upon, I shall very briefly discover the falseness of this pretence, and pass on unto what is principally intended in this discourse..

1. The church is before all its ordinary officers; and therefore its continuation cannot depend on their successive ordination. It is so as essentially considered, though its being organical is simultaneous with their ordination. Extraordinary officers were before the church, for their work was to call, gather, and erect it out of the world. But no ordinary officers can be, or ever were ordained, but to a church in being. Some say they are ordained unto the universal visible church of professors; some unto the particular church wherein their work doth lie; but all grant that the church-state whereunto they are ordained, is antecedent unto their ordination. The Lord Christ could and did ordain apostles and evangelists, when there was yet no gospel church, for they were to be the instruments of its calling and erection. But the apostles neither did nor could ordain any ordinary officers, until there was a church or churches, with respect whereunto they should be ordained. It is therefore highly absurd to ascribe the continuation of the church unto the successive ordination of officers, if any such thing there were; seeing this successive ordination of officers depends solely on the continuation of the church. If that were not secured on other foundations, this successive ordination would quickly tumble into dust. (Yea, this successive ordination, were there any such thing appointed, must be an act of the church itself, and so cannot be the means of communicating church-power unto others. A successive ordination in some sense may be granted, namely, that when those who were ordained officers in any church do die, that others be ordained in their steads; but this is by an act of power in the church itself, as we shall manifest afterward).

2. Not to treat of papal succession; the limiting of this successive ordination, as the only way and means of communicating church-power, and so of the preservation of the church-state unto diocesan prelates or bishops, is built on so many inevident presumptions and false principles, as will leave it altogether uncertain whether there be any churchstate in the world or no. As, (1.) That such bishops were

ordained by the apostles, which can never be proved. (2.) That they received power from the apostles to ordain others and communicate their whole power unto them by an authority, inherent in themselves alone; yet still re-. serving their whole power unto themselves also, giving all, and retaining all at the same time; which hath no more of truth than the former, and may be easily disproved. (3.) That. they never did, nor could any of them forfeit this power, by any crime or error, so as to render their ordination invalid, and interrupt the succession pretended.. (4.) That they all ordained others in such manner and way, as to render their ordination valid; whereas multitudes were never agreed what is required thereunto. (5.) That whatever. heresy, idolatry, flagitiousness of life, persecution of the true churches of Christ, these prelatical ordainers might fall into, by whatever arts, simoniacal practices, or false pre-. tences unto what was not, they came themselves into their offices, yet nothing could deprive them of their right of communicating all church-power unto others by ordination. (6.) That persons so ordained, whether they have any call from the church or no; whether they have any of the qualifications required by the law of Christ in the Scripture to make them capable of any office in the church, or have received any spiritual gifts from Christ for the exercise of their office and discharge of their duty; whether they have any design or no, to pursue the ends of that office which they take upon them; yet all is one, being any way prelatically ordained bishops, they may ordain others, and so the successive ordination is preserved. And what is this but to take the rule of the church out of the hand of Christ; to give law unto him, to follow with his approbation, the actings of men besides and contrary to his law and institution, and to make application of his promises unto the vilest of men, whether he will or no? (7.). That it is not lawful for believers or the disciples of Christ to yield obedience unto his commands, without this episcopal ordination, which many churches cannot have, and more will not, as judging it against the mind and will of Christ. (8.) That one worldly, ignorant, proud, sensual beast, such as some of the heads of this successive ordination, as the popes of Rome have been, should have more power and authority

from Christ to preserve and continue a church-state by ordination, than any the most holy church in the world, that is or can be gathered according to his mind; with other unwarrantable presumptions innumerable.

3. The pernicious consequences that may ensue on this principle, do manifest its inconsistency with what our Lord Jesus Christ hath ordained unto this end of the continuation of his church. I need not reckon them up on the surest probabilities. There is no room left for fears of what may follow hereon, by what hath already done so. If we consider whither this successive ordination hath already led a great part of the church, we may easily judge what it is meet for. It hath, I say, led men, for instance in the church of Rome, into a presumption of a good church-state in the loss of holiness and truth, in the practice of false worship and idolatry, in the persecution and slaughter of the faithful servants of Christ; unto a state plainly antichristian. To think there should be a flux and communication of heavenly and spiritual power, from Jesus Christ and his apostles, in and by the hands and actings of persons ignorant, simoniacal, adulterous, incestuous, proud, ambitious, sensual, presiding in a church-state never appointed by him, immersed in false and idolatrous worship, persecuting the true church of Christ, wherein was the true succession of apostolical doctrine and holiness, is an imagination for men who embrace the shadows and appearances of things, never once seriously thinking of the true nature of them. In brief, it is in vain to derive a succession whereon the being of the church should depend, through the presence of Christ with the bishops of Rome, who for a hundred years together, from the year 900 to 1000, were monsters for ignorance, lust, pride, and luxury; as Baronius acknowledgeth: A. D. 912. 5. 8. or by the church of Antioch, by Samosatenus, Eudoxius, Gnapheus, Severus, and the like heretics or in Constantinople, by Macedonius, Eusebius, Demophilus, Anthorinus, and their companions: or at Alexandria, by Lucius, Dioscurus, Elurus, Sergius, and the rest of the

same sort.

4. The principal argument whereby this conceit is fully discarded, must be spoken unto afterward. And this is the due consideration of the proper subject of all church

power, unto whom it is originally, formally, and radically given and granted by Jesus Christ. For none can commu. nicate this power unto others, but those who have received it themselves from Christ, by virtue of his law and institu tion. Now this is the whole church, and not any person in it, or prelate over it. Look whatever constitutes it a church, that gives it all the power and privilege of a church; for a church is nothing but a society of professed believers, enjoying all church-power and privileges, by virtue of the law of Christ. Unto this church, which is his spouse, doth the Lord Christ commit the keys of his house, by whom they are delivered into the hands of his stewards so far as their office requires that trust. Now this (which we shall afterward more fully confirm) is utterly inconsistent with the committing of all church-power unto one person by virtue of his ordination by another.

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Nothing that hath been spoken doth at all hinder or deny, but that where churches are rightly constituted, they ought in their offices, officers, and order to be preserved by a successive ordination of pastors and rulers, wherein those who actually preside in them, have a particular interest in the orderly communication of church-power unto them.

CHAP. IV.

The especial nature of the gospel church-state appointed by Christ.

THE principal inquiry which we have thus far prepared the way unto, and whereon all that ensues unto it doth depend, is concerning the especial nature of that church-state, rule, and order, which the Lord Christ hath instituted under the gospel, of what sort and kind it is. And hereunto some things must be premised.

1. I design not here to oppose, nor any way to consider such additions as men may have judged necessary to be added unto that church-state which Christ hath appointed, to render it, in their apprehension, more useful unto its ends than otherwise it would be. Of this sort there are many things in the world, and of a long season have been so. But

our present business is to prove the truth, and not to disprove the conceits of other men. And so far as our cause is concerned herein, it shall be done by itself, so as not to interrupt us in the declaration of the truth.

2. Whereas, there are great contests about communion with churches, or separation from them, and mutual charges of impositions and schisms thereon, they must be all regulated by this inquiry; namely, what is that church-state which Christ hath prescribed. Herein alone is conscience concerned as unto all duties of ecclesiastical communion. Neither can a charge of schism be managed against any, but on a supposition of sin, with respect unto that church-state and order which Christ hath appointed. A dissent from any thing else, however pretended to be useful, yea advantageous unto church ends, must come under other prudential considerations. All which shall be fully proved, and vindicated from the exceptions of Dr. Stillingfleet.

3. There have been, and are in the world, several sorts of churches of great power and reputation, of several forms and kinds, yet contributing aid to each other in their respective stations; as, (1.) The papal church, which pretends itself to be catholic or universal, comprehensive of all true believers or disciples of Christ, united in their subjection unto the bishop of Rome. (2.) There were of old, and the shadow of them is still remaining, churches called patriarchal, first three, then four, then five of them, whereinto all other churches and professed Christians in the Roman world were distributed, as unto a dependance on the authority, and subjection to the jurisdiction and order, of the bishops of five principal cities of the empire, who were thereon called patriarchs. (3.) Various divisions under them, of archiepiscopal or metropolitical churches; and under them of those that are now called diocesan, whose bounds and limits were fixed and altered according to the variety of occasions and occurrences of things in the nations of the world. What hath been the original of all these sorts of churches, how from parochial assemblies, they grew up by the degrees of their descent now mentioned, into the height and centre of papal omnipotency, hath been declared elsewhere sufficiently.

4. Some there are, who plead for a national church-state, arising from an association of the officers of particular