made by Christ himself; the orderly choice or election of him in a voluntary subjection unto him in the Lord, according to the mind of Christ, by the church itself; followed with solemn ordination, or setting apart unto the office and discharge of it by prayer with fasting, all in obedience unto the commands and institution of Christ, whereunto the communication of office-power and privilege is by law-constitution annexed, is suited unto the light of reason, in all such cases, the nature of gospel societies in order or churches the ends of the ministry, the power committed by Christ unto the church, and confirmed by apostolical practice and example.

Herein we rest, without any farther dispute or limiting the formal cause of the communication of office-power unto any one act or duty of the church, or of the bishops or elders of it. All the three things mentioned are essential thereunto; and when any of them are utterly neglected, where they are neither formally nor virtually, there is no lawful regular call unto the ministry according to the mind of Christ.

This order was a long time observed in the ancient church inviolate; and the footsteps of it may be traced through all ages of the church; although it first gradually decayed, then was perverted and corrupted, until it issued (as in the Roman church) in a pageant and show, instead of the reality of the things themselves. For the trial and approbation of spiritual endowments previously necessary unto the call of any, was left unto the pedantic examination of the bishop's domestics, who knew nothing of them in themselves; the election and approbation of the people was turned into a mock show in the sight of God and men, a deacon calling out, that if any had objections against him who was to be ordained, they should come forth and speak; whereunto another cries out of a corner by compact, he is learned and worthy; and ordination was esteemed to consist only in the outward sign of imposition of hands, with some other ceremonies annexed thereunto, whereby, without any other consideration, there ensued a flux of power from the ordainers unto the ordained.

But from the beginning it was not so. And some few instances of the right of the people, and the exercise of it

in the choice of their own pastors, may be touched on in our passage, Clem. Epist. ad Corinth. affirms, that the apostles themselves appointed approved persons unto the ellies of the ministry, συνεδοκησάσης τῆς ἐκκλησίας πάσης, ‘by or with the consent or choice of the whole church.' Zuvedohet, is to enact by common consent;' which makes it somewhat strange, that a learned man should think that the right of the people in elections is excluded in this very place by Clemens, from what is assigned unto the apostles in ordination.

Talent, Tipiat, ad Philadelph. Πρέπον ἔστιν ὑμῖν, ὡς ἐκκλησία Deud, Legurunda iriakowo, writing to the fraternity of the church, it becomes you, as a church of God, to choose or ondain a bishop

Tertull. Apol. Præsident probati quique seniores, hoHolm Dum non pretio, sed testimonio adepti." The elders came muse their honour or office by the testimony of the pay,' that by their surge in their election.

Chip of dis last bock against Celsus, nach of the calling and constitution of won saking of the elders and rulers He was mad we that they ar Alevusi, chosen to Min de olurodes what her it “DE.

jecting and withdrawing themselves from the communion of unworthy pastors, and choosing others in their room.

4. He affirms that this was the practice, not only of the churches of Africa, but of those in most of the other provinces of the empire. Some passages in his discourse, wherein all these things are asserted, I shall transcribe in the order wherein they lie in the epistle.

Nec sibi plebs blandiatur, quasi immunis esse a contagio delicti possit cum sacerdote peccatore communicans, et ad injustum et illicitum præpositi sui episcopatum consensum suum commodans. Propter quod plebs obsequens præceptis Dominicis et Deum metuens, a peccatore præposito separare se debet; nec se ad sacrilegi sacerdotis sacrificia miscere; quando ipsa maxime habeat potestatem vel eligendi dignos sacerdotes, vel indignos recusandi; quod et ipsum videmus de divina authoritate descendere.”

'For this cause the people obedient to the commands of our Lord, and fearing God, ought to separate themselves from a wicked bishop, nor mix themselves with the worship of a sacrilegious priest. For they principally have the power of choosing the worthy priests, and rejecting the unworthy, which comes from divine authority or appointment;' as he proves from the Old and New Testament. Nothing can be spoken more fully representing the truth which we plead for. He assigns unto the people a right and power of separating from unworthy pastors, of rejecting or deposing them, and that granted to them by diviné authority.

And this power of election in the people, he proves from the apostolical practice before insisted on. Quod postea secundum divina magisteria observatur in Actis Apostolorum, quando in ordinando in locum Judæ episcopo, Petrus ad plebem loquitur. Surrexit, inquit, Petrus in medio discentium, fuit autem turba in uno. Nec hoc in episcoporum tantum et sacerdotum, sed in diaconorum ordinationibus observasse apostolos, de quo et ipso in Actis eorum scriptum est. Et convocarunt, inquit, duodecim, totam plebem discipulorum, et dixerunt eis,' &c.

According unto the divine commands the same course was observed in the Acts of the Apostles,' whereof he gives instances in the election of Matthias, Acts i. and of the deacons, chap. vi.

And afterward speaking of ordination, de universæ fraternitatis suffragio,'' by the suffrage of the whole brotherhood of the church;' he says, 'Diligenter de traditione divina, et apostolica observatione servandum est et tenendum apud nos quoque, ut fere per universas provincias tenetur : According to which divine tradition and apostolical practice, this custom is to be preserved and kept amongst us also, as it is almost through all the provinces.'

Those who are not moved with his authority, yet, I think have reason to believe him in a matter of fact, of what was done every where, or almost every where, in his own days; and they may take time to answer his reasons when they can, which comprise the substance of all that we plead in this case.

But the testimonies in following ages given unto this right and power of the people in choosing their own churchofficers, bishops, and others, recorded in the decrees of councils, the writings of the learned men in them, the rescripts of popes, and constitutions of emperors, are so fully and faithfully collected by Blondellus in the third part of his apology for the judgment of Jerom about episcopacy, as that nothing can be added unto his diligence, nor is there any need of farther confirmation of the truth in this behalf.

The pretence also of Bellarmine, and others who follow him, and borrow their conceits from him, that this liberty of the people in choosing their own bishops and pastors, was granted unto them at first by way of indulgence or connivance; and that being abused by them, and turned into disorder, was gradually taken from them, until it issued in that shameful mocking of God and man, which is in use in the Roman church, when at the ordination of a bishop or priest one deacon makes a demand, Whether the person to be ordained be approved by the people, and another answers out of a corner, That the people approve him, have been so confuted by Protestant writers of all sorts, that it is needless to insist any longer on them.

Indeed, the concessions that are made, that this ancient practice of the church, in the people's choosing their own officers (which to deny, is all one as to deny that the sun gives light at noon-day) is, as unto its right, by various

degrees transferred unto popes, patrons, and bishops, with a representation in a mere pageantry, of the people's liberty to make objections against them that are to be ordained, are as fair a concession of the gradual apostacy of churches from their original order and constitution, as need be desired.

This power and right which we assign unto the people, is not to act itself only in a subsequent consent unto one that is ordained, in the acceptance of him to be their bishop or pastor. How far that may salve the defect and disorder of the omission of previous elections, and so preserve the essence of the ministerial call, I do not now inquire. But that which we plead for, is, the power and right of election to be exercised previously unto the solemn ordination or setting apart of any unto the pastoral office, communicative of office-power in its own kind unto the person chosen.,

This is part of that contest which for sundry ages filled most countries of Europe with broils and disorders. Neither is there yet an end put unto it. But in this present discourse we are not in the least concerned in these things. For our inquiry is, what state and order of church affairs is declared and represented unto us in the Scripture. And therein there is not the least intimation of any of those things from whence this controversy did arise, and whereon it doth depend. Secular endowments, jurisdictions, investiture, rights of presentation, and the like, with respect unto the evangelical pastoral office, or its exercise in any place, which are the subject of these contests, are foreign unto all things that are directed in the Scriptures concerning them, nor can be reduced unto any thing that belongs unto them. Wherefore, whether this 'jus patronatus' be consistent with gospelinstitutions; whether it may be continued with respect unto lands, tythes, and benefices; or how it may be reconciled unto the right of the people in the choice of their own ecclesiastical officers, from the different acts, objects, and ends required unto the one and the other, are things not of our present consideration.

And this we affirm to be agreeable unto natural reason and equity, to the nature of churches in their institution and ends, to all authority and office-power in the church, necessary unto its edification, with the security of the con