawful But there is nothing that can impower the Pastor of the Church of Corinth for thus acting in the Church of Cenchrea It must be either his Gifts or his Grace or his Election or his Ordination But none of these can give him power to administer the Lord's Supper in Cenchrea Not his Gifts nor Grace For then a Non-Officer might do it Grace gives ability only to do a thing acceptably to God as to the inward frame of the heart with which it is done not any right to do lawfully any external act which otherwife might not be done Gifts only furnish with ability for doing such a thing whereto the Gifts are suited unto others Edification but confer not a Right or Authority whereby it may lawfully be done for then every one that hath equal Gifts must have equal Authority Neither Gifts nor Grace make a Man Christ's Substitute to bless and sanctifie Elements in his Name and make them Sacramental Signs of Christ and his Benefits Private Members yea Women have both Gifts and Grace yet are not Christ's Substitutes for such an Administration Not his Election The Church that chooseth him chooseth him only for themselves not for other Churches to be in Christ's stead amongst them not amongst others For Christ hath not given them power to confer such power on any Man with respect to any others than themselves But each Church is betrusted with it by the Lord Christ for it self The Church of Corinth cannot subject the Church of Cenchrea to their Pastor and therefore cannot give him either Office power or power for any Office act in the Church of Cenchrea they may as well make him an Universal Pastor over all the Churches in the whole World Not his Ordination For this presupposeth is grounded upon and relates wholly to his Election and thence gives not power of a larger extent than he was called to in his Election He is Ordained to no other than he was Chosen to and therefore if in his Election he be not Chosen to act as an Officer in other Churches his Ordination impowers him not at all thereunto He is not Chosen to one thing and Ordained to another Ordination be it a Solemn investiture of him with Office-power or be it a Solemn Separation of him with supposed due Rites and in due manner to his Work yet it so necessarily and wholly relates to his Election that he can receive no power thereby of larger extent than in his Election he was called unto In sum therefore If neither his Gifts nor Grace nor Election nor Ordination be a just and sufficient ground for the Pastor of the Church of Corinth his administring the Lord's Supper in the Church of Cenchrea there is no sufficient ground at all for it But in none of these is there a sufficient ground for it therefore there is none at all As to what may be pleaded by vertue of Communion of Churches it shall be considered in the next Point This shall serve for Arguments concluding the Question There are some Objections that may receive their Answer from the Premises and these come next to be considered Obj. 1. He is a Pastor every where and abides still vested with that Relation and the Authority of it even when he is in Cenchrea and not only when he is acting as a Pastor in Corinth 'T is not with a Church-Officer as with the Elements in the Sacraments which remain Sacred and Sacramental only while they are using in that Ordinance but afterwards and out of that use what is left of the Bread or Wine is common Ans True he doth abide clothed with the Office of a Pastor even while he is at Cenchrea even as the Lord Mayor of London abides Lord Mayor though he go into Westminster yet he can put forth none of his power as Mayor whilst he is there So is the Pastor of the Church of Corinth limited in the acts of his Office as to the object of it unto the particular Church of Corinth Elsewhere and unto others he is but as a Private Person as to any Office-Authority or Power As a Father abides a Father when he is in another Man's House yet hath no Paternal Authority over any Children but his own Yea I will grant further that the Pastor of the Church of Corinth is to be honoured with singular esteem by the Church of Cenchrea not only for his eminent excelling in spiritual Gifts and Grace but also because the Lord Jesus hath put honour upon him in calling him to such a place and vesting him with such an Office in one of his Churches Nay I will moreover yield the Pastor of the Church of Corinth to be an Ordinance of God for good to all the Members of the Church of Cenchrea So indeed he is in his feeding of the Church of Corinth with a Word of Wisdom to all the Inhabitants of that City being a Vessel that carries precious Treasure and holds forth unto all that hear his Preaching the Word of Life And so is the Church it self of Corinth it being the Pillar of Truth and an Ordinance provided and set up on purpose by the great God in the dark World for this very end to display his manifold Wisdom in the Gospel and direct the lost Sons of Men
Believers throughout the World are called the Catholick Visible Church Declar. at the Savoy ch 26. §. 2. and may be so called yet it is not as such a Church intrusted with the administration of any Ordinances nor hath it any Officers And therefore the Pastor of the Church of Corinth cannot be an Officer to them nor have the Members of the Church of Cenchrea under that Notion as part of this Body any Right or Title to have the Lord's Supper administred amongst them 3. The same Persons say also expresly that Besides particular Churches such whose Constitution and Gathering they had before described there is not instituted by Christ any Church more extensive or Catholick Declar. at the Savoy Of the Institution of churches and their Order Prop. 6. entrusted with power for the administration of his Ordinances or the execution of any Authority in his Name If therefore there be no such Church instituted by Christ a Plea from it for the regularity of this Practice is altogether vain being wholly Founded on that which is not 4. This Notion of such a kind of Catholick Church undermines and overthrows at once all the Principles of the Congregational way and Practice As will quickly appear to any that understands and will consider it and as they well know that are any thing acquainted with the Grounds and Writings of the different Parties in those Points But this Practice impleaded in this Dispute cannot stand without entertaining such a Notion of a Church Catholick This should make us shy of it since it leads to the overthrow and renunciation of what we once believed and built up by our Profession and Practice and engageth us to the owning of that which is inconsistent with all the Principles of our Persuasion touching the Constitution of Churches and the Order to be observed by them POINT II. Touching Communion of Churches I. Tho this Communion be partly founded in and greatly suited to the Law of Nature and Light of Reason to the Principles whereof the New Testament Institutions offer no Violence yet it is to be managed by the Light of the Rules of the Word it being brought under a special Institution of Christ as many other things are which even Natural Light goes a great way in approving of and leading to Although therefore this or that particular Practice may seem a very fair and sweet fruit of the Communion of Churches yet if it be destitute of all Ground and Warrant in the Word such Practice must be look'd upon as unlawful because cause wanting a Warrant from the Holy Scriptures II. Communion of Churches is for the help preservation and building up not only of the several Saints in those Churches considered separately and singly but firstly and immediately of the Churches themselves as instituted Bodies or Societies made up and consisting of Saints for that end joined together according to the Lord. Hence it must needs follow that whatever tends to the confounding of Churches which in their Constitution are distinct and several and should be so preserved inviolably is not a right exercise and improvement of the Communion of Churches but a perverting thereof III. Hence also it follows with an high hand That though in communion of Churches there be a singular exercise of that love which all Saints and Churches ought to have and shew one to another as opportunity for it is administred yet it is altogether unwarrantable for Churches walking in mutual Communion to coalesce into and make up a new Instituted Body of which they should all be Members For tho they ought to walk in love and communion one with another yet they are therein in limited by the Lord and may not become Members one of another mutually there being no Institution of his to Warrant it as there is for Saints becoming one Body in a Church and Members one of another by virtue thereof Nor if several Churches should agree so to make up one Body would Christ be the Head of that Body as he is of every Church or Body of his own Institution IV. As notwithstanding Communion of Churches both the several Churches as Bodies and also the particular Members of each of them as Members ought to be kept distinct neither the several Churches while they continue several Churches running into one body nor the Members of each becoming mutually Members of the other So their several respective Officers and all the administrations of them ought to be kept distinct and appropriated according as the Lord hath set them Officers of Churches in Communion being no more generally or mutually Officers to those several Churches than the Members of them are mutually Members From the premised Considerations touching Communion of Churches several Reasonings concluding the Question might be deduced But all the Improvement that I shall make of them is only to answer some Objections arising from mis-apprehensions about the present Subject Communion of Churches Obj. 1. The Pastor of the Church of Corinth may lawfully administer the Supper in the Church of Cenchrea by vertue of Communion of Churches as well as act as an Officer in a Synod where the Messengers and Elders of Churches that walk in Communion meet Ans Notwithstanding Communion of Churches he may not lawfully administer the Supper in Cenchrea 1. Communion of Churches enlargeth not the object and limits of the respective Officers Power Such Communion Churches may not have it would rather be Confusion and prejudice both the Priviledges and entireness of each of them Communion of Churches extends not to the subjecting of Churches to each others Officers any more than to the subjecting of particular Members to other Churches than their own The Church of Corinth may as well by virtue of Communion of Churches Censure and Cast out a Member of Cenchrea as the Pastor of Corinth by vertue of Communion of Churches act as an Officer in the Church of Cenchrea Communion of Churches is ordained for the mutual help of Churches by the benefit and use of the Gifts that are in any of them the help whereof another may need but not for a foundation of the enlarging mutual communicating or exercising of Office-power 2. Church Officers acting in a Synod to instruct or admonish an erring Church act not any Office-power nor do any other thing than a Synod consisting of Brethren without Officers might as lawfully do Neither indeed do Officers come to or act in a Synod as Officers but as delegated or deputed or sent by their respective Churches thereunto And for such an Expression of Churches mutual communion there is a clear Warrant in the Word But for Churches to communicate their Officers to each other or for ordinary Officers to act as Officers to more Churches than that one to which they are chosen there is no Warrant at all Obj. 2. The Church of Cenchrea desires it and the Church of Corinth consents Ans 1. I still demand Where is the Warrant for the desire of the one or