trary to your fenfe, that is, common fenfe, that they should proceed by concord and agreement; for that is according to your fenfe to meet and act in Chrift's name. I am fure this text warrants and obliges two or three elders in a church to act in binding and loofing in the way of concord and agreement; and, till you find a warrant for their doing otherwise when they are more in number, you will not be able to say, that they are regulating their actions agreeably to his word, which you own is imported in meeting in his name. But you have not afferted that it is contrary to fcripture, that the greatest number of elders fhould always act in binding and loofing by concord, unless you intend to fay, that whatever is contrary to your fenfe, or differs from the common way of proceeding in decifions in numerous civil courts of the ru lers of the nations of the world, is contrary to the rule of the feripture, touching the procedure of elders in the church where they prefide. It will not be fo eafy for you to fhew me the abfurdity of putting that fame thing, and no more, in the power of any one elder over a whole great company of elders, that is put in the power of every other in that company over him and the reft, as I think it will be to fhew the abfurdity of putting it in the power of any one in an affembly of thirty elders to bind or loose over the belly of fourteen of them.

The fecond thing that you propofe, and leave to my cooler thoughts, would need fome explication, before it can come fo low as I may have a clear thought about the fenfe of it. As I can take it, you point fome way to that old controverfy about the donation of the keys; and fo you fay that my fenfe of Matth. xviii. ftill goes on the fuppofition, that this text was an inftitution and donation of the keys to a church of Jefus Chrift and its prefbytery. In oppofition to this, you tell me, it is owned by moft, if not all, that the text fuppofeth only that the keys were given to particular churches. Excufe me, Sir, if my capacity do not reach your fenfe or fcope here. If the following words explain your meaning, it is not me; for I am incapable to comprehend them. They are as follows: "They were given to the a"poftles together, and they, being general officers, standing "in fixed and stated relation to no particular churches, the "keys came to the miniftry in particular churches, as parts "of the whole organifed body; and yet at the fame time "immediately, and not as if by commiffion from the catho lic church."

without breaking my head about this mysterious difcourfe

of

of yours, I shall take the trouble to tell you my judgment a. bout the grant of the power of binding and loofing in difcipline; for of that it is that Matth. xviii. fpeaks, and that is what I reckon you mean by the keys, as far as this text has a relation to them. It is my judgment, that the power of binding and loofing in difcipline is not given, nor fuppofed in this text to be given, to the apoftles as fuch, and as diftinguished from the elders or bishops, and the brethren of the churches; and the reafon of my judgment is, that, if it were fo, there could be no binding or loofing after the apostles are ceased. It is alfo my judgment, that the power of binding and loofing is not given here, nor fuppofed to be given to the whole organifed body, the catholic visible church, whereof all particular vifible churches are parts; and this I fay, becaufe, as it is evident this is not the church spoke of Matth. xviii.; fo, after what I have before faid, I may be allowed to affirm, there is no fuch church fo much as fuppofed in the New Teftament. Further, from what is before said, you may fee it is my judgment, that this text does not so much as fuppofe that any company of elders has power to bind and loose, but as prefiding in the church to which the offended brother tells his brother's trefpafs, after he has neglected to hear the one or two more; neither does the text fuppofe, that they have any power to bind and loofe in dependence on any fuperior court of elders, but only as depending immediately on Jefus Chrift, who ratifies in heaven what is done by a church of his brethren and its prefbytery on the earth in his name.

:

You profefs dullnefs where an anfwer was expected to my critical argument against a catholic vifible church, and a church-reprefentative. And you leave me as much in the dark as before, as to the inference you make from the conftitution of the Jewish church to that of the Chriftian. Only you fay fynagogues were of old time, which is no news to me; for I know they took place foon after the return from the Babylo nith captivity but this is no contradiction to what I faid, far lefs a proof of the contrary. 1 have faid enough before of the fynagogues and the subordination that was in the Jewish church, and of the equality and inequality of rulers, and I need not here repeat. You own there was not an equality of rulers of old; and therefore this cannot remain when the reft is abolished. You fay your argument is not taken from the identity of the thing, but by way of analogy. But what is the analogy be tween equality and inequality? You ftill affirm, that the government of the Jewish church was moral as to its effence;

and

and therefore it is your mind, that the Jewish church, as to its effence, was moral; but you refufe to prove it, after your cuftom, by making it a negative: for to lay it is moral is to fay it is not typical, and this is a negative. Now what this moral effence of the government of the Jewish church is, according to you, I know not, if it be not the Presbyterian model, which yet you must own appeared not in the inftitution of that church. But it seems when every thing else in the conftitution of that church is abolished, the Presbyterian model, which was hid before as the effence, is now apparent as the effence of the Jewish church ftript of all its coverings. And if this be moral, then be pleafed only to fatisfy me how any other model might as well have been inftituted by Chrift, as you yourfelf acknowledge in words that I have before cited?

I have attended upon you with fome pains in the foregoing part of your Review, and particularly upon my third obfer. vation, where you labour much in the maintenance of your credit as a critic, and do your beft in the fupport of your ca tholic vifible church, and church-representative, and of the arguments you bad used for thefe; and, after all, I must say my obfervations and this obfervation are very much confirmed to me by your Review; and the weakness of your caufe is ftill more manifeft as to the intereft it pretends in the fcripture, as I hope it will still be further manifeft as you write further upon it. The following part of your Review depends upon what you have been faying in this foregoing part; and, as you are fhorter, therefore on the following obfervations, fo, I think, may I be.

On the fourth obfervation, you labour more in the vindication of your own unguarded expreffions than in the proof, the point in queftion, or in the taking off of my exceptions, and anfwering my arguments. You fay you have given a good reafon towards the end of that fection that begins, p. 108.; wherefore you could not take the thefis that I laid down in The explication of the propofition. But was not that the book you was pretending all along to impugn? And now, when I had, in the Obfervations, referred you to that Explication, the thefis laid down there, and the arguments that fupport it, why could you not take that for the thefis to be impugned by you now? And what concern have I with your arguments any further than they touch that? But as far as I could underfland, from the whole of that fection in your book, that your notion of the profeffion of Chriftianity that fits a man for being a member of a vifible church differs.

from

from mine, I have impugned it, and brought fcriptural ar guments against it; to which I fee no anfwer, but reproach. of my notions of brotherly love, and complaints of flaming fpeeches, and flights, and ludicrous banters, and methods unbecoming the fobriety of a Chriftian, &c. But as I spoke the "words of truth and sobernefs," so I fee they have affected you one of these two ways, that the truth uses to affect the fons of men. And as you have not ventured upon any other kind of answer to my arguments, fo I hope you will excufe, if I can make no further return to these words of yours. You propofe one question to me upon the thing in queftion, and to that I fhall give you a plain anfwer; and your question is, "Was the church of Corinth particularly, or any other "church, mentioned in the New Teftament, where there "were fo many abominable principles and practices abound. ❝ing, all faints and faithful ones, or members of the mysti "cal body in the judgment of charity?" My answer is, befide what I have faid on this fubject in The explication of the propofition, to which I refer you, That all the members of the church in Corinth, or any other fuch church, having come to be fo upon the appearance of their faith, love, and hope in Chrift Jefus, behoved to be reckoned faints, and faithful in Chrift, and members of his body myftical, till fuch time as the law of Chrift, touching offenfive principles and practices, warranted and obliged the church to reckon them as Heathen men and publicans, and the church in Corinth could not lawfully keep them in her communion after that; nor was it then lawful for any Chriftian to hold communion with them in any visible church for that law, if he neglect to hear the church, "Let him be unto thee as an Heathen "man and a publican," is obliging upon every fingle mem ber, as well as upon the whole church.

As to what you had formerly afferted about the members of the visible church as fuch not having any right from God to partake of the feals of the new covenant; after your complaint of my words, which yet were your own, and several fetches to clear yourself, you now advance, "That all the churches in the New Teftament have an exprefs law re"quiring them to partake of the holy facrament of the "Lord's fupper, and binding them at the fame time to do it "in faith." Thus you have now acknowledged, that the members of every visible church have a right from God to partake of that feal of the new covenant. But you speak of a faving title and inward feal of the Spirit which can only be

had

had by faith; whereas before you faid the members of the vifible church, as fuch, had not any title, and you seemed to fpeak of the facraments. As to what you fay of the covenant, within the bond of which all that came out of Egypt were, you will be in a better cafe to speak with me about it, after you have confidered and attempted to anfwer my book on the kingdom of Chrift: for I will not be always repeating what flands there unanfwered touching the difference betwixt the covenant at Sinai and the new covenant.

As to a minister's preaching as a minifter to none but the church whereof he is paftor, you cite the Independents; and when I fay that the pastor of a church bears Christ's com miffion to preach the gofpel to every creature, you repeat your ordinary cant about a catholic church visible, and the identity of that with all creatures under heaven, and propofe a deal of questions to me upon the fuppofition of your own fcheme about a catholic visible church, as in order of nature before particular churches, which yet fometimes you make the parts of which that whole is made up. But as I have fhewed that no fuch catholic church appears in the New Teflament, so now I give you these things for an answer to all your queftions.

1. Every man that has the commiffion recorded, Matth. xxviii. is the minifter of Chrift, the head of the mystical body, and of that catholic body which is his church, and not of any catholic church vifible. And there is no other catholic church but this fo much as supposed to be constituted in the minifterial commiffion.

2. For the edifying of this catholic body, already formed by the ministry of the apoftles, Chrift's minifters, the minifters of his myftical body, are fet in churches as pastors, elders, or bishops of thefe, churches; and that by his laws fo appointing. And as paftors of thefe churches, which are fubfervient every one of them to the myftical body, they are to preach the gofpel to them that are without, or the world, to gather them men out of it into the mystical, and then la· bour to confirm them in it, by gathering them into a vifible church after they are baptifed, and teaching them there to obferve all things whatfoever he has commanded.

3. As the minifterial commiffion was granted in the first congregational church, as I fhewed in the Obfervations, and proceeded out of it in its execution, fo the moft proper way for the execution of it is by the paftors of fuch churches; and every other way is irregular, that is, not according to

the