of these churches, offences would or might arise, which in themselves tend unto pernicious events. (4.) That if these offences could not be cured and taken away, so as that love without dissimulation might be continued among all the members of the churches, an account of them at last was to be given unto that church or society whereunto the parties - concerned do belong as members of it. (5.) That this church should hear, determine, and give judgment with advice, in the cases so brought unto it, for the taking away and removal of all offences. (6.) That this determination of the church is to be rested in, on the penalty of a deprivation of all the privileges of the church. (7.) That these things are the institution and appointment of Christ himself, whose authority in them all is to be submitted unto, and which alone can cast one that is a professed Christian into the condition of a heathen or a publican.

These things in the notion and practice of them, are plain, easy, and exposed to the understanding of the meanest of the disciples of Christ; as it is meet, that all things should be, wherein their daily practice is concerned. But it is not easily to be expressed, into what horrible perplexities and confusions they have been wrested in the church of Rome, nor how those who depart from the plain obvious sense of the words, and love not the practice they direct unto, do lead themselves and others into ways and paths that have neither use nor end. From the corrupt abuse of the holy institution of our Lord Jesus Christ here intended, so many powers, faculties, courts, jurisdictions, legal processes, with litigious, vexatious, oppressive courses of actions and trials whose very names are uncouth, horrid, foreign unto religion, and unintelligible without cunning in an artificial barbarous science of the canon law, have proceeded, as are enough to fill a sober rational man with astonishment, how it could ever enter into the minds of men to suppose, that they can possibly have any relation unto this divine institution. Those who are not utterly blinded with interest and prejudice, wholly ignorant of the gospel, and the mind of Christ therein, as also strangers from the practice of the duties which it requires, will hardly believe, that in this context our Lord Jesus Christ designed to set up, and erect an earthly domination in and over his churches, to be

administered by the rules of the canon law, and the rota at Rome. They must be spiritually mad and ridiculous, who can give the least entertainment unto such an imagination.

Nor can the discipline of any diocesan churches, administered in and by courts and officers, foreign to the Scripture, both name and thing, be brought within the view of this rule; nor can all the art of the world make any application of it thereunto: for what some plead concerning magistrates or arbitrators, they are things which men would never betake themselves unto, but only to evade the force of that truth which they love not. All this is fallen out by men's departing from the simplicity of the gospel, and a contempt of that sense of the words of the Lord Jesus, which is plain and obvious unto all who desire not only to hear his words, but also to observe his commands.

Thirdly, Our third argument is taken from the nature of the churches instituted by the apostles and their order, as it is expressed in the Scripture. For they were all of them congregational, and of no other sort. This the ensuing considerations will make evident.

1. There were many churches planted by the apostles in very small provinces. Not to insist on the churches of Galatia, Gal. i. 1. concerning which it is nowhere intimated, that they had any one head or mother church, metropolitical, or diocesan; nor of those of Macedonia, distinct from that of Philippi, whereof we have spoken before; upon the first coming of Paul after his conversion unto Jerusalem, which was three years, Gal. i. 18. in the fourth year after the ascension of Christ, there were churches planted in all Judea, and Galilee, and Samaria; Acts ix. 31. Neither of the two latter provinces was equal unto one ordinary diocese. Yet were there churches in both of them, and that in so short a time after the first preaching of the gospel, as that it is impossible they should be conceived to be any other but single congregations. What is excepted or opposed hereunto by the Rev. Dr. Stillingfleet shall be examined and disproved afterward by itself, that the progress of our discourse be not here interrupted.

2. These churches were such, as that the apostles appointed in them ordinary elders and deacons, that might administer all ordinances unto the whole church, and take care

of all the poor. Acts xiv. 23. xx. 28. Now the care, inspection, and labour of ordinary officers, can extend itself no farther than unto a particular congregation. No man can administer all ordinances unto a diocesan church.

t

And this ordaining elders in every church, is the same with ordaining them in every city, Tit. i. 5. that is, in every town wherein there was a number converted unto the faith: as is evident from Acts xiv. 23. And it was in towns and cities ordinarily that the gospel was first preached, and first received. Such believers being congregated and united in the profession of the same faith and subjection unto the authority of Christ, did constitute such a church-state as it was the will of Christ, they should have bishops, or elders and deacons, ordained amongst them; and were therefore, as unto their state, such churches as he owned.

3. It is said of most of these churches expressly, that they respectively met together in one place, or had their assemblies of the whole church, for the discharge of the duties required of them, which is peculiar unto congregational churches only; so did the church at Jerusalem on all оссаsions. Acts xv. 12. 22. xxi. 22. See chap. v. 11. vi. 1. It is of no force which is objected from the multitude of them that are said to believe, and so consequently were of that church; so as that they could not assemble together: for whereas the Scripture says expressly, that the multitude of the church. did come together; it is scarce fair for us to say they were such a multitude as that they could not come together. And it is evident that the great numbers of believers that are said to be at Jerusalem, were there only occasionally, and were not fixed in that church. For many years after, a small village beyond Jordan could receive all that were so fixed in it. The church at Antioch gathered together in one assembly, Acts xiv. 27. to hear Paul and Silas. This church, thus called together, is called the multitude,' chap. xv. 30. that is, the whole brotherhood, at least of that church. The whole church of Corinth did assemble together in one place, both for solemn worship, and the exercise of discipline. 1 Cor. viii. 8. xiv. 25, 26. xi. 17. 20.

It is no way necessary to plead any thing in the illustration, or for the confirmation of these testimonies. They all of them speak positively in a matter of fact, which will ad

mit of no debate, unless we will put in exceptions unto the veracity of their authors. And they are of themselves sufficient to establish our assertion. For whatever may be the state of any church, as unto its officers or rule, into what order soever it be disposed ordinarily or occasionally for its edification, so long as it is its duty to assemble in and with all its members in one place, either for the exercise of its power, the performance of its duty, or enjoyments of its privileges, it is a single congregation, and no more.

4. The duties prescribed unto all church members in the writings of the apostles, to be diligently attended unto by them, are such, as either in their nature, or the manner of their performance cannot be attended unto, and duly accomplished, but in a particular congregation only. This I shall immediately speak distinctly unto, and therefore only mention it in this place.

These things being so plainly, positively, and frequently asserted in the Scripture, it cannot be questionable unto any impartial mind, but that particular churches or congregations are of divine institution; and consequently, that unto them the whole power and privilege of the church doth belong; for if they do not so, whatever they are, churches they are not. If, therefore, any other church-state be supposed, we may well require that its name, nature, use, power, and bounds, be some or all of them declared in the Scripture. Reasonings drawn from the superiority of the apostles above the evangelists, of bishops above presbyters, or from church rule, in the hands of the officers of the church only; from the power of the Christian magistrate in things ecclesiastical from the meetness of union among all churches, are of no use in this case; for they are all consistent with the sole institution of particular congregations, nor do in the least intimate that there is, or needs to be, any other church-state of divine appointment.

CHAP. V.

The state of the first churches after the apostles, to the end of
the second century.

IN confirmation of the foregoing argument, we urge the president and example of the primitive churches, that succeeded unto those which were planted by the apostles themselves, and so may well be judged to have walked in the same way and order with them. And that which we allege is,

That in no approved writers for the space of two hundred years after Christ there is any mention made of any other organical, visibly professing church, but that only which is parochial, or congregational.

A church of any other form, state, or order, papal or oecumenical, patriarchal, metropolitical, diocesan, or classical, they know not, neither name nor thing, nor any of them appear in any of their writings.

Before I proceed unto the confirmation of this assertion by particular testimonies, I shall premise some things which are needful unto the right understanding of what it is that I intend to prove by them. As,

1. All the churches at first planted by the apostles, whether in the greatest cities, as Jerusalem, Antioch, Corinth, Rome, &c. or those in the meanest villages of Judea, Galilee, or Samaria, were, as unto their church-state, in order, power, privilege, and duty, every way equal, not superior or inferior, not ruling over, or subject unto, one another. No institution of any inequality between them, no instance of any practice supposing it, no direction for any compliance with it, no one word of intimation of it, can be produced from the Scripture; nor is it consistent with the nature of the gospel church-state

2. In and among all these churches, there was one and the same spirit, one hope of their calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism,' whence they were all obliged mutually to seek and endeavour the good and edification of each other; to be helpful to one another in all things, according unto that which any of them had received in the Lord. This they