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and government of his family; and it was to them alone that he promised that they should sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel; that is, to rule and govern the spiritual Israel, which is the Christian church, even as the phylarca, or chiefs of the tribes, governed the twelve tribes of natural Israel, Matt. xix. 28. And hence in that mystical representation of the church by a city descending from heaven, Rev. xxi. the wall of it is said to have twelve foundations, and upon them twelve names of the twelve apostles, ver. 14. and those twelve foundations are compared to twelve precious stones, to denote their power and dignity in the church, ver. 19, 20. and the wall being exactly meted is found to be one hundred and forty-four cubits, that is, twelve times twelve, to denote that these twelve apostles had each of them an equal portion allotted him in the government and administration of the church, ver. 17. This spiritual jurisdiction therefore, of governing the church, and administering the censures of it, being by our Saviour wholly lodged in the apostolate, none can justly claim or pretend to it but such as are of the apostolic order; and accordingly in the apostolic age we find it was always administered either immediately by the apostles themselves, or by the bishops of the several churches to whom they communicated their order: for thus in the church of Corinth it was St. Paul who pronounced the sentence of excommunication against the incestuous person; I verily, as absent in body, but present in Spirit, have judged, or pronounced sentence, already, as though I were present, concerning him that hath done this deed, 1 Cor. v. 3. and what he orders them to do

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ver. 4, 5. was only to declare and execute his sentence. And 2 Cor. xiii. 2. he threatens them that heretofore had sinned, that, if he came again, he would not spare them: and that by his not sparing them he meant that he would proceed against them with ecclesiastical censure, is evident from verse 1. In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established; which are the very words of our Saviour, Matth. xviii. 16. when he instituted the power of censuring: and then, verse 10. he tells them, that he wrote these things being absent, lest being present he should use severity, according to the power which the Lord had given him to edification, and not to destruction; by which it is plain he means the power of excommunicating: and 1 Cor. iv. 21. he threatens to come to them with a rod; that is, to chastise them with the censures of the church; and with this rod, as he himself tells us, he chastised Hymenæus and Alexander, two stickling heretics in the church of Ephesus, whom he delivered unto Satan, that they might learn not to blaspheme, 1 Tim. i. 20. And as he frequently executed the censures of the church in his own person, so he derived this spiritual jurisdiction to Timothy and Titus, whom he ordained apostles or bishops of the church of Ephesus and Crete: for so he orders Timothy; Against an elder receive not an accusation, but before two or three witnesses ; which plainly implies his authority to examine and try the causes even of the elders themselves, when they were accused, and to punish them, if he found them guilty for so it follows; Them that sin rebuke before all, that others also may fear, 1 Tim. v. 20. So also he exhorts Titus to exercise this his spi

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ritual jurisdiction; A man that is an heretic after the first and second admonition reject, Tit. iii. 10. which plainly implies, that he had an authority inherent in him, as he was the apostle or bishop of Crete, to cite, examine, admonish, and censure persons of erroneous principles: and the same authority, it is evident, was inherent in the angels or bishops of the seven churches of Asia. Thus the bishop of Ephesus had authority to try such as said they were apostles, and were not, and to convict them for liars, Rev. ii. 2. and the bishop of Pergamus is blamed for tolerating the sect of the Nicolaitanes in his church, ver. 14, 15. and so also is the bishop of Thyatira, for suffering that woman Jezebel, ver. 20. which plainly implies, that the authority of curbing and correcting those profligate sectaries was inherent in them; else why should they be blamed, any more than others, for not restraining them? From all which it is evident, that the power of Christian jurisdiction was originally seated in the apostolate; and that throughout the apostolic age it was always exercised by such, and only such, as were admitted into that sovereign order, viz. either by the twelve prime apostles, or by those secondary apostles whom they ordained bishops of particular churches and accordingly we find in the primitive ages the bishops were the sole administrators of this spiritual jurisdiction, and though ordinarily they administered it with the advice and concurrence of their presbytery, yet this was more than they thought themselves obliged to; for thus St. Cyprian, in the time of his recess, did by his own single authority excommunicate Felicissimus, Augendus, and others of his presbyters, Ep. 38, 39. and when Rogatianus, a bi

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shop of his metropolitic church, complained to him in a synod of a disorderly deacon, he tells him, that pro episcopatus vigore et cathedræ authoritate, i. e. by his own episcopal authority, without appealing to the synod, he might have chastised him. And the fifth canon of the first Nicene council plainly shews, that it was then the judgment of the catholic church, that the power of spiritual jurisdiction was wholly seated in the bishops; for it decrees, that in every province there should be twice a year a council of bishops, to examine whether any person, lay or clergy, had been unjustly excommunicated by his bishop; which shews, that then this sentence was inflicted by the bishop only; though afterwards, to prevent abuses, it was decreed in the council of Carthage, that "the bishop should hear no "man's cause but in the presence of his clergy; and "that his sentence should be void, unless it were "confirmed by their presence;" but yet still the sentence was peculiarly his, and not his clergy's. In some churches indeed the bishops did many times delegate power to their presbyters, both to excommunicate and absolve, (as perhaps St. Paul himself did in the church of Corinth ;) but in this case the presbyter was only the bishop's mouth, and his sentence received all its force from that episcopal authority he was armed with.

IV. Another peculiar ministry of the bishops and governors of the church is to confirm such as have been baptized and instructed in Christianity; which ministry was always performed by prayer and laying on of hands, upon which the party so confirmed received the gift of the Holy Ghost. It is true, upon the first institution of this imposition of hands, the

extraordinary gifts of the Spirit, such as speaking with tongues, &c. were many times consequent; but from hence it doth no more follow that it was intended only for an extraordinary ministry, that was to cease with those extraordinary gifts that accompanied it, than that preaching was so, which at first was also attended with miraculous operations. The great intendment of those extraordinary effects was to attest the efficacy of the function: and doth it therefore follow that the function must cease, because those extraordinary effects did so, after they had sufficiently attested its efficacy, and consequently were of no farther use? if so, then all the other ministries of Christianity must be expired as well as this. And what though those extraordinary gifts of the Spirit are ceased? Yet since our Saviour hath promised a continual communication of his Spirit to his church, is it not highly reasonable to believe, that he still continues to communicate it by the very same ministry of prayer and imposition of hands whereby he communicated it first; and that he now derives to us the ordinary operation of it in the same way that he first derived the extraordinary ones? Especially considering that this laying on of hands is placed by the apostle in the same class with baptism, and made one of the principles of the doctrine of Christ, Heb. vi. 1, 2. and therefore must without all doubt be intended for a standing ministry in the church; and as such the church of Christ in all ages has thought herself obliged to receive and practise it; but as for the administration of it, it was always appropriated to the apostles and bishops. So in Acts xix. 5, 6. it was St. Paul that

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