heathen writer hath to give us; and indeed being a point of fo high wisdom and worth, how could it be but we fhould find it in that book, within whofe facred context all wisdom is unfolded? Mofes, therefore, the only lawgiver that we can believe to have been vifibly taught of God, knowing how vain it was to write laws to men whose hearts were not first feasoned with the knowledge of God and of his works, began from the book of Genefis, as a prologue to his laws; which Jofephus right well hath noted: that the nation of the Jews, reading therein the univerfal goodness of God to all creatures in the creation, and his peculiar favour to them in his election of Abraham their anceftor from whom they could derive fo many bleffings upon themselves, might be moved to obey fincerely, by knowing fo good a reason of their obedience. If then, in the adminiftration of civil juftice, and under the obfcurity of ceremonial rites, fuch care was had by the wifeft of the heathen, and by Mofes among the Jews, to inftruct them at leaft in a general reason of that government to which their fubjection was required; how much more ought the members of the church, under the Gospel, seek to inform their understanding in the reafon of that government, which the church claims to have over them? Efpecially for that church hath in her immediate cure thofe inner parts and affections of the mind, where the feat of reason is having power to examine our spiritual knowledge, and to demand from us, in God's behalf, a fervice entirely reasonable. But because about the manner and order of this government, whether it ought to be prefbyterial or prelatical, fuch endlefs queftion, or rather uproar, is arifen in this land, as may be juftly termed what the fever is to the phyficians, the eternal reproach of our divines, whilft other profound clerks of late greatly, as they conceive, to the advancement of prelaty, are fo earnestly meting out the Lydian proconfular Afia, to make good the prime metropolis of Ephefus, as if fome of our prelates in all hafte meant to change their foil, and become neigh-. bours to the English bishop of Chalcedon; and whilft good Breerwood as bufily beftirs himself in our vulgar tongue, to divide precifely the three patriarchates of Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch; and whether to any of

thefe

thefe England doth belong: I fhall in the mean while not cease to hope, through the mercy and grace of Chrift, the head and husband of his church, that England fhortly is to belong, neither to fee patriarchal, nor fee prelatical, but to the faithful feeding and difciplining of that minifterial order, which the bleffed apoftles conftituted throughout the churches; and this I fhall affay to prove, can be no other than that of prefbyters and deacons. And if any man incline to think I undertake a task too difficult for my years, I truft, through the fupreme enlightening affiftance far otherwife; formy years, be they few or many, what imports it? So they bring reafon, let that be looked on: and for the tafk, from hence that the question in hand is so needful to be known at this time, chiefly by every meaner capacity, and contains in it the explication of many admirable and heavenly privileges reached out to us by the gofpel, I conclude the task must be eafy: God having to this end ordained his gospel to be the revelation of his power and wifdom in Chrift Jefus. And this is one depth of his wif dom, that he could fo plainly reveal fo great a measure of it to the grofs diftorted apprehenfion of decayed mankind. Let others, therefore, dread and fhun the fcriptures for their darkness; I fhall with I may deferve to be reckoned among those who admire and dwell upon them for their clearnefs. And this feems to be the cause why in those places of holy writ, wherein is treated of church-government, the reasons thereof are not formally and profeffedly fet down, because to him that heeds attentively the drift and fcope of chriftian profeffion, they eafily imply themfelves; which thing further to explain, having now prefaced enough, I fhall no longer defer.

CHAP. I.

That church-government is prefcribed in the gospel, and that to fay other wife is unfound.

THE firft and greatest reafon of church-government we may fecurely, with the affent of many on the adverse part, affirm to be, because we find it fo ordained and fet out to us by the appointment of God in the fcriptures; but whe

ther

ther this be prefbyterial, or prelatical, it cannot be brought to the scanning, until I have faid what is meet to fome who do not think it for the ease of their inconfequent opinions, to grant that church-difcipline is platformed in the Bible, but that it is left to the difcretion of men. To this conceit of theirs I answer, that it is both unfound and untrue; for there is not that thing in the world of more grave and urgent importance throughout the whole life of man, than is difcipline. What need I inftance? He that hath read with judgment, of nations and commonwealths, of cities and camps, of peace and war, fea and land, will readily agree that the flourishing and decaying of all civil focieties, all the moments and turnings of human occafions, are moved to and fro as upon the axle of difcipline. So that whatsoever power or fway in mortal things weaker men have attributed to fortune, I durft with more confidence (the honour of divine providence ever faved) afcribe either to the vigour or the flacknefs of difcipline. Nor is there any fociable perfection in this life, civil or facred, that can be above discipline; but she is that which with her mufical cords preferves and holds all the parts thereof together. Hence in those perfect armies of Cyrus in Xenophon, and Scipio in the Roman ftories, the excellence of military skill was esteemed, not by the not needing, but by the readieft fubmitting to the edicts of their commander. And certainly discipline is not only the removal of disorder; but if any visible shape can be given to divine things, the very vifible fhape and image of virtue, whereby the is not only feen in the regular geftures and motions of her heavenly paces as the walks, but also makes the harmony of her voice audible to mortal ears. Yea, the angels themfelves, in whom no diforder is feared, as the apoftle that faw them in his rapture describes, are distinguished and quaternioned into their celeftial princedoms and fatrapies, according as God himself has writ his imperial decrees through the great provinces of Heaven. The flate alfo of the bleffed in Paradife, though never fo perfect, is not therefore left without difcipline, whofe golden furveying reed marks out and measures every quarter and circuit of New Jerufalem. Yet VOL. I.

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is

is it not to be conceived, that those eternal effluences of fanctity and love in the glorified faints fhould by this means be confined and cloyed with repetition of that which is prescribed, but that our happinefs may orb itself into a thousand vagancies of glory and delight, and with a kind of eccentrical equation be, as it were, an invariable planet of joy and felicity; how much lefs can we believe that God would leave his frail and feeble, though not lefs beloved church here below, to the perpetual stumble of conjecture and disturbance in this our dark voyage, without the card and compafs of difcipline? Which is fo hard to be of man's making, that we may fee even in the guidance of a civil state to worldly happiness, it is not for every learned, or every wife man, though many of them confult in common, to invent or frame a difcipline: but if it be at all the work of man, it must be of such a one as is a true knower of himself, and in whom contemplation and practice, wit, prudence, fortitude, and eloquence, must be rarely met, both to comprehend the hidden causes of things, and fpan in his thoughts all the various effects, that paffion or complexion can work in man's nature; and hereto muft his hand be at defiance with gain, and his heart in all virtues heroic; fo far is it from the ken of these wretched projectors of ours, that befcraw] their pamphlets every day with new forms of government for our church. And therefore all the ancient lawgivers were either truly inspired, as Mofes, or were such men as with authority enough might give it out to be fo, as Minos, Lycurgus, Numa, because they wifely forethought that men would never quietly fubmit to fuch a difcipline as had not more of God's hand in it than man's. To come within the narrowness of household government, observation will fhow us many deep counsellors of ftate and judges to demean themselves incorruptly in the fettled courfe of affairs, and many worthy preachers upright in their lives, powerful in their audience: but look upon either of thefe men where they are left to their own. difciplining at home, and you fhall foon perceive, for all their fingle knowledge and uprightness, how deficient they are in the regulating of their own family; not only

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in what may concern the virtuous and decent compofure of their minds in their feveral places, but that which is of a lower and eafier performance, the right poffeffing of the outward veffel, their body, in health or fickness, reft or labour, diet or abftinence, whereby to render it more pliant to the foul, and useful to the commonwealth: which if men were but as good to difcipline themselves, as fome are to tutor their horfes and hawks, it could not be fo grofs in most households. If then it appear fo hard, and fo little known how to govern a house well, which is thought of so easy discharge, and for every man's undertaking; what skill of man, what wisdom, what parts can be fufficient to give laws and ordinances to the elect household of God? If we could imagine that he had left it at random without his provident and gracious ordering, who is he fo arrogant, fo prefumptuous, that durft difpofe and guide the living ark of the Holy Ghoft, though he should find it wandering in the field of Bethfhemesh, without the confcious warrant of fome high calling? But no profane infolence can parallel that which our prelates dare avouch, to drive outrageously, and shatter the holy ark of the church, not borne upon their fhoulders with pains and labour in the word, but drawn with rude oxen their officials, and their own brute inventions. Let them make shows of reforming while they will, fo long as the church is mounted upon the prelatical cart, and not as it ought, between the hands of the minifters, it will but fhake and totter; and he that fets to his hand, though with a good intent to hinder the fhogging of it, in this unlawful waggonry wherein it rides, let him beware it be not fatal to him as it was to Uzza. Certainly if God be the father of his family the church, wherein could he express that name more, than in training it up under his own allwife and dear economy, not turning it loose to the havoc of ftrangers and wolves, that would ask no better plea than this, to do in the church of Chrift whatever humour, faction, policy, or licentious will would prompt them to? Again, if Chrift be the Church's husband, expecting her to be prefented before him a pure unspotted virgin; in what could he show his tender love to her more, than in prescribing his own

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ways,