was Congregational and to the Office of an Apostle then the onely Church Officer seeing themselves say an Officer and a Church an Universal Officer and Universal Church are Relatives as it is accidental to a General to have but one Company or one Regiment Whether Subordination of Ecclesiastical Judicatories and the benefit of Appeals in the Old Testament was meerly Ceremonial though the High Priest Temple and some other things were or was it grounded on natural Reason and Equity and so far as it is so grounded is it abrogated in the New Testament and how doth the abrogation of it appear Doth not 1 Cor. 12.28 warrant an Vniversal visible Church name and thing seeing it is improper to say That the Apostles which by Office had the care of all Churches were set put or placed in any one If they were Members of any particular Church was it not rather of Jerusalem then of Corinth to which Paul did but come as to other Churches and no other Apostle that we read of was there and which at his Baptism was a meer non-ens much lesse were the Jews and Gentiles Baptized into the Corinthian Church Is not Paul's speech Ye are the Body of Christ corrective of it self 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as if he should say Ye are not the whole Body but members in part of that Body in which the Jewish and Gentilish Churches are said to be Heb. 13.3 Ephes 3.6 Whereof Paul was a Minister Colos 1.15 viz. The Catholike visible Church Is not this Body or Church Catholike totum integrale and the particular Churches similares parte Doth not the Scripture usually set it down as one Spouse one Woman travelling one Assembly of twenty four Elders and four Beasts one City of God one Houshold one Temple whereof the Church of Ephesus being not the whole City Houshold or Temple were fellow Citizens of the Houshold and built together viz. With other Churches and Children of God one new Jerusalem c. The Scripture not warranting the expression of an hundred or a thousand Cities of God New Jerusalem c Doth not the Scripture expressely and almost in the fame words teach That the Sacraments Officers and Censures belong primarily to the Catholike visible Church when it saith We are all Baptized into it and in it God hath set not onely extraordinary persons callings gifts as Apostles Prophets c. but ordinary as Teachers there is the same reason of Pastors Helps Governments in which the Censures are included If the Scripture allow the name and thing of an Universal visible Church If also the Jewish Christian Churches be called in Scripture one Bride one new Jerusalem and all the Gentiles Churches one Sister and all the Jews and Gentiles converted one sheep fold under one Shepherd may not all the Churches in a Nation living under one Civil Government agreeing in one Confession of Faith and Directory for Worship joyned in one Covenant and represented sometimes in one Assembly of themselves or their Messengers be by warrant of Scripture called one Church Whether though National Churches were as lawful as either Domestical or Congregational There was in the Apostolike times any possibility of having a National Church when there was no Christian Magistrate which we now esteem a special blessing nor were Christians so many as to bear the name of a Land or Nation as if but one Family had been Christian the Church could not have been more then Domestical nor had they liberty safely and freely to meet in National Synods or Assemblies which yet we now hold lawful and useful Ordinances of God Could the Protestant Church be National in the dayes of Henry the eighth and Queen Mary as it was in the days of King Edward and Queen Elizabeth Whether can a wise impartial man which reads and considers the wonderful operations of the Sermons of John Baptist Jesus Christ the twelve Apostles and the seventy Disciples conceive that the one hundred and twenty Acts 1. were the total number of the Christians in Jerusalem among whom were the eleven and the seventy or the major part of them Whether it be possible or probable that all those of Jerusalem which were converted and Baptized before the death of Christ Matth. 3.1 5 6. John 4.12 and 12.19 Luke 10.17 18. together with those several thousands converted to Christianity by Peter Acts 2 c. might notwithstanding their numbers joyn in Publike Prayer and Preaching so that all might hear and all might be edified Whether doth any Scripture shew that the many thousands confessed to be of the Church of Jerusalem did meet ordinarily together to receive the Lords Supper the chief Church Ordinance Can it be imagined that so many at once could be accommodated with room Beds to sit lye or lean upon as Christ did according to the custome of those times a Table to receive at and Cups to drink in especially seeing that though they continued with one accord in the Temple yet they brake Bread from house to house the Jews probably not permitting this new Ordinance in the Temple viz. In the several houses of those poor that then received the Gospel Can it be shewed that any Church in a City or Town how numerous soever it grew was for the numerosity of it divided into two or more Churches I speak of Ecclesiastical Judicatories not of Congregations or that there were for that reason more Churches then one in any one City or Town and by what Scripture Do not places in Scripture denominate Churches Were not all the beleeving Corinthians of the Church of Corinth the Brethren that were in Laodiced of the Church of Laodicea the Saints in Ephesus the Church of Ephesus c And each of them under the Jurisdiction respectively of Corinth Laodicea and Ephesus c. Is not this a patern uncontrolled by precepts and other paterns Is there any example or warrant in Scripture That a Christian living in a Town or City where there was a Church was not nor ought to be a member of that Church but of a remoter Church Did not Pastors in Scripture feed the flock of God that was amongst them or can they watch over their flocks or Church members one over another as by Covenant they are bound if they live five ten fifteen twenty miles a sunder Can it be shewed that God in the Old or New Testament did erect one Church without Officers Seeing Adam was a Priest to his Wife and Family and the first born afterwards were Priests at the founding of the Jewish Church and Christ was an Officer to the Church in his house and the Apostles were Officers in commission at the founding of the Christian Churches Hath a Church without an Elder or with one onely and consequently no Presbytery power to censure yea excommunicate Can an Instance be given of any such incompleat Church that did exercise any Church Government Or can it be proved by Scripture that they might and ought to have exercised it
to be submitted to then if they were plainly professed and practised as Institutions of the Church Was not Episcopacy the worse when Jus Divinum was stamped on it Whether profession and practice of humane inventions as a part of Gods Worship or as essential to a Church a Minister or Church-Member was not formerly esteemed and asserted to be and is it not still Antichristian impiety and much liker to procure Gods judgements on the Kingdom then the discovery confutation and opposition of them Whether they which in opposition to Presbyterial Government the Government of the most and best Reformed Churches make Disturbance Divisions Separations pretending their way is the Scriptural-way the onely way must not have as clear yea more clear Scriptures for their way then the other or else be justly accounted enemies to Truth and Peace Doth the Scripture require the new Constitution of any true Churches such as the Reformed Churches are confessed to be and which already by your confession have the essence of Constitution and where doth it require it May not the said Churches be fully reformed according to Gods Word without a new Constitution Doth the Scripture use the phrase gathering the Church in the sense that you use it for the first Constitution or Coalition of a Church By what name or names is thè said Church Constitution so much urged upon tender consciences called in Scripture Did the Apostles or Ministers in those dayes teach or practise to gather or separate one part of this true Church of the Jewish Church I speak not which was then by Gods Commandment to be dissolved and another part of that yea persons which themselves converted not to make out of them all a purer Church Did they sever the godly into bodies distinct from others of the same place professing the same Religion Is it not the Scriptural-way of purging a corrupt Church to cast out the grossest offenders first as the Church of Corinth in which were many Schismatikes Heretikes Fornicators Drunken Communicants was advised to cast out the incestuous person that others may hear and fear c. And so in case of Heresie and Errour Gal. 5. and 6. First the Seducers were to be cut off and they that were overtaken with a fault to be restored with the spirit of meeknesse Doth not the setting up of a Church in a Church and extracting the one out of the other or out of Churches imply the incorrigiblenesse incurablenesse dissolving and disanulling of that Church or Churches out of which it is extracted Doth meer Separation of Members from a confessed true Church and Ministery endeavouring to reform according to her Light without their admonition assistance in the Work of Reformation or so much as intimation to the Ministers or Members free their consciences from the guilt of those corruptions which they judge to be in that Church Is it not a neglect of Christs rule viz. Admonition Tell him his fault c. And the substitution of another in the place viz. Separation which is as it were an Excommunication of the Church and beyond the Rule Whether if seven eight nine ten twenty separating voluntatily yea sinfully as if they turn Brownists Anabaptists Familists Antinomians Arminians from a Congregation of an hundred two hundred or a thousand do by a particular Covenant combine themselves together are presently thereupon exempt from the Jurisdiction of that Church and have as much or more Church power then they had while they were as they ought still to have been Members of the said Church yea do become a distinct Independent sister Church Whether Women at least Widows and Maids that are sui juris be not engaged to-seek the participation of all Gods Ordinances as well as men and bound to joyn in Church-Covenant whether any considerable number of men or any men at all do joyn with them or no Had Paul converted those Women to whom he preached Acts 16.13 which could not be brought into an Organical Congregation can it be conceived that they though Baptized were still without were not their children 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 holy having right to Baptism If it be essential that the Church should be at first made up of visible Saints can a man in Faith joyn to any Church or being joyned bear Office submit to Censures or give any Church respect unto her at the Constitution whereof he was not present nor knoweth the first Members or possibly suspecteth them to be unsound seeing he may well doubt whether the said Church hath all the Essentials of a Church or no Is not that which was once Essential to a true Church ever Essential and is not the matter of a Church visible Saints as necessary in the continuation as in the first constitution of it Was every Member at his admission into the Church in the Apostles times called to give account of the Work of Grace in his heart and how is that proved Was the Congregation to judge and what Congregation in Scripture did so judge whether that work was wrought in his heart or no and consequently whether he were to be admitted or no Did John Baptist which Baptized Jerusalem and all Judel yea those which he calls Generations of Vipers Luke 3.7 with 21. and the Disciples of Christ which Baptized more Disciples then John so much mistake though they were born and lived amongst them as to think every of them a true Saint of God Was this grosse mistake the ground of their Baptizing so many of them Did they prophane or prostitute the Holy Virgin Ordinance of Baptism in baptizing so many thousands yea myriads for they could be no lesse amongst whom were so few very few comparatively either real or visible Saints Should they not have prepared the people better then thus and letten them have walked sometime in fellowship with them for approbation of their Conversation for so the very Cells of Satan say some Monasteries and Nunneries do before they admit any into their Society Was not the first if not the onely Church founded by Christ himself domestical in Christ's own Family as the first Jewish Church was in Abraham's Family in which Christ himself the Master of the house who chose the Apostles and not they him was the Priest Prophet and Pastour as also Adam Noah Abraham in their Families and in which the Sacrament was administred and received which we read not in other Families called Churches and to which Christ might have added many formerly converted by himself and others and yet did not and should or may a family of twelve or thirteen be and continue so long an entire Church without adding one Member of any other family though never so fit to be received as Christs Family till it was dissolved by his death did Whether the Church being first Domestical and after Congregational both the one and the other were not accidental to it the Jewish Church having the essence of a Church when it was National as well as while it
may not women as Church Members challenge power and right in them do they not challenge the same in some of the new Congregations Is not investing Non-Elders with Ministerial power placing the power of the Keys in the Body of the Congregation and complaining of the Elders that rule well for taking too much upon them the sin of Corah Is it not a sin of the New as well as of the Old Testament Doth Jude Historically or Prophetically speak of it If Prophetically When and in whom is it or shall be fulfilled Doth Election without Ordination make the Officer Were the seven chosen by the people Acts 6. Officers by vertue of their Election before the Apostles prayed and imposed hands If so then did not the people rather then the Apostles appoint them over the businesse If Ordination be lesse then Election then why is laying on of hands rather then lifting up of hands in suffrages reckoned amongst the Principles Heb 6. Why is the charge more expresse that Ordination rather then Election should not be suddenly and hastily made Why is the description of persons to be ordained much more large in the Epistles to Timothy and Titus which were to ordain then of persons to be elected in any or all the Epistles written to the Churches to whom such election is conceived to belong Is Ordination of Ministers an act of Presbyterian power or of Church-liberty Did the Apostles which you confesse (a) Reasons of the dissenting Brethren did wherever they came leave the Elders and people to the exercise of that right which be longed to them invest non-Elders with the power of Ordaining Did not Churches wait and not ordain their own Elders though they had as much Authority and knew it as well as Churches now do Did not the Apostles go themselves to ordain Elders in every Church or send some Elders or other to that purpose Doth the Scripture require that every particular Congregation may yea must though she hath neighbour-Congregations to assist which is our case alone ordain her own Elders What one Elder in Scripture was ordained by those that were onely of that particular Congregation where he was to officiate What may be the reason that the Apostle which did all things fitly writing to so many Churches in each of which was a particular Eldership did not so largely if at all set down Rules for Ordination as in the Epistles to Timothy and Titus Did the Presbytery that ordained Timothy consist onely of one particular Congregation and of what Congregation and how is it proved Was not every Apostle as also Timothy and Titus as it were an Eldership of the Churches extraordinarily combined in one man When the Apostles joyned with other â—lders in Ordination under what notion did they joyn as Elders of sundry Churches or onely as Co-elders of that particular Congregation If under the later notion what did they adde unto them the Elders of a Church being but Three or Four having as much power as if by addition of Two or Three they were made Five or Six May we not grant in some cases that Supreme Civil power suppose in executing one that had murderer his father and attempted to murder his mother as well as Ecclesiastical may be exercised in one Congregation yea in one family if it be in a wildernesse when it can have no assistance in Government without having the least thought that in ordinary eases every Congregation or Family ought to be Independent in Ecclesiastical or Civil matters Ordinary Elders imposing hands on Apostles or Apostolike men as you say the Teachers of Anttoch ordained Paul an Apostle Act. 13.1 2 did they set him apart to officiate onely in one their own Congregation and not in other Churches For example not in Rome to which Paul writing calls himself with reference to that Ordination 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an Apostle separated c. Is there not as many precepts or presidents for admitting to the Sacrament known Christians of no set Congregation which you so much boggle at as of admitting the members of other Churches and their children which you commonly practice Do not Elders receive their power and commission for the whole Church of Christ and may they not having a Call preach in any Congregation administer the Sacrament to any Christian yea vote in any Synod as the Scotish Divines by consent do vote in our Assembly Doth not communion of Churches bring communion of Offices and Officers Else how can a Minister administer the Sacrament as an Officer for as a gifted man he cannot dispense it to men of another Church by vertue of the said communion of Churches And if so why may not an Elder of other Churches in Jurisdiction If recommendation be as it were a dismission by your own Principles differing not really but onely in time may not a Minister recommended that is dismissed for a time act Ministerially in another Congregation may not the Maior of one Corporation by consent of all parties interested act authoritatively out of the said Corporation as the Maior of London is Bayliff of Southwark And may not the Colonels of Lancashire your own similitudes by like consent govern and rule the Souldiery of Cheshire Is not the whole Church of God one Corporation one City ut supra And may not then the Aldermen and Officers notwithstanding their several Wards Limits Companies joyn together in a Court of Common counsel for the Government of the City May a Pastor as a Pastor pray for the Universal Church or no Is it a divine or but an humane Institution that Ministers should be maintained by Lords-day collections If humane can any man which holds all Humane Institutions unlawful with good conscience offer at those Collections If you say it is divine where is the warrant for it Dare you determine it as certain or do you but dispute it as probable Do not those Independent Ministers which enjoy Church lands and receive Tythes or compositions for them or yeerly half yeerly quarterly stipends hold these ways of maintenance as lawful as Lords-day-collection By what Scripture prove ye that it is the duty of any Christians that are not of your Church nor ever were but are by you excluded out of it possibly because they will not take your Covenant or subscribe your Confession or the like to contribute to your maintenance seeing you take no charge of them nor so much as preach to them as Pastors Have you from Christ any power to receive maintenance from such May a Church to save charges make it a rule or constant practice to chuse no Ruling-elders though never so fit and able but such as are able to maintain themselves Doth not that Text 1 Tim. 5.17 hold forth the maintenance notwithstanding the poverty of those times as well as the lawfulnesse of Ruling elders Whether Moderators and Presidents of Synods and Church-assemblies Assessors Scribes and Registers of Church-proceedings to say nothing of ringing Bells to
publike Worship be lawful and useful or no Are these Offices grounded on Scripture or on Reason or the light of Nature Hath God any where forbidden that he that exerciseth those Offices of Presidency or Moderatorship c. in one Synod should exercise them in the next and in the third fourth c. while he is willing able faithful in discharge of his duty and is thereunto elected and approved Is not the preaching of the Word the highest and hardest part of the Ministerial Function in respect of which Paul saith Who is sufficient for these things And if so by what warrant do private men unfit for the meanest Office in the Ministery so ordinarily and presumptuously usurp it and yet are justified by some of you How dare non-Elders which have no commission from Christ to Preach and Baptize nor power to receive maintenance usually and publikely preach the Word in the Congregations and receive maintenance for the same Do not they themselves sin and all they which usually hear and maintain them in their way especially such as may hear true Ministers as able and as faithful men as they Hath not any in the Congregation by their own grounds as much authority to preach and receive maintenance if the Congregation judge him gifted and desire it Doth the absence or dissent of some or of the minor part of the Congregation disannul the election of an Officer admission excommunication c of a member or other Church-proceedings or is the minor part bound to rest in the vote of the major part though contrary to their own judgements or must they separate from the Church in case they conceive the major part doth sin in such election admission c. lest they be leavened Are not all bound in conscience ordinarily to hear their own Ministers which themselves or their husbands or parents or the major part of the religious in their Congregation did either elect or afterward consent and freely submit to which after consent in the case of Leah was enough to make a Marriage Or is every Christian notwithstanding this at liberty to hear whomsoever and whensoever they please even upon Sabbath days when they conceive he is bound to preach Were not husbands wives and children alway of one and the same Church Doth the vote of the husband or his joyning to this or that true Church include the vote and joyning of his wife and children under his Government Is it not then a disorderly unscriptural practice that husbands should be of one true Church and wives and that often without their husbands privity of another and children possibly of a third Can an example of the like be shewed Can Masters of Families in such a case take that care that those that are under their Government do sanctifie the Sabbath which by the moral Law of God they are obliged to take when one go's one way another a second another a third Whether there be any precept or president in Scripture for suspension of any member of a particular Church or Congregation from the Sacrament of the Lords Supper who is not at the same time cast out of the Church and where is it Whether any greater degree of knowledge and sanctity ought to be required from any before we admit them to the Sacrament then Christ required of all those which he admitted to it if so great a degree may be required considering what men they were and what means they enjoyed Doth the Scripture contain in it any precept president or warrant that a man should refuse to communicate where either the Presbytery or Congregation are remisse in Discipline and admit such to the Sacrament as in his judgement are not fit Was every particular Corinthian by communicating guilty of that grosse profanation of the Sacrament by the Incestuous person though in his place he as it is like some few did laboured to reform it and mourned for what he could not mend Is not the instance of Achan for Relative guilt more sutable to the Israclites as a Camp then as a Congregation and as valid against fighting in an Army as against communicating in an Assembly where wicked men are admitted May a man under pretence that he abhorreth Idols commit sacriledge that is in Scripture phrase rob Churches or Temples of that which belongs to them and convert to private use things he never bought or bargain'd for nor is the propriety of them legally in him but in others because he falsly conceiteth or suppose truely that they were at first idolatrously and superstitiously dedicated to God Is gain godlinesse Doth this Reformation savour of Conscionablenesse or Covetousnesse Is there now adays any such sin as Sacriledge and what is it Whether the practice of every humane Invention suppose those mentioned in these Queres prove such or the practice of every humane Institution used by the Papists suppose celebrating and receiving the Lords Supper before dinner in unleavened bread bare headed c. be such though accompanied with sincere hatred and solemn renunciation of the Papacie and Popery be the mark of the Beast Can they that receive the mark of the Beast be saved without explicite knowledge of it and particular repentance for it Is that the mark of the Beast in one Age that is not in another Was there not both Pastors and People during all the rage and reign of Antichrist which did not receive the mark of the Beast but their Fathers name and were Virgins and yet did live and die in the practise of some Traditions used by the Papists Can it be said either with truth or charity that the reformed Churches or Waldenses Albigenses c. which were more corrupt then they did or do receive the mark of the Beast and who is he that can or will justifie this accusation Whether notwithstanding the apparent differences between the Apostolike Churches and ours the Jewish Ceremonies being then scarce dead or at least not buried their Civil customs differing from ours the Church being then but in gathering from amongst Heathens and Jews under Heathenish and Jewish persecuting Magistrates and endued with extraordinary gifts and offices which is not our case the Rites and â—eremonies Practices and Usages of the Apostolike times be unalterably binding to all after-ages Doth Christ's faithfulnesse above Moses consist in a more particular and punctual determination of all externals of Gods Worship in the New Testament then was given by Moses in the Old Are the times and days of Baptism and the Eucharist as plain as the days and times of Circumcision and the Passeover the place of meeting with the utensils c. Is the particular way how maintenance should be given to the Ministery as punctually prescribed in the New Testament as in the Old or the place of c. Where in Scripture is that glorious title of The Kingdom of Christ applied to the external policie of the Church and of all other ways of Church-Government to the Congregational-way onely and