mulative power in the case of bringing the whole nation or kingdom into church-order. And that is not the power that makes the fort of Christians that are hated of all nations, and whose foes are those of their own house; nor the fort of churches, wherein the members stand fast in one mind and one spirit, striving together for the faith of the gospel, and not terrified by their adversaries. Then you signify, that when a nation is thus brought in, their children are federally holy, as the children of the Jews, though their parents were not to be accounted visible saints. And thus I am to ima gine, that the posterity of the first Christians in the eastern parts of the world are holy to this day. Neither shall I doubt but they are better people than many in Scotland that have access to know more of Chriftianity than they have.

Thus, Sir, I have taken some notice of your letter, and given you occafion to reconsider your principles with the cause you are opposing. And I hold what I said in the conclusion of my last letter as here again repeated. But I cannot express the confidence in any performance of mine, nor in this, that you express, while you fignify your fatisfaction that our epiftles are to be read before Christ's tribunal. As to which, I would defire to say something like what the Apostle says, 1 Cor. iv. 3. 4. 5. which I beseech you serioufly to consider. Things will appear, and persons too, in another shape before that tribunal, and we are to stand or fall there only by his word, especially his law of brotherly love to our brother whom we have seen, and there we shall not be run down by the world's cry, nor exalted by the esteem of the multitude, or by the things that procure the reputation of the world. Persons and things, now highly esteemed, will then be in abomination; and persons and things now fet at nought, and had in abomination, will then be had in honour. So, wishing you may helped so to act in this world, as may tend to your honour in that day, I rest,

398

Of the unity and distinction of the ELDER'S office.

T

[Written in the year 1731; and now first printed.]

HE officers of Christ's institution are distinguished, first, into extraordinary and ordinary. The extraordinary are, those that were employed in the first joining together of the New-Teftament church, the body of Christ, made up of Jews and Gentiles, reconciled to God, in one body, by Christ's death, and in laying the plan of gospel-churches, and in making the New-Testament revelation. Such were the apostles, the chosen eye-witnesses of the Lord's refurrection; and the prophets, inspired by the Holy Ghost for explaining infallibly the Old Testament by the things now written in the New; and the evangelifts, the apostles ministers. These can be fucceeded by none in that which was peculiar to them; as the nature of their work, completed when the New-Testament revelation is complete, does abundantly manifest. And yet the churches of Christ may be said to have them still, as, in the days of our Lord, the Jews had Mofes and the prophets to hear. But they are succeeded in all that was not peculiar to them by the ordinary officers; as we fee the deacons in Jerufalem took a part of the work that at first was in the hands of the apostles, even that ministry that is diftinguished from the ministry of the word. And then the el. ders were employed in the rest of the work of the apostles that was not peculiar to them; fo that the apostles, after the fetting apart of elders, are diftinguished from them also, no doubt by that which was peculiar to them *.

The ordinary offices, or orders of ordinary offices, are these two, and no more; the order of elders or bishops, and the order of deacons; and beside the bishop or elder, and the deacon, with whom we may reckon the deaconess, or the widow ministring to the sick, there is no ordinary churchofficer.

That bishop and elder are the same in the New Testament, is manifest from these scriptures, Acts xx. 17. 28. Tit. i. 5. 7.

:

* Αεις xv. 2. 4. 6. 22. Acts xvi. 4.

Pet.

1 Pet. v. 1. 2.; and they are made the fame in that precious remain of antiquity, Clemens Romanus's epistle to the Corinthians, written in the name of the church sojourning in Rome. But this is not questioned among them with whom we have to do at present, who acknowledge the division of ordinary church-offices into these two, and no more, the elder or bishop, and the deacon.

And this distinction is according to the scripture, where we find the ministry of tables distinguished from the ministry of the word *. In the church in Jerufalem, which was the first, and the pattern to the rest, we find elders and deaconst. And, after that example, in the church at Philippi we see the bishops and deacons. The same distinction is obfer ved in Paul's directions to Timothy about church-officers, when he lays down the characters of the bishop, and then the characters of the deacon distinctly. And, as was noticed before, concerning the diftinction of the deacon's work from the ministry of the word; so it is the character whereby the bishop is distinguished especially from the deacon, that he must be apt to teach ||. As all the work of churchofficers is ministry; so we find the office and work of the deacon peculiarly called ministry, and so distinguished from the office and work of the bishop or elder. Thus we find that officer, in distinction from the bishop, called deacon, that is, minister, or servant. We find this same distinction. in Paul's discourse of church-officers to the Romans, to whom he speaks, or the Holy Ghost in him, in the prospect of that extravagant departure from the inftitution of Chrift in this matter that was to come to pass in that church. For as it is the different gifts or powers granted by Christ for doing the work of the offices that makes the offices different, so he diftinguishes these gifts or powers only into two, viz. prophecy and ministry; and there is no church-officer but what is comprehended under the one or the other of these; so that every church officer is either a prophet or a minister: "Having "then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to " us, whether prophecy, according to the proportion of faith; " or ministry, on ministring **." Where prophecy is not to be taken for the extraordinary gift, but, as the apostle defines it, for the gift of speaking unto men to edification, and

* Acts vi. 2. 4.

† Acts vi. xi. 30. xv. xxi. 18.

‡ 1 Tim. i. || I Tim. iii. 2.

** Rom. xii. 6. 7.

exhortation,

1

are bishops*; yet we find pastors in distinction from teachers; and where there are but these two branches in the distinc tion, we must understand by pastors both them that exhort and them that rule wellt: so, though all teachers be governors, as being elders or bithops; yet where we find teachers and governments distinctly mentioned, there, by governments, γυβηρνησεις, we must understand both him that ruleth and him that exhorteth, if we look upon the distinction of elders to be there full and comprehenfive of all elders. We find the bishops or elders of a church thus designed, της κοπιόντας εν *υμιν, them that labour among you; & προισαμενος υμων εν κυρίω, and your presidents in the Lord ; & νεθετώντας υμας, and that admonish you ||. And whether the distinction of elders be here pointed at, it may be a question. There is another designation utterly common to all elders or bishops, and that is, Θεα δικονομος, the steward of God; as appears from these words of Paul to Titus: "For this cause left I thee in Crete, that "thou shouldst - ordain elders in every city. If any " be blameless, for a bishop must be blameless, as the "fteward of God **."

From what has been said, it seems the bishop's office is one; and yet there is a diftinction in that office. The unity of the office appears from the foresaid division of churchoffices, and the gifts or powers given by Christ for exercising them, into two, and no more; and from the characters requisite in every one that is at all an elder or bishop, which we have in Paul's directions to Timothy, 1 epist. iii. and to Titus, chap. i. as to the ordination of elders; where, befides what relates to their disposition and conversation, there is no more required to qualify them for the highest parts of the work of that office, and no less is requisite to fit any man for being at all in that office, than this, that he be apt to teach ††, and that he be holding fast the faithful word as he hath been taught, το κατα την διδασχην πισω λόγω, that he may be able, by found doctrine, εν τη διδασκαλια ὑγιαινυση, both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers. From this it appears, that the bishop's or elder's gift is, an ability freely granted by Jefus Chrift for opening up and applying the word of God unto men. And thus it is that which is called prophecy, Rom. xii. and the gift of speaking, I Pet. iv.; and is diftinguished from miniftry, the deacon's gift. The diftinction in the elder's or

* Acts xx. 1 Pet. v.

† Eph. iv. 11.

:

bishop's office is chiefly manifest from these two texts, tho' there be also some infinuation of it in other texts before men. tioned. 1 Tim. v. 17. "Let the elders that rule well be "counted worthy of double honour, especially they that la" bour in the word and doctrine." Rom. xii. 7. "He that " teacheth, on teaching; or he that exhorteth, on exhortation; " he that ruleth, with diligence."

How this distinction agrees with the unity of the office, and that unity with this distinction, is a question of some dif. ficulty, yea, and importance, to them that want to be ac. quainted with the mind of God in his word, that they may not swerve from his institutions, but keep them pure and en. tire. And such will not be satisfied in any explication of the distinction that overthrows the unity, nor of the unity that undoes the distinction: for to explain one part of the scrip. ture in an inconfistency with another, is indeed to corrupt the word of God, and wrest and pervert it. Thus, while men explain the unity of the godhead, afferted in the fcriptures, in fuch a manner as to destroy the distinction in the godhead, there also asserted, or when they explain the distinction in such a manner as deftroys the unity, they wrest and corrupt the word of God, and make it of none effect to them. selves, while they study to reconcile it to their own prejudi. ces, and do not subject themselves as little children to the authority of God in his word. Therefore we find our Lord, when Satan tells him, " It is written," anfwering thus, "It " is written again."

The opinion, of a ruler, or ruling elder, that has no power granted him by Jesus Christ for teaching and preaching, or administrating baptifm or the Lord's supper, that pleads a foundation in the forecited texts, establishing a diftinction in the elder's office, seems to overthrow the unity of that office. For fuch an officer must be of another kind than those elders or bishops whose commission we have Matth. xxviii. 19. 20. there being no authority granted there to rule without teaching: "Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I "command you and lo, I am with you alway, to the end of " the world." And truly, if we consider the nature of the rule and government of a church, as diftinguished from the government of the civil magistrate, and as it touches the consciences of men, and as it is the government of Jesus Chrift among his willing people, who has afforded the overseers of a lock of his no other instrument of government but his word, we will easily fee, that a ruler that is not capable to teach or preach, or to open up and apply the word of God