3. A particular church under one bishop or the same pastors, is a political, holy society; but a combination of many churches consociate, is not so, but only, 1. Either a community agreeing to live in concord, as neighbour kingdoms may. 2. Or else a human policy or society, and not of divine immediate institution. So that if this consociation of churches be called a church, it must be either equivocally or in a human sense.
Quest. LV. Whether a particular church may consist of more assemblies than one? or must needs meet all in one place?
Answ. 1. The true distinguishing note of a particular church is, that they be associated for holy communion in worship and holy living, not by delegates, nor distantly only, by owning the same faith, and loving one another, as we may do with those at the antipodes; but personally in presence.
2. Therefore they must necessarily be so near, as to be capable of personal, present communion.305
3. And it is most convenient that they be no more than can ordinarily meet in the same assembly, at least for sacramental communion.
4. But yet they may meet in many places or assemblies, as chapels, or oratories, or other subordinate meetings, which are appointed to supply the necessity of the weak and aged, and them that cannot travel far. And in times of persecution, when the church dare not at all meet in one place, they may make up several smaller meetings, under several pastors of the same church. But they should come all together as oft as they can.
5. And it is to be considered that all the persons of a family can seldom go to the assembly at one time, especially when they live far off. Therefore if a church place would receive but ten thousand, yet twenty thousand might be members, while half meet one day and half another (or another part of the day).
6. Two congregations distinctly associated for personal worship, under distinct pastors, or having statedly (as Ignatius speaketh) two bishops and two altars, are two particular churches, and can no otherwise be one church, than as that may be called one which is a consociation of divers.
Quest. LVI. Is any form of church government of divine institution?
Answ. Yea: there are two essentially different policies or forms of church government of Christ's own institution, never to be altered by man. 1. The form of the universal church, as headed by Christ himself; which all christians own as they are christians in their baptism.
2. Particular churches, which are headed by their particular bishops or pastors, and are parts of the universal, as a troop is of an army, or a city of a kingdom.
Here it is of divine institution, 1. That there be holy assemblies for the public worship of God.
2. That these assemblies be societies, constituted of the people with their pastors, who are to them as captains to their troops under the general, or as mayors to cities under the king.306
3. That these pastors have the power of the keys, or the special guidance and governance (by the word, not by the sword) of their own particular charge, in the matters of faith, worship, and holy living; and that the flocks obey them. And when all this is jure divino, why should any say, that no form of government is jure divino?
3. Moreover it is of divine appointment, that these churches hold the nearest concord, and help each other as much as they can; whether by synods, or other meet ways of correspondency. And though this be not a distinct government, it is a distinct mode of governing.
Object. But that there be pastors with fixed churches or assemblies is not of the law of nature.
Answ. 1. Hath Christ no law but the law of nature? Wherein then differ the christian religion and the heathenish? 2. Suppose but Christ to be Christ, and man to be what he is, and nature itself will tell us that this is the fittest way for ordering the worship of God. For nature saith, God must be solemnly and ordinarily worshipped, and that qualified persons should be the official guides in the performance, and that people who need such conduct and private oversight besides, should where they live have their own stated overseers.
Object. But particular congregations are not de primaria intentione divina: for if the whole world could join together in the public worship of God, no doubt that would be properly a church. But particular congregations are only accidental, in reference to God's intention of having a church, because of the impossibility of all men's joining together for ordinances, &c.
Answ. 1. The question with me is not whether they be of primary intention, but whether stated churches headed with their proper bishops or pastors be not of God's institution in the Scripture?
2. This objection confirmeth it, and not denieth it. For, 1. It confesseth that there is a necessity of joining for God's worship: 2. And an impossibility that all the world should so join: 3. But if the whole world could so join, it would be properly a church. So that it confesseth that to be a society joined for God's public worship, is to be properly a church. And we confess all this: if all the world could be one family, they might have one master; or one kingdom, they might have one king. But when it is confessed, that, 1. A natural impossibility of a universal assembly necessitateth more particular assemblies; 2. And that Christ hath instituted such actually in his word, what more can a considerate man require?
3. I do not understand this distinction, de primaria intentione divina, and accidental, &c. The primary intention is properly of the ultimate end only: and no man thinketh that a law de mediis, of the means, is no law, or that God hath made no laws de mediis: for Christ as a mediator is a means. But suppose it be limited to the matter of church laws; if this be the meaning of it, that it is not the principal means, but a subordinate means, or that it is not instituted only propter finem ultimum, no more than propter se, but also in order to a higher thing as its immediate end, we make no question of that. Assemblies are not only that there may be assemblies; but for the worship and offices there performed: and those for man; and all for God. But what of all this? Hath God made no laws for subordinate means? No christian denieth it.
Therefore the learned and judicious disputer of this point declareth himself for what I say, when he saith, I engage not in the controversy, Whether a particular congregation be the first political church or no? it sufficeth for my purpose, that there are other churches besides. – The thing in question is, Whether there be no other church but such particular congregations? Where it seemeth granted that such particular churches are of divine institution; and for other churches I shall say more anon. In the mean time note, that the question is but de nomine here, whether the name church be fit for other societies, and not de re.307
But lest any should grow to the boldness to deny that Christ hath instituted christian stated societies, consisting of pastors and flocks, associate for personal communion in public worship and holy living; (which is my definition of a particular church, as not so confined to one assembly, but that it may be in divers, and yet not consisting of divers such distinct stated assemblies with their distinct pastors, nor of such as can have no personal communion, but only by delegates;) I prove it thus from the word of God.
(1.) The apostles were commissioned by Christ to deliver his commands to all the churches, and settle them according to his will, John xx. 21; Matt. xxviii. 19, 20, &c.
(2.) These commissioned persons had the promise of an infallible Spirit for the due performance of their work, John xvi. 13-15; xv. 26; xiv. 26; Matt, xxviii. 20.
(3.) These apostles, wherever the success of the gospel prepared them materials, did settle christian stated societies, consisting of pastors or elders with their flocks, associated for personal communion in public worship and holy living. These settled churches they gave orders to for their direction, and preservation, and reformation: these they took the chief care of themselves, and exhorted their elders to fidelity in their work. They gave command that none should forsake such assemblies; and they so fully describe them, as that they cannot easily be misunderstood. All this is proved, Acts xiv. 23; Titus i. 5; Rom. xvi. 1; 1 Cor. xi. 18, 20, 22, 26; xiv. 4, 5, 12, 19, 23, 28, 33, 34; Col. iv. 16; Acts xi. 26; xiii. 1; 1 Cor. xvi. 1, 2; Acts xiv. 27; xv. 3, to omit many more. Here are proofs enow that such particular churches were de facto settled by the apostles. Heb. x. 25, "Forsake not the assembling of yourselves together." So James ii. 2, they are called synagogues.
2. It is confessed that there is a natural necessity of such stated churches or assemblies, supposing but the institution of the worship itself which is there performed; and if so, then we may that the law of nature itself doth partly require them.
(1.) It is of the law of nature, that God be publicly worshipped, as most expositors of the fourth commandment do confess.
(2.) It is of the law of nature that the people be taught to know God and their duty, by such as are able and fit to teach them.
(3.) The law of nature requireth, that man being a sociable creature, and conjunction working strongest affections, we should use our sociableness in the greatest matters, and by conjunction help the zeal of our prayers and praises of God.
(4.) God's institution of public preaching, prayer and praise, are scarce denied by any christians.
(5) None of these can be publicly done but by assembling.
(6.) No assembly can suffice for these without a minister of Christ; because it is only his office to be the ordinary teacher, and to go before the people in prayer and praise, and to administer the Lord's supper, which without a minister may not be celebrated, because Christ's part cannot be otherwise performed, than by some one in his name, and by his warrant to deliver his sealed covenant to the receivers, and to invest them visibly in the benefits of it, and receive them that offer themselves in covenant to him.
(7.) It is also a ministerial duty to instruct the people personally, and to watch over them at other times, Acts xx. 20, 28. And to be examples of the flock, 1 Pet. v. 1-3. To have the rule over the people, and labour among them, and admonish them, 1 Thess. v. 12; Heb. xiii. 7, 17; 1 Tim. v. 17. To exercise holy discipline among them, Titus iii. 10; Matt. xviii. 17, 18; 1 Cor. v. To visit the sick and pray over them, James v. 14. Yea, to take care of the poor. See Dr. Hammond on 1 Cor. xii. 28. And all this cannot possibly be well done by uncertain, transient ministers, but only by a resident, stated pastor, no more than transient strangers can rule all our families, or all the christian kingdoms of the world.
(8.) And as this cannot be done but by stated pastors, so neither on transient persons ordinarily; for who can teach them that are here to-day and gone to-morrow? When the pastor should proceed from day to day in adding one instruction to another, the hearers will be gone, and new ones in their place. And how can vigilancy and discipline be exercised on such transient persons, whose faults and cases will be unknown? Or how can they mutually help each other? And seeing most in the world have fixed habitations, if they have not also fixed church relations, they must leave their habitations and wander, or else have no church communion at all.
(9.) And as this necessity of fixed pastors and flocks is confessed, so that such de facto were ordinarily settled by the apostles, is before proved, if any Scriptures may pass for proof.
The institution and settlement then of particular worshipping churches is out of doubt. And so that two forms of church government are jure divino, the universal church form, and the particular.
4. Besides this, in the apostles' days there were under Christ in the church universal, many general officers that had the care of gathering and overseeing churches up and down, and were fixed by stated relation unto none. Such were the apostles, evangelists, and many of their helpers in their days. And most christian churches think that though the apostolical extraordinary gifts, privileges, and offices cease, yet government being an ordinary part of their work, the same form of government which Christ and the Holy Ghost did settle in the first age, were settled for all following ages, though not with the same extraordinary gifts and adjuncts. Because, |Reasons for a larger episcopacy.|1. We read of the settling of that form, (viz. general officers as well as particular,) but we never read of any abolition, discharge, or cessation of the institution. 2. Because if we affirm a cessation without proof, we seem to accuse God of mutability, as settling one form of government for one age only, and no longer. 3. And we leave room for audacious wits accordingly to question other gospel institutions, as pastors, sacraments, &c. and to say that they were but for one age. 4. It was general officers that Christ promised to be with to the end of the world, Matt. xxviii. 20.
Now either this will hold true or not. If not, then this general ministry is to be numbered with the human additions to be next treated of. If it do, then here is another part of the form of government proved to be of divine institution. I say not, another church, (for I find nothing called a church in the New Testament, but the universal church and the particular,) but another part of the government of both churches, universal and particular; because such general officers are so in the universal, as to have a general oversight of the particular; as an army is headed only by the general himself, and a regiment by the colonel, and a troop by the captain: but the general officers of the army (the lieutenants-general, the majors-general, &c.) are under the lord-general in and over the army, and have a general oversight of the particular bodies (regiments and troops). Now if this be the instituted form of Christ's church government, that he himself rule absolutely as general, and that he hath some general officers under him, (not any one having a charge of the whole, but in the whole unfixedly, or as they voluntarily part their provinces,) and that each particular church have its own proper pastor, (one or more,) then who can say, that no form of church government is of divine appointment or command?
Object. But the question is only whether any sole form be of God's commanding? And whether another may not have as much said for it as this?
Answ. Either you mean another instead of this, as a competitor, or, another part conjunct with these parts.
1. If the first be your sense, then you have two works to do. 1. To prove that these before mentioned were mutable institutions, or that they were settled but disjunctively with some other, and that the choice was left indifferent to men. 2. To prove the institution of your other form (which you suppose left with this to men's free choice).
But I have already proved, that both the general and particular church form are settled for continuance as unchangeable ordinances of God. I suppose you doubt not of the continuance of Christ's supremacy, and so of the universal form: and if you will prove that church assemblies with their pastors may cease, and some other way supply the room, you must be strange and singular undertakers. The other two parts of the government (by general officers, and by consociation of churches) are more disputed; but it is the circumstances of the last only that is controverted, and not the thing; and for the other I shall now add nothing to what I have said elsewhere.308
2. But if you only mean that another part of the form may be jure divino as well as this, that will but prove still that some form is jure divino.
But, 3. If you mean that God having instituted the forms now proved, hath left man at liberty to add more of his own, I shall now come to examine that case also.
Quest. LVII. Whether any forms of churches, and church government, or any new church officers, may lawfully be invented and made by man?
Answ. To remove ambiguities, 1. By the word forms may be meant either that relative form of such aggregate bodies which is their essence, and denominateth them essentially; or only some accidental mode which denominateth them but accidentally.
2. By churches is meant either holy societies related by the foundation of a divine institution; or else societies related by accident, or by human contract only.
3. By church government is meant, either that government formally ecclesiastical, which constituteth a church, of Christ's making; or else some government about the matters of the church, which is formally either magistratical or human, (by contract,) &c.
4. So by church officers are meant, either such as are accounted essential to a church in the pure christian sense; or integral at least (as deacons); or else such as are accounted but accidental to it, and essential only to the human form. And so I answer,
1. As there are some things circa sacra, or accidents of God's special church worship, which are left to human prudence to determine of, so the same human prudence may determine who shall do them. As, e. g. Who shall repair the buildings of the church; the windows, the bells, the pulpits, the tables, &c.; who shall keep the clock; who shall keep the cups, cloths, and other utensils; who shall be the porter, the keeper of the books, &c.; who shall call the people to church, or ring the bells, or give them notice of church assemblies; who shall make the bread for the sacrament, or provide wine, or bring water for baptism; who shall make the graves, and bury the dead, or attend marriages, or baptizings, &c.; who shall set the tune of the psalm, or use the church music (if there be any); who shall summon any of the people on any just occasion to come to their pastors; or who shall summon the pastors to any synod, or lawful assembly, and give them notice of the time and place; when they are to meet, who shall be called first, and who second; who shall sit highest, and who lowest; who shall take the votes, or moderate or guide the disputations of the assembly; who shall be the scribe, and record what is done; who shall send abroad their agreements, and who shall be the church messenger to carry them. The agents of such circumstantials maybe chosen by the magistrate, or by the churches, or pastors, as is most convenient. Though I doubt not but in the beginning the deacons were mere servants to the pastors, to do as much of such circumstantial work as they were able; of which serving at tables, and looking to the poor, and carrying bread and wine to the absent, &c. were but parts; and all went under the name of ministering to the pastors or churches. And therefore they seem to be such an accidental office, appointed by the apostles, on such common reasons, as magistrates or churches might have appointed them, if they had not.
2. If one will call all or many of these, church officers, and another will not, it is but a strife about names, which one will use more largely and the other more narrowly or strictly.
3. If magistrates by authority, or the churches by agreement, shall distribute the country for conveniency into parishes, (not making all to be church members that dwell in those precincts, but determining that all persons that are fit in those proximities, and they only, shall be members of that particular church,) and then shall denominate the church from this accident of place, it is but what is left to their discretion.
4. And if the said magistrates or churches shall divide a kingdom into provinces, and say, that whereas God commandeth us the use of correspondencies, mutual advice, and synods, for the due help, concord, and communion of churches, and all things must be done in order and to edification; therefore we determine that so many churches shall make up such a synod, and the churches of such a district shall make up another synod, and so shall be specially related to each other for concord as advisers, all this is but the prudent determining of church circumstances or accidents left to man.
5. And if they shall appoint that either a magistrate or one pastor shall be for order's sake the appointer of the times and places of meeting, or the president of the synod, to regulate and order proceedings, and keep peace, as is aforesaid, it is but an accident of the sacred work which man may determine of. Therefore a layman may be such a president or regulator.
6. And if they will call this man by the name of a church governor, who doth but a common part therein, and from thence will call this association or province by the name of a church, which is but a company of churches associated for concord and counsel, the name maketh it not another thing than it is without that name; and the name may be lawful or unlawful as times and probable consequents make it fit or unfit as to use.
7. So much of church matters as is left to the magistrate's government, may be under monarchy, aristocracy, or democracy, and under such subordinate officers as the supreme ruler shall appoint.
8. And if the magistrate will make assemblies or councils of pastors, to be his councils, and require them frequently to meet to advise him in the performance of his own trust and work about religion and the church, he may accordingly distribute them into provinces for that use, or order such circumstances as he please.
9. And if a province of churches be called one church, because it is under one magistrate, or a nation of churches called a national church, because it is under one king, or many kingdoms or an empire called one catholic church, because they are all under one emperor; it must be confessed that this question is but de nomine, and not de re.
And further, 1. That in sacred things that which is of divine and primary institution is the famosius analogatum, and not that which is but formed by man. 2. That when such an ambiguous word is used without explication or explicating circumstances, it is to be taken for the famosius analogatum. 3. That in this case the word church or church form is certainly ambiguous and not univocal. 4. That a national, imperial, or provincial church as headed by a king, emperor, magistrate, or any head of man's appointment, is another thing from a church of Christ's institution; and is but an accident or adjunct of it: and the head of the human form, if called the head of the church of Christ, is but an accidental head, and not constitutive. And if Christ's churches be denominated from such a head, they are denominated but from an accident, as a man may be denominated clothed or unclothed, clothed gorgeously or sordidly, a neighbour to this man or that, &c. It is no formal denomination of a church in the first acception, as it signifieth the famosius analogatum; though otherwise many kind of societies may be called ecclesiæ or cœtus: but divines should not love confusion.
10. It seemeth to me that the first distribution of churches in the Roman empire, into patriarchal, primates, metropolitical, provincial, diocesan, were only the determination of such adjuncts or extrinsic things, partly by the emperors, and partly by the church's consent upon the emperor's permission; and so that these new church governments were partly magistratical, or by power derived from the emperors, and partly mere agreements or contracts by degrees degenerating into governments; and so the new forms and names are all but accidental, of adjuncts of the true christian churches. And though I cannot prove it unlawful to make such adjunctive or extrinsic constitutions, forms, and names, considering the matter simply itself, yet by accident these accidents have proved such to the true churches, as the accident of sickness is to the body, and have been the causes of the divisions, wars, rebellions, ruins, and confusions of the christian world. 1. As they have served the covetousness and ambition of carnal men. 2. And have enabled them to oppress simplicity and sincerity. 3. And because princes have not exercised their own power themselves, nor committed it to lay officers, but to churchmen. 4. Whereby the extrinsic government hath so degenerated, and obscured the intrinsic, and been confounded with it, that both going under the equivocal name of ecclesiastical government, few churches have had the happiness to see them practically distinct.309 Nay, few divines do clearly in their controversy distinguish them. (Though Marsilius Patavinus and some few more have formerly given them very fair light, yet hath it been but slenderly improved.)
11. There seemeth to me no readier and directer way, to reduce the churches to holy concord, and true reformation, than for the princes and magistrates who are the extrinsic rulers, to re-assume their own, and to distinguish openly and practically between the properly priestly or pastoral intrinsic office, and their extrinsic part, and to strip the pastors of all that is not intrinsically their own (it being enough for them, and things so heterogeneous not well consisting in one person): and then when the people know what is claimed as from the magistrate only, it will take off most of their scruples as to subjection and consent.
12. No mortal man may abrogate or take down the pastoral office, and the intrinsic, real power thereof, and the church form which is constituted thereby; seeing God hath instituted them for perpetuity on earth.
13. But whether one church shall have one pastor or many is not at all of the form of a particular church; but it is of the integrity or gradual perfection of such churches as need many, to have many, and to others not so: not that it is left merely to the will of man, but it is to be varied as natural necessity and cause requireth.
14. The nature of the intrinsic office or power (anon to be described) is most necessary to be understood as distinct from the power of magistrates, by them that would truly understand this. The number of governors in a civil state make that which is called a variety of forms of commonwealths, monarchy, aristocracy, or democracy: because commanding power is the thing which is there most notably exercised, and primarily magnified. And a wiser and better man, yea, a thousand, must stand by as subjects, for want of authority or true power; which can be but in one supreme, either natural or political person; because it cannot consist in the exercise with self-contradiction. If one be for war, and another for peace, &c. there is no rule. Therefore the many must be one collective or political person, and must consent or go by the major vote, or they cannot govern. But that which is called government in priests or ministers, is of another nature; it is but a secondary subservient branch of their office: the first parts are teaching and guiding the people, as their priests, to God in public worship: and they govern them by teaching, and in order to further teaching and worshipping God; and that not by might, but by reason and love. Of which more anon. Therefore if a sacred congregation be taught and conducted in public worship, and so governed as conduceth hereunto, whether by one, two, or many, it no more altereth the form of the church, than it doth the form of a school, when a small one hath one schoolmaster, and a great one four: or of an hospital, when a small one hath one physician, and a great one many; seeing that teaching in the one, and healing in the other, is the main denominating work, to which government is but subservient in the most notable acts of it.
15. No mortal man may take on him to make another church, or another office for the church, as a divine thing, on the same grounds, and of the same nature pretendedly as Christ hath made those already made. The case of adding new church officers or forms of churches, is the same with that of making new worship ordinances for God, and accordingly to be determined (which I have largely opened in its place). Accidents may be added. Substantials of like pretended nature may not be added; because it is a usurping of Christ's power, without derivation by any proved commission; and an accusing of him, as having done his own work imperfectly.
16. Indeed no man can here make a new church officer of this intrinsic sort, without making him new work, which is to make new doctrine, or new worship (which are forbidden): for to do God's work already made belongs to the office already instituted. If every king will make his own officers, or authorize the greater to make the less, none must presume to make Christ officers and churches without his commission.
17. No man must make any office, church, or ordinance, which is corruptive or destructive, or contrary or injurious to the offices, churches, and ordinances which Christ himself hath made. This Bellarmin confesseth, and therefore I suppose protestants will not deny it. Those human officers which usurp the work of Christ's own officers, and take it out of their hands, do malignantly fight against Christ's institutions: and while they pretend that it is but preserving and not corrupting or opposing additions which they make, and yet with these words in their mouths, do either give Christ's officers' work to others, or hinder and oppress his officers themselves, and by their new church forms undermine or openly destroy the old, by this expression of their enmity they confute themselves.
18. This hath been the unhappy case of the Roman frame of church innovations, as you may observe in the particulars of its degeneracy.
(1.) Councils were called general or œcumenical in respect to one empire only; and they thence grew to extend the name to the whole world; when they may as well say, that Constantine, Martian, &c. were emperors of the whole world, seeing by their authority they were called.