The Due Right of Presbyteries, Chapter 10 · Section 15 · Objection 6 – Objection 3
They 6. Object. … the Apostles, were in this Synod as ordinary Elders th…n, The Synod might have censured, and in case of obs…inacie excommunicated the Apostles which were admirable.
Answ. For re…ukeing of Apostles wee have against Papists a memorable warrant in Paul, Gal. 2. withstanding Peter to …ce face, and Peter his giving an account, Act. 11 1, 2, 3. to the Church of Jerusalem of his going in to the Gentiles, which Parker acknowledgeth against Papists and Prelats to bee a note of Peters subjection to the Church. Papists say it was Peters humilitie; other Papists say Peter gave but such a brotherly account to the Church, such as one brother is oblieged to give to another: also all our Divines, and those Papists who contend that the Pope is inferiour to universall councels. doc with good warrant alledge that by Matth. 18. Peter is subjected to the Church-censures, if hee sinn against his brother, and therefore we doubt not, but the Church hath, jus, law to excommunicate the Apostles, in case of obstinacie, and would have used this power i… Judas had lived now when the power of excommunication was in vigor; but wee say withall, de facto, the su… position was unpossible in respect that continued and habituall obstinacie, and flagitious and at…ocious scandals deserving excommunication, were inconsistent with that measure of the holy Spirit bestowed upon those Catholick Organs and vessels of mercy: but this exempteth the Apostles from act all excommunication, de facto, but is our brethren ex…pt them, a jure, from the Law, they transforme the Apostles into Popes, above all Law, which wee cannot doe, Apostolick eminencie doth … neither Peter nor Paul to bee above either the … the … Law, or the positive Lawes gi… One doth wittily say on these … Matth. 8. 15. The Pope is either a … if hee bee a brother offending, … complaine of him to the Church, … bee no brother, there's an end … his father, and never after this …
… in a Synod as Apostles, doth not … in Apostolick acts could not use Sy… others; 1. Because Daniel, 9. 2. … understood by books the num… Lord came to Jeremiah the … Paul. 1 Cor. 1. 1. and Timothi… and …, 1 Thess. 1. 1. and 3. The …, and yet … oph…ts and Apostles were immedi… which they …ote and spake.
Answ. 1. Daniel …d the Prophecie of Jeremiah, and the Pro… the books of Moses, and the Apostles read the old Testament, … and Paul read …eathen Poets, and citeth them, Act. 17. …. Ti…. 1. 12. and maketh them Scripture.
2. But the question is now, if as Prophets and immediatly in… Prophets and Apostles they did so consult with Scripture which they reade, as they made any thing canoni…k Scripture upon … medium, and formall reason, because they did read it, … it out of bookes, and not because the immediate i…piration of the holy Ghost taught them, what they should … canonick Scripture. Suppone a sentence of a …eathen … suppone this, that Paul left his cloake at Tro…s, not the …wledge of sense, not naturall reason, not experience, none … these can bee a formall medium, a formall meane to make scripture but as, (thus saith Jehovah in his word) is the formall reason why the Church beleeveth the Scripture to be the Word … God, so the formall reason that maketh Prophets and Apostles to put downe any truth, as that which is formally canonicall scripture, whether it bee a supernaturall truth, as, the … was made flesh, or a morall truth, as, Children obey your …, or a naturall truth, as The Oxe knoweth his owner, or an experienced truth, as make not friendship with an angry … a truth of heathen moralitie, as, mee are the off-spring of God, or a truth of sense, Paul lest his clo…ke at T…oas, I say the …, formall reason that maketh it divine and Scripturall truth is the immediate inspiration of God, therefore though … learned by bookes that the captivitie should indure seventi. yeares, yet his light by reading made it not formally Scripture, but Daniels putting it in the Canon by the immediat acti…r, impulsion, and inspiration of the holy Spirit; and though Matthew did read in Esaiah, A Virgin shall conceive and beared Sonne, yet Matthew maketh it not a part of the New Testament, because Esaiah said it, but because the holy Ghost did imdiatly suggest it to him, as a divine truth: for a holy man might draw out of the Old and New Testament a Chapter of orthodox truths, all in Scripture words, and beleeve them to bee Gods truth, yet that Chapter should not formally bee the Scriptur. of God, because though the Author did write it by the light of faith, yet the Propheticall and Apostolicall spirit did not suggest it and inspire it to the author. I know some School…. Papists have a distinction here. They say there bee some sepernaturall truths in Scriptures, as predictions of things that tall out by the mediation of contingent causes, and the supernaturall mysteries of the Gospell, as that Achab shall bee killed in the wars, the Messiah shall bee borne, &c. Christ came to … sinners, and those were written by the immediatly inspiring Spirit: others were but historicall and naturall truths of fact, as that Paul wrought miracles, that hee left his cleake at Troas, and these latter are written by an inferior spirit, the assisting, not the immediatly inspiring Spirit, and by this latter spirit (say they) much of Scripture was written; and from this assisting Spirit commeth the traditions of the Church (say they) and the decrees of Popes and councells; and this holy Spirit though infallible, may and doth use disputation, consultations, councells of Doctors, reading; but wee answer that what counsells determin by an assisting spirit is not Scripture, nor yet …m-ply infallible, nor doth Daniel advise with Jeremialis writing what hee shall put downe as Scripture, nor Paul with Sos…h…, with Timothy and Silvamus, what hee shall write as Canonick Scripture in his Epistles, for then as the decrees of the coun… at Jerusalem are called the decrees of the Apostles and Elders and this decree which commeth from the Apostles and Elders assem…led with one accord, and speaking with joynt suffrages from the holy Ghost, v. 7, 8 9, 10, &c. v. 28. as collaterall authors of the decree, is the conclusion of Apostles and Elders; so also should the proph…cie of Daniel, at least the first two verses of the ninth chapter, bee a part of Daniel, and a part of Jeremi…hs prophecie, and Pauls Epistles to the Corinthians should bee the Epistle of Paul and S…sthe…es, and his Epistles to the Colossians, and Thessah…ian…, the Epistles of Paul, of Timothy, of Silvanus, whereas Sosthenes, Timothy, Silvanus were not immediatly inspired collaterall writers of these Epistles with Paul, but onelyonly joyners with him in the salutation.
The erring and scandalous Churches are in a hard condition, if they cannot bee edified by the power of jurisdiction in presbyteries.
Object. But it never or seldome in a century falleth out, that a Church is to bee excommunicated, and Christ hath provided Lawes for things onelyonly that fall out ordinarily.
Answ. It is true, wee see not how an whole Church can bee formally convented, accused, excommunicated, as one or two brethren may bee, in respect all are seldome or never deserted of God to fall into an atrocious scandall, and wilful obstinacie, yet this freeth them not from the Law: as suppose in a Congregation of a thousand, if five hundreth bee involved in libertinisme, are they freed, because they are a multitude, from Christs Law? or from some positive punishment by analogie answering to excommunication? 2. The Eldership of a Congregation being three onelyonly, doth not seldome scandalously offend, and are they under no power under heaven? The people may withdraw from them saith the Synod of New England, what then? so may I withdraw from any who walketh inordinately, 2. Thes. 3. 14. 15. (3) It is not well said that Christ giveth no Lawes for sinnes that seldome fall out. What say you of Anathema Maranatha, 1 Cor. 16. 22. to bee used against an Apostate from the faith, and against such as fall into the sinne against the holy Ghost? I thinke visible professors capable both of the …nne and the censure, yet I thinke it falleth seldome out, it fell seldome but that an Apostle was to bee rebuked, ha… Paul then no law to rebuke Peter. Gal. 2.
Object. 2. A Synod or presbytery may pr…nounce the d…dfull sentence of non-communion against persons and Churches ….
Answ. But I aske, where is the power, and institution from Christ, that one private man, as hee may counsell his brother, so hee may by our brethrens grounds, pronounce this sentence.
Object. 3. One private man may not doe it, to a whole Church, … a classicall Presbytery and a Synod hath more authoritie over him, then hee hath over them.
Answ. One private man may rebuke another, yea bee may plead with his mother the whole Church, that hee liveth in, for her whoredomes, Hos. 2. 2. But if hee justly plead and his mother will not heare, may hee not separate? Our brethren of New England, I thinke, shall bee his warrant to separate; for their sixth Synodicall proposition saith, the fraternitie, and people are to separate from the Eldership, after they refuse wholesome counsell. Now what Scripture warranteth twenty to withdraw and separate, shall also warrant ten, and five, and one, for no reason that if twentie bee carelesse of their salvation in the dutie of separation, and shall not separate, that one man shall not separate; because a multitude doth evill, I am not to doe evill with them.