The Life and Death of John Eliot, Part 2
PART II. Or, Eliot as a Minister.
ARTICLE I. His Ministerial Accomplishments.
THE Grace of God, which we have seen so Illustriously Endowing and Adorning of our Eliot, as well qualifi'd him for, as dispos'd him to the Employment wherein he spent about Six Decads of his Years; which was, The Service of the Lord Jesus Christ, in the Ministry of the Gospel. This was the Work to which he appli'd himself; and he undertook it, I believe, with as right Thoughts of it, and as good Ends in it, as ever any Man in our days was acted with. He look'd upon the Conduct of a Church, as a thing no less Dangerous than Important, and attended with so many Difficulties, Temptations, and Humiliations, as that nothing but a Call from the Son of God, could have encouraged him unto the Susception of it. He saw that Flesh and Blood would find it no very pleasant thing to be oblig'd unto the over-sight of a number, that by a solemn Covenant should be listed among the Voluntiers of the Lord Jesus Christ; that it was no easy thing to feed the Souls of such a People, and of the Children, and the Neighbours, which were to be brought into the same Sheepfold with them; to bear their manners with all patience, not being by any of their Infirmities discouraged from Teaching of them, and from Watching and Praying over them; to value them highly as the Flock which God has purchased with his own Blood, notwithstanding all their miscarriages; and in all to examine the Rule of Scripture for the warrant of whatever shall be done; and to remember the Day of Judgment, wherein an account must be given of all that has been done; having in the mean time no expectation of the Riches and Grandeurs which accompany a worldly Domination. It was herewithal his Opinion, That (as the Great Owen expresses it) notwithstanding all the Countenance that is given to any Church by the Publick Ministry, yet whilst we are in this World, those who will faithfully discharge their Duty, as Ministers of the Gospel, shall have need to be prepared for Sufferings; and it was in a sense of these things that he gave himself up to the Sacred Ministry. A stranger to Regeneration can be but poorly accomplished for such a Ministry; and however God may prosper the Sermons of such a Man for the advantage of his Church: However the building of the Ark may be help'd on by such Carpenters as perish in the Flood, and the Tyrians may do some work about the Temple, who arrive to no Worship in the Inner-Courts thereof; and as Austin expressed it, a Stonecutter may convey Water into a Garden, without having himself any advantage of it; nevertheless, the unsanctifi'd Minister, how gifted, how able soever he may be, must have it still said unto him, Thou lackest one thing! and that one thing our Eliot had. But the one thing was not all! as, indeed, it would not have been enough. God furnished him with a good measure of Learning too, which made him capable to divide the Word aright. He was a most acute Grammarian; and understood very well the Languages which God first wrote his Holy Bible in. He had a sharp insight into all the other Liberal Arts, and made little Systems of them for the use of certain Indians, whose exacter Education he was desirous of. But, above all, he had a most Eminent Skill in Theology; and that which profane Scoffers reproach'd as the disgrace of the blessed Alting, all of whose Works always weigh down the purest Gold, was the honour of our Eliot, namely, to be Scripturarius Theologus, or, one mighty in the Word; which enabled him to convince Gainsayers, and on all occasions to show himself a thorough Divine, and a Workman that needed not be ashamed.
In short, he came like another Bazaleel, or Aholiah, unto the Service of the Tabernacle. And from one particularity in that part of his Learning which lay in the Affairs of the Tabernacle, it was, that in a little Book of his, we have those Lines, which for a certain cause I now transcribe: Oh that the Lord would put it (says he) into the heart of some of his Religious and Learned Servants, to take such pains about the Hebrew Language, as to fit it for universal use! Considering, that above all Languages spoken by the Lip of Man, it is most capable to be enlarged, and fitted to express all Things, and Motions, and Notions, that our Humane Intellect is capable of in this Mortal Life; considering also, that it is the Invention of God himself; and what one is fitter to be the Ʋniversal Language, than that which it pleased our Lord Jesus to make use of, when he spake from Heaven unto Paul?
ARTICLE II. His Family-Government.
THE Apostle Paul, reciting and requiring the Qualifications of a Gospel Minister, gives order, That he be the Husband of one Wife, and one that ruleth well his own house, having his Children in subjection with all gravity. It seems that a man's carriage in his own House is a part, or at least a sign of his due Deportment in the House of God; and then, I am sure, our Eliot's was very Exemplary. That one Wife, which was given to him truly from the Lord, he loved, prized, cherished, with a Kindness that notably represented the Compassion which he (thereby) taught his Church to expect from the Lord Jesus Christ; and after he had lived with her for more than half an hundred years, he followed her to the Grave, with Lamentations beyond those which the Jews from the Figure of a Letter in the Text affirm, that Abraham deplored his aged Sarah with; her departure made a deeper Impression upon him, than what any common Affliction could. His whole Conversation with her had that sweetness, and that gravity and modesty beautifying of it, that every one called them Zachary and Elizabeth. His Family was a little Bethel, for the Worship of God constantly and exactly maintained in it; and unto the daily Prayers of the Family, his manner was to prefix the reading of the Scripture; which being done, 'twas also his manner to make his young People to chuse a certain passage in the Chapter, and give him some Observations of their own upon it. By this method he did mightily sharpen and improve, as well as try their Understandings, and endeavour to make them wise unto Salvation. He was likewise very strict in the Education of his Children, and more careful to mend any Error in their Hearts and Lives, than he could have been to cure a blemish in their Bodies. No Exorbitances or Extravagancies could find a room under his Roof; nor was his House any other than a School of Piety; one might have there seen a perpetual mixture of a Spartan and a Christian Discipline. Whatever decay there might be upon Family-Religion among us, as for our Eliot, we knew him, that he would command his Children, and his Houshold after him, that they should keep the way of the Lord.
ARTICLE III. His way of Preaching.
SUch was he in his lesser Family! and in his greater Family he manifested still more of his regards to the Rule of a Gospel-Ministry. To his Congregation, he was a Preacher that made it his care to give every one their Meat in due season. It was Food and not Froth, which in his Publick Sermons he entertained the Souls of his People with, he did not starve them with empty and windy Speculations, or with such things as Animum non dant, quia non habent. His way of Preaching was very plain, so that the very Lambs might wade into his Discourses on those Texts and Themes wherein Elephants might swim; and herewithal it was very powerful, his Delivery was always very graceful and grateful; but when he was to use Reproofs and Warnings against any in, his Voice would rise into a warmth which had in it very much of Energy as well as Decency; he would brandish the Swords, and sound the Trumpets of God against all Vice, with a most penetrating Liveliness, and make his Pulpit another Mount Sinai, for the flashes of Lightning therein displai'd against the breaches of the Law given upon that burning Mountain. And, I observed, that there was usually a special fervour in the Rebukes which he bestow'd upon Carnality, a carnal Frame and Life in Professors of Religion; when he was to brand the Earthly-mindedness of Church-Members, and the Allowance and the Indulgence which they often gave unto themselves in sensual Delights, here he was a right Boanerges; he then spoke, as 'twas said one of the Ancients did, Quot verba tot Fulmina, as many Thunderbolts as Words.
It was another property of his Preaching, that there was evermore much of Christ in it; and with Paul he could say, I determined to know nothing but Jesus Christ; having that Blessed Name in his Discourses, with a frequency like that with which Paul mentions it in his Epistles. As 'twas noted of Dr. Bodly, that whatever Subject he were upon in the Application, still his Use of it would be to drive Men unto the Lord Jesus Christ; in like manner, the Lord Jesus Christ was the Loadstone which gave a touch to all the Sermons of our Eliot; a glorious, precious, lovely Christ was the point of Heaven which they still verged unto: From this Inclination it was, that altho he printed several English Books before he dy'd, yet his Heart seemed not so much in any of them, as in that serious and savoury Book of his Intituled, The Harmony of the Gospels, in the Holy History of Jesus Christ. From hence also 'twas that he would give that Advice to young Preachers, Pray let there be much of Christ in your Ministry; and when he had heard a Sermon which had any special relish of a blessed Jesus in it, he would say thereupon, O blessed be God, that we have Christ so much, and so well preached in poor New-England!
Moreover, he lik'd no Preaching but what had been well-studied for; and he would very much commend a Sermon which he could perceive had required some good Thinking and Reading in the Author of it. I have been present when he has unto a Preacher then just come home from the Assembly with him, thus expressed himself, Brother, there was Oyl required for the Service of the Sanctuary; but it must be beaten Oyl; I praise God that I saw your Oyl so well beatenn to day; the Lord help us always by good study to beat our Oyl, that there may be no knots in our Sermons left undissolved, and that there may a clear light be thereby given in the House of God! And yet he likewise look'd for something in a Sermon beside and beyond the meer study of Man; he was for having the Spirit of God breathing in it, and with it; and he was for speaking those things from those Impressions, and with those Affections, which might compel the Hearer to say, The Spirit of God was here! I have heard him complain, It is a sad thing when a Sermon shall have that one thing, the Spirit of God, wanting in it.
ARTICLE IV. His Cares about the Children of his People.
BUT he remembred that he had Lambs in his Flock, and like another David he could not endure to see the Lion seize upon any of them. He always had a mighty concern upon his mind for little Children; 'twas an affectionate stroke in one of the little Papers which he published for them, Sure Christ is not willing to lose his Lambs; and I have cause to remember with what an hearty, fervent, zealous Application he address'd himself, when in the Name of the Neighbour Pastors and Churches he gave me the right hand of Fellowship at my Ordination, and said, Brother, Art thou a lover of the Lord Jesus Christ? Then, I pray, Feed his Lambs.
One thing whereof he was very desirous for poor Children, was the Covenanting of them; he was very solicitous that the Lambs might pass under the Lord's Tything Rod, and be brought under the Bond of the Covenant. He very openly and earnestly maintained the Cause of Infant-Baptism, against a sort of Persons risen since the Reformation, (among which indeed there are many Godly Men, that were dear to the Soul of our Eliot) who forget that in the Gospel Church-State, as well as in the Jewish, the Promise is to Believers and their Children; and are unwilling to reckon Children among the Disciples of Jesus Christ, or to grant, That of such is the Kingdom of Heaven: or to know, That the most undoubted Records of Antiquity affirm Infant-Baptism to have been an usage in all the Primitive Churches: That even before the early days of Nazianzen, Chrysostom, Basil, Athanasius, Epiphanius in the Greek, and Ambrose, Jerom, Austin in the Latin Church, all of which give glorious Test…monies for Infant-Baptism; even Cyprian, before these, assures us, that in his days there was no doubt of it; and Origen before him could say, 'Twas from the Apostles that the Church took up the Baptism of Infants; and Clemens Romanus before him could say, That Children should be Recipients of the Discipline of Christ; besides what plain evidence we have in Irenaeus and Justin Martyr; and that the very Arguments with which some of the Ancients did superstitiously advise the delay of Baptism, do at the same time confess the Divine Right of Infants in it. Our Eliot could by no means look upon the Infants of Godly Men as unholy, and Unbelievers, and unfit Subjects to have upon them a Mark of Dedication to the Lord.
Wherefore, when there was brought among us a Book of pious Mr. Norcot's, whereby some became Disposed to, or Confirmed in a prejudice against Poedo-Baptism, it was not long before Mr. Eliot published a little Answer thereunto; the first Lines whereof presently discover what a Temper he writ it with; says he, The Book speaks with the Voice of the Lamb, and I think the Author is a Godly, tho Erring Brother; but he acts the cause of a roaring Lion, who by all crafty ways seeketh to devour the poor Lambs of the Flock of Christ. And so he goes on to plead the Cause of them that cannot speak for themselves. No man could entertain a Person of a different perswasion from himself, with more sweetness and kindness than he, when he saw Aliquid Christi, or the Fear of God prevailing in them; he could uphold a most intimate Correspondence with such a man as Mr. Jessey, as long as he lived; and yet he knew how to be an Hammer upon their unhappy Errors.
But having once Baptized the Children of his Covenanting Neighbours, he did not as too many Ministers do, think that he had now done with them. No, another thing wherein he was very laborious for poor Children was, the Catechising of them; he kept up the great Ordinance of Catechising, both publickly and privately, and spent in it a world of time. About the end of the Second Century, before there had in the least begun to start up new Officers in the Church of God, we find that there were Persons called unto the Office of Publick Teaching, who were not Pastors, not Rulers, nor called unto the Administration of other Ordinances; those in the Church of Alexandria, were of a special Remark and Renown for their Abilities this way; and their Employment was to Explain and to Defend the Principles of the Christian Religion, unto all with whom they could be concerned. Here was the Catechist, with reference unto whom the Apostle says, Let the Catechised communicate unto him in all good things. Now, tho some think, a Teacher, purely as such, hath no Right unto further Church-Administrations, any more than the Rabbies and Doctors among the Jews, had to offer Sacrifices in the Temple; yet he who is called to be a Teacher, may at the same time also be called to be an Elder; and being now a Teaching Elder, he becomes interested in the whole Government of the Church, he has the power of all Sacred Administrations. 'Tis the latter and more compleat and perfect Character, which the Churches of New-England have stil acknowledged in their Teachers; and such a Teaching-Elder did our Eliot remember himself to be. He thought himself under a particular Obligation to be that Officer, which the Apostle calls in 1 Cor. 4.15. An Instructor of the young; nor was he ashamed, any more than some of the worthiest Men among the Ancients were, to be called, A Catechist. He would observe upon John 21.15. That, the care of the Lambs is one third part of the charge over the Church of God. It would be incredible, if I should relate what pains he took to keep up the blessed Eccho's of Truth between himself, and the young People of his Congregation; and what prudence he used, in suiting of his Catechisms to the age and strength of his little Catechumens. But one thing I must observe, which is, that altho there may be, (as one has computed) no less than five hundred Catechisms extant; yet Mr. Eliot gave himself the Travel of adding to their number, by composing of some further Catechisms, which were more particularly designed as an Antidote for his own People, against the Contagion of such Errors as might threaten any peculiar danger to them. And the effect and success of this Catechising, bore proportion to the indefatigable Industry with which he prosecuted it; it is a well-principled People that he has left behind him. As when certain Jesuits were sent among the Waldenses to corrupt their Children, they returned with much Disappointment and Confusion, because the Children of seven years old, were well-principled enough to encounter the most Learned of them all; so, if any Seducers were let loose to wolve it among the good People of Roxbury, I am confident, they would find as little Prey in that well-instructed Place, as in any part of all the Country; no Civil Penalties would signify so much to save any People from the Snares of busy Hereticks, as the unweared Catechizing of one Eliot has done to preserve his People from the gangreen of ill Opinions.
There is a third Instance of his Regards to the welfare of the poor Children under his charge; and that is, his perpetual Resolution and Activity to support a good School in the Town that belong'd unto him. A Grammar-School he would always have upon the place whatever it cost him; and he importun'd all other Places to have the like. I can't forget the Ardour with which I once heard him pray in a Synod of these Churches, which met at Boston, to consider, How the miscarriages which were among us might be prevented; I say, with what fervor he uttered an Expression to this purpose; Lord, for Schools every where among us! That our Schools may flourish! That every Member of this Assembly, may go home and procure a good School to be encouraged in the Town where he lives! that before we dye, we may be so happy as to see a good School encouraged in every Plantation of the Country. God so blessed his endeavours, that Roxbury could not live quietly without a Free-School in the Town; and the issue of it has been one thing, which has made me almost put the Title of Schola Illustris up▪ that little Nursery; that is, That Roxbury has afforded more Scholars, first for the College, and then for the Publick, than any Town of its bigness; or, if I mistake not, of twice its bigness in all New England. From the Spring of the School at Roxbury, there have run a large number of the Streams, which have made glad this whole City of God. I persuade my self, that the good People of Roxbury will for ever scorn to begrutch the Cost, or to permit the Death of a School which God has made such an Honour to them; and this the rather, because their deceased Eliot has left them a fair part of his own Estate for the maintaining of the School in Roxbury; and I hope, or at least, I wish, that the Ministers of New-England may be as ungainsayably importunate with their People, as Mr. Eliot was with his, for Schools, which may seasonably tinge the young Souls of the Rising Generation. A want of Education for them, is the blackest and saddest of all the bad Omens that are upon us.
ARTICLE V. His Church-Discipline.
IT yet more Endears unto us the Memory of our Eliot, that he was not only an Evangelical Minister, but also a true New-Enlish one; he was a Protestant, and a Puritan, and one very full of that Spirit which acted the first Planters of this Country, in their peaceable Secession from the unwarrantable things elsewhere impos'd upon their Consciences. The Judgment and Practice of one that readily underwent all the misery attending the Infancy of this Plantation, for the sake of a true Church-order, is a thing which we young People should count worthy to be enquired after; and since we saw him so well behaving himself in the House of God, it cannot but be worth while to know what he thought about the Frame, and Form, and Constitution of that blessed House.
It was his as well as his Master, the great Ramus's Principle, That in the Reformation of Churches to be now endeavoured, things ought to be reduced unto the Order wherein we find them at their Primitive, Original, Apostolical Institution. And in pursuance of this Principle, he justly espoused that way of Church Government which we call the Congregational; he was fully perswaded, that the Church-State which our Lord Christ hath instituted in the New Testament, is, In a Congregation or Society of Professed Believers, Agreeing and Assembling together, among themselves, with Officers of Divine Appointment, for the Celebration of Evangelical Ordinances, and their own mutual Edification: For he saw it must be a cruel hardship used upon the Scriptures, to make them so much as Lisp the least intimation of any other Church-State prescribed unto us; and he could assert, That no Approved Writers, for the space of two hundred years after Christ, make any mention of any other Original, Visible, Professing Church, but that only which is Congregational. He look'd upon the Congregational way as a Largess of Divine Bounty bestow'd by the Lord Jesus on his People, that follow'd him into this Wilderness, with a peculiar zeal for Communion with him, in his pure Worship here. He perceived in it a sweet sort of Temperament, between Rigid Presbyterianism, and Levelling Brownism: So that on the one side, the Liberties of the People are not oppressed and overlaid; on the other side, the Authority of the Elders is not rendred insignificant, but a due B…llance is herein kept upon them both; and hence he closed with our platform of Church-Discipline, as being the nearest of what he had yet seen, to the Pattern in the Mount.
He could not comprehend, that this Church State can arise from any other Formal cause, but the Consent, Concurrence, Confederation of those concerned in it; he looked upon a Relation unto a Church, as not a Natural, or a Violent, but a Voluntary thing, and so that it is to be entred no otherwise, than by an Holy Covenant, or, as the Scripture speaks, by giving our selves first unto the Lord, and then one unto another. He could not think that Baptism alone was to be accounted the Cause, but rather the Effect of Church-Membership; inasmuch as upon the Dissolution of the Church to which a man belongs, his Baptism would not become a Nullity: nor that meer Profession would render men Members of this or that Church; for then it would be impossible to cut off a corrupt Member from that Body Politick: Nor that meer Cohabitation would make Church-Members; for then the vilest Infidels would be actually incorporated with us. And a Covenant, was all that he now saw remaining in the Inventory.
But for the Subjects to be admitted by Churches unto all the Priviledges of this Fellowship with them, he thought they ought to be such as a trying Charity, or a charitable Tryal, should pronounce Regenerate. He found the first Churches of the Gospel mentioned in the Scripture, to be Churches of Saints; and that the Apostles writing to them, still acknowledged them to be Holy Brethren, and such as were made meet for to be partakers of the Inheritance of the Saints in Light; and that a main end of Church-Fellowship, is to represent unto the World, the Qualifications of those that shall Ascend into the Hill of the Lord, and Stand in his Holy Place for ever. He would therefore have, Bona Mens, and Purum Pectus, and Vita Innocens, required, as Lactantius tell us, they were in his Days, of all Communicants at the Table of the Lord; and with Holy Chrysostom, he would sooner have given his Heart-blood, than the Cup of the Lord, unto such as had not the hopeful Marks of our Lord's Disciples on them. The Churches of New-England still retain a Custom which the great Justin Martry in the Second Century assures us to have been in the Primitive Churches of his Time; namely, To examine those they receive, not only about their Perswasion, but also whether they have attained unto a work of Grace upon their Souls. In the prosecution hereof, besides the Enquiries of the Elders into the Knowledge, and Belief, and Conversation of them that offer themselves, unto Church fellowship, it is exprected, tho I hope not with any severity of imposition, that in the Addresses which they make to the Churches, they give some Written, if not Oral Account, of what impressions the Regenerating Word of God has had upon their Souls. This was a Custom which this Holy man had a marvellous esteem and value for; and I have taken from his Mouth such as these Expressions very publickly delivered thereabouts.
It is matter (said he) of great Thankfulness, that we have Christ confessed in our Churches, by such as we receive to full communion there. They open the Works of Christ in their Hearts, and the Relation thereof is an eminent Confession of our Lord; experienced Saints can gather more than a little from it. It is indeed an Ordinance of wonderful benefit; the Lord planted many Vineyards in the first Settlement of this Country, and there were many Noble Vines in them; it wa… their Heavenly-mindedness which dispos'd them to this Exercise; and by the upholding of it, the Churhes are still filled with Noble Vines; it mightily maintains purity of Churches. 'Tis the Duty of every Christian, With the Mouth Confession in made unto Salvation. As among the Jews, usually most men did once in their life Celebrate a Jubilee; thus this Confession of Christ, is methinks a sort of Jubilee; and every Good man among us, is at least once in his life call'd unto it. It is a thing that gives great Glory to the Lord Jesus Christ; and younger Converts are thereby exceedingly edify'd; and the Souls of Devout Christians are hereby very much ingratiated one unto another. The Devil knows what he does, when he thrusts so hard to get this Custom out of our Churches. For my part, I would say in this case, Get thee behind me Satan; thou givest an horrible Offence unto the Lord Jesus Christ. Let us keep up this Ordinance with all Gentleness; and where we see the least spark of Grace held forth, let us prize it more than all the Wit in the World.
There were especially two things, which he was loth to see, and yet fear'd he saw, falling in the Churches of New-England. One was, a thorough Establishment of Ruling-Elders in our Churches; which he thought sufficiently warranted by the Apostles mention of Elders that Rule well, who yet Labour not in Word and Doctrine. He was very desirous to have Prudent and Gracious men set over our Churches, for the Assistance of their Pastors, in the Church-acts that concern the Admission and Exclusion of Members, and the Inspection of the Conversation led by the Communicants, and the Instruction of their several Families, and the Visitation of the Afflicted in the Flock over which they should preside. Such Helps in Government had he himself been blessed withal; the last of which was the well-deserving Elder Bowles; and of him, did this Good man, in a Speech to a Synod of all the Churches in this Colony, take occasion to say, There is my Brother Bowles, the Godly Elder of our Church at Roxbury, God helps him to do great things among us! Had all our Pastors been so well accommodated, it is possible there would be more encouragement given to such an Office as that of Ruling Elders.
But the mention of a Synod brings to mind another thing, which he was concerned, that we might never want; and that is, a frequent Repetition of needful Synods in our Churches. For tho he had a deep, and a due care to preserve the Rights of Particular Churches; yet he thought all the Churches of the Lord Jesus by their Union in what they profess, in what they intend, and in what they enjoy, so compacted into one Body Mystical, as that all the several particular Churches every where should act with a regard unto the good of the whole, and and unto the common Advice and Counsel of the Neighbourhood; which cannot be done always by Letters Missive, like those that passed between Corinth and Rome in the early days of Christianity; but it requires a Convention of the Churches in Synods, by their Delegates and Messengers. He did not count Churches to be so Independent, as that they can always discharge their whole Duty, and yet not act in a conjunction with Neighbour-Churches; nor would he be of any Church that will not acknowledge it self accountable to rightly composed Synods, which may have occasion to enquire into the circumstances of it; he saw the main Interest and Business of Churches might quickly come to be ueterly lost, if Synods were not often called for the Repairing of Inconveniences; and he was much in contriving for the regular and repeated meeting of such Assemblies.
He wish'd for Councels to suppress all damnable Heresies or pernicious Opinions, that might ever arise among us; for Councels to extinguish all dangerous Divisions, and scandalous Contentions, which might ever begin to flame in our Borders; for Councels to rectify all Male-Administrations in the midst of us, or to recover any particular Churches out of any Disorders which they may be plung'd into: For Councels to enquire into the Love, the Peace, the Holiness maintain'd by the several Churches. In fine, for Councels to send forth fit Labourers into those parts of our Lord's Harvest, which are without the Gospel of God. He beheld an Apostolical Precept and Pattern for such Councels; and when such Councels convened in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ, by the consent of several Churches concerned in mutual Communion, have declared, explained, recommended the Mind of God from his Word unto us, he reckoned a Truth so delivered, challenged an Observation from the particular Churches, with a very great Authority.
He therefore printed an Ingenious little Book wearing this Title, The Divine Management of Gospel-Churches by the Ordinance of Councels, constituted in order according to the Scriptures, which may be a means of uniting those two holy and eminent Parties, the Presbyterians and the Congregational. It is a remarkable Concession made by the incomparable Jurieu, who is not reckoned a Congregational man, in his Traite de l'Ʋnite de l'Eglise, That the Apostolical Churches lived not in any Confederation for mutual Dependance. The grand Equipage of Metropolitans, of Primates, of Exarchs, of Patriarchs, was yet unknown; nor does it anymore appear to us, that the Churches then had their Provincial, National, and Oecumenical Synods; every Church was its own Mistress, and independent on any other. But on the other side, out Eliot, who was no Presbyterian, conceived Synods to be the Institutions of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Apostolical Churches themselves acknowledging a stamp of Divine Right upon them.
Such as these were the sentiments of our Eliot; and his deserved Reputation in the Churches of New-England, is that which has caused me to foresee some Advantage and Benefit arising unto the concerns of the Gospel, by so large a recitation as I have now made thereof.
The Reader has now seen an able Minister of the New-Testament.