as they were recommended by the brethren in the churches unto the grace of God in their work, and fought their earnest wrestlings together for them in that work, fo they gave them an account of their progrefs in it from time to time, Acts xiv. 26. 27. and God was glorified in the congregations, be caufe of his goings, Acts xi. 18.; and where-ever the gospel had fuccefs, there they took care to raise a congregation, and there was a new place of quartering, and from thence again founded out the word of God, Thef. i. 8.; and by them the apostles, and other preachers of the gospel through the world, were fuftained, 1 Cor. ix. Phil. iv. 15. 16. 3 John c. When the apoftles, prophets, and evangelifts, had finished their work, they left the world, and these congregations in it, with paftors and teachers for edifying the body of Chrift now joined together, and left that work in the hands of the paftors and teachers of thefe congregations, who have a commiffion to "preach the gofpel to every creature," and to "teach all nations." But the visible church, of which they were left overfeers, is no other but the flock among them, and unto which they are examples, that is, their con gregation.

With these congregations the fcriptures of the New Testa. ment were left, and were preserved in them till the new Babylonifh captivity; which came about by reafon of their de parting from that blessed rule laid down to them in these scriptures by the apostles, prophets, and evangelifts, and seeking unto themselves another method of union than that word; and when the wisdom of man came in the room of that word, and the power of the kingdoms of this world in the room of the glorious rod of Chrift's strength, and the heavenly power of his kingdom, then the Lord's enemies "roared in the "midst of his congregations, and fet up their enfigns for "figns, and brake down the carved work."

But, after the Lord has, by his marvellous providence, preferved his word during the Babylonish captivity, and, by bringing it to the open view of the nations in their own languages, and by the gifts beftowed upon men for the preaching of it, begun to confume" the man of fin" now of a long time, you are yet highly offended that any in the place of the world where you live, fhould come out of Babylon, and return to the congregations of the faints, there to cleave to the truly uniting word of the apoftles and prophets, in op pofition to that dividing and defolating mean of union that was fet up in the place of it: and you make a great clamour about

about a deed of gift of officers given to a catholic church or body of Chrift, for which there is no foundation in the word of God, by which the only body of Chrift yet visible that has a claim to that gift is a congregation of the faints. And however small and defpifed thefe congregations may be any where in the eyes of them that fay, "What do these feeble "Jews? will they revive the ftones out of the heaps of the "rubbish? Even that which they build, if a fox go up, he " shall even break down their stone wall :" yet their Redeemer is ftrong, and able thoroughly to plead their caufe: "He "will not forget the congregation of his poor for ever, nor "will he forget the voice of his enemies, the tumult of those "that rise up against them."

II. You next argue for the fubordination of judicatures, from Matth. xviii. which is as clear against it as any of the words that began to be spoken by the Lord himself while on earth.

Here, because our Lord fays, that our carriage towards a trefpaffing brother not hearing the church should be as that of the Jews towards Heathens, you take occasion to cant over a deal of stuff about the Jewish church, of which I have faid fomething to you before; but as your inferences from thefe words, which do no way refer to the order of the Jewish church, nor to the manner of their excommunication, are the wideft that can be thought of, so I rest satisfied in the apoftolic explication of them, 1 Cor. v. 11. compared with Acts x. 28. & xi. 3.; and pity you, putting yourself to the trouble of searching after, and taking heed to all the Jewish traditions or fables about excommunication, having no foun. dation in the scriptures of the Old Testament, and from them establishing a rule to yourself. And when you alledge, that your scheme of government was in the Jewish church, and that every thing else but it in the order of that church is a bolished, and that it is moral; you might as well make no pretence about the Jewish church, and establish your fubordination of judicatures upon right reafon and nature's light, as does the defender of national churches: for it is your right reafon that tells you what is moral in this cafe, and what not, and nothing else that I know of. I must say, you difcover a ftrength of imagination, when you find every step of the Lord's law about offences, Matth. xviii. in the order of the Jewish church.

That the Jews were bound to reprove one another for fin, there is no queftion; but how you find the fecond degree of

admonition

admonition before witnesses in these texts, that ordained facts to be proved in judgment by them that were witnesses unto these facts, and that one witness could not bring any man to death, two or three being neceffary, I cannot easily imagine, there being nothing like admonition in the cafe, nor defifting upon the trefpaffer's hearing. And for the admonishing of offenders, that goes before the fentence; you might as well have brought any texts to prove it to have been the fame thing with what was injoined under the Old Testament: and as to what was injoined under the Old Teftament, if a tref pass was committed for which the law appointed a man to be cut off, there was no fparing of him upon his hearkening to any admonition; and when the priests, Levites, and judges, that fat in the place which the Lord chufed, paffed fentence in a matter too hard for judges in the cities, (not the rulers of the fynagogue), "in a matter between blood and "blood, plea and plea, stroke and stroke;" and if any man rebelled against that fentence, it behoved him to die, or be cut off. Is this any thing like a church's admonition to a brother, manifefted to be a trefpafler by witnesses? which admonition, if he hear it, gains him fo as no cenfure can be inflicted upon him, any more than if he had never trespassed.

You find next an allufion unto the first degree of excommunication among the Jews, in the binding of an obstinate trefpaffer, and counting him as an Heathen; but because this first degree of excommunication is not to be found in Mofes's law, you go to your Jewish traditions for this. And shall I believe, that the New Teftament Lawgiver brought his law from these? No queftion he is prefent with every one of his churches, and confirms what they do in his name, no less than in the Old-Teftament church and fanhedrim; but will this make it appear, that this law of his was transcribed from Mofes's law, and that hereby he designed to give us the conftitution of that church over again? While you attend fo much to the Jews, and cite them even as you do the Old Teftament itself, I think you will be altogether inexcufable, when you hear them complaining of the neglect of the rule, Matth. xviii. as one of the grounds of the Lord's.destroying their city; if you, that own the authority of our Law-giver, live in the neglect of it, or continue in fuch circumstances as wherein you cannot practise it, and the more that you draw arguments from it for the support of the fociety wherein it cannot be observed.

There is a ground laid for your arguings from Matth. xviii.

viz. That Christ has here granted power to the overseers or elders of a congregation, two or more, to bind and loose in his name. Here, then, before we go further, this is evident in the text; or else your reasonings upon it, both as to the rule of proportion and the Jewish fynagogue, fall to the ground; and you allo prove it, chap. 5. § 2. from this text. And this being agreed upon betwixt us, I prefume to offer you a few questions upon it; as,

1. Seeing I hear not of two kinds of prefbyteries in the New Teftament, and the word prefbytery is but once used with refpect to the Chriftian conftitution, and when used with refpect to the Jewish, fignifies their fupreme court, Luke xxii. 66. and Acts xxii. 6. tell me, if this be the fcriptureprefbytery or not? Certainly the binding and loofing prefbytery, according to you, muft anfwer unto the Jewish prefbytery; and the prefbytery in this text, or the two or three or more elders, you alledge, has the triple teftimony and promife brought over from the fupreme court among the Jews to confirm the cenfures. Is this court, then, the elderhip of a congregation, the court that is called a prefbytery in the New Teftament? and is the triple teftimony and pro mife that was made to the fupreme Jewish court, called the prefbytery, given unto this court, or not?

2. Have these two or more pointed at in the text any power here given them to bind or loose by plurality of votes, or only by agreement? I think you have fome way answered this already, when you are declaring the import of meeting and acting in Chrift's name, p. 608. place 5.; and fo you deftroy the binding and loofing which is by plurality of voices, feeing the grant of power, and promife of concurrence, is only to them agreeing, and no otherwife: thus no deed can be done by them without coming to agreement.

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3. Haye the two or more, as many more as you please, any power here granted to them to bind or loofe in Chrift's name any where but in the church, and with the confent of the church, even the flock which they overfee, "not as lords over God's heritage, but as enfamples to the flock?" Shew me from this text that they have; fhew me an instance of it in the New Teftament; and, till you be able to do this, you may fpare your pains in proving, that the rule and government of the church is in the hands of the elders, which I never denied. But the question betwixt you and me being about the nature of that power of binding and loofing, and the manner of its exercife, and whether it must be exercised VOL. I.

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în a church confifting of brethren, (which is the place that the Lord hath chofen, and where he is prefent), and with the confent of that church, your business is to let me fee, that it can be otherwife exercifed, by any precept or example in the New Testament.

You need not here tune up the old fong about women and children, except you have a mind to divert me. You must first prove, that the infant feed of believing parents are, by baptifm, members of any visible church, and that they be long unto any fuch church, whereof their parent is a mem ber, any otherwise than as they are accounted the same thing with their parent. And as to women, you must be deter mined by your fense of 1 Cor. xiv. whatever it be and if you find them there debarred from all speaking in the church, and alfo, feeing there are other ways of fignifying confent or diffent than speech, from any other way of fignifying it; then you will fay, that the whole church, as far as it is capable, according to the word, confents. And I fhall not condemn you for cleaving as clofe as you can to the fcripture. You may also thus debar them from finging of pfalms, that being one manner of speaking words; faying Amen; profeffing repentance in cafe of public fcandal; and voting in the call of their overseers; and fo none of your heretrixes and liferent. reffes will have power of voting. But if you understand it of praying and preaching, or exercifing any fuch gift for edifi cation only, as the Apoftle speaks of in the context; then you must let the two or three judge, with the confent of the women alfo : for I do not think you will easily exclude them in these words, "If thy brother trefpafs."

You meafure a congregation of the faints, both men and women, by one of your parishes, and the generality of people in them; and the exercife of Chrift's difcipline in one of his churches, by the exercife of that discipline which takes place in your ecclefiaftic courts; for which no man is fuffi cient, without that wifdom of this world which is plainly excluded the churches of Chrift by his law: and you fpeak accordingly about the ability of the brethren in a church, to confent to or diffent from the judgment of their elders, in their prefence and hearing, as to the mind of Chrift in his word, touching a cafe that happens among them, wherein their practice, in obedience to the Lord's commandment of love, in fubjection to which they are walking, is most nearly concerned. And fo you do indeed declare them incapable to know, how to give obedience to the Lord's law of bro

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