did not punish evil-doers by mulcts, imprisonment, banishment, burning, stoning, hanging, as that church, but as that state. 3. In respect of controversies, some causes and controversies did concern the Lord's matters, some the king's matters, 2 Chron. xix. 11. To judge between blood and blood was one thing; to judge between law and commandment, between statutes and judgments, that is, to give the true sense of the law of God when it was controverted, was another thing. 4. In respect of officers, the priests and Levites were church officers: magistrates and judges not so, but were ministers of the state. The priests might not take the sword out of the hand of the magistrates; the magistrates might not offer sacrifice nor exercise the priest's office. 5. In respect of continuance, when the Romans took away the Jewish state and civil government yet the Jewish church did remain, and the Romans did permit them the liberty of their religion. And now, though the Jews have no Jewish state, yet they have Jewish churches; whence it is, that when they tell where one did or doth live, they do not mention the town but the church: "In the holy church at Venice, at Frankford," &c. See Buxtorf. Lex. Rabbin. p. 1983. 6. In respect of variation, the constitution and government of the Jewish state was not the same, but different, under Moses and Joshua, under the judges, under the kings, and after the captivity; but we cannot say that the church was remodelled as often as

the state was. 7. In respect of members; for, as Mr Selden hath very well observed concerning that sort of proselytes who had the name of Proselyti Justitia. They were initiated into the Jewish religion by circumcision, baptism and sacrifice; and they were allowed not only to worship God apart by themselves, but also to come into the church and congregation of Israel, and to be called by the name of Jews, nevertheless they were restrained and secluded from dignities, magistracies and preferments in the Jewish republic, and from divers marriages which were free to the Israelites, even as strangers initiated and associated into the church of Rome have not therefore the privilege of

1 De Jure natur. et Gentium, lib. 2. cap. 4, Proselytus Justitiæ utcunque novato patriæ nomine Judæus diceretur, non tam quidem civis Judaicus simpliciter censendus esset quam peregrinus semper, cui jura quamplurima inter cives. See the like, lib. 5, c. 20.

I come to the second point, that there was an ecclesiastical government and an ecclesiastical sanhedrim among the Jews. This distinction of the two sanhedrims, the civil and the ecclesiastical, is maintained by Zepperus, de polit. eccles. lib. 3, cap. 7; Junius, in Deut. xvii.; Piscator, ibid.; Wolphius, in 2 Kings xxiii.; Gerhard Harm. de pass. cap. 8; Godwin's Moses and Aaron, lib. 5, cap. 1; Bucerus de gubern. eccl., p. 61, 62; Walaus, tom. 2, p. 9; Pelargus, in Deut. xvii.; Sopingius ad bonam fidem Sibrandi, p. 261, et seq.; the Dutch Annotations on Deut. xvii. and 2 Chron. xix.; Bertramus de polit. Jud. cap. 11; Apollonii jus Majest., part 1, p. 374; Strigelius, in 2 Paralip. cap. 19; the professors of Groningen (vide Judicium facult. Theol. academia Groninganæ, apud Cabeljav. def. potest. Eccl., p. 54). I remember Raynolds, in the conference with Hart, is of the same opinion; also Mr Paget, in his Defence of Church Government, p. 41, besides divers others. I shall only add the

2 Buxtorf. Lexic. Chald. Talm. et Rabbin, p. 408. Poselyti justitiæ sunt qui non rerum externarum, sed solius religionis causa, et gloriæ Dei studio, religionem Judaicam amplectuntur, et totam legem Mosis dicto modo recipiunt. Hi natis Judæis habentur æquales: understand in an ecclesiastical, not in a civil capacity. In which sense also Matthias Martinius, in lexic. philol., p. 2922, saith that these proselytes, cum ad sacrorum Judaicorum communionem admittebantur, etc., veri Judæi censebantur; and that to be made a proselyte and to be made a Jew, are used promiscuously in the rabbinical writings. So also Drusius præt. 1. 4, in lo. 12, 20.

testimony of Constantinus L'Empereur, a man singularly well acquainted with the Jewish antiquities, who hath expressed himself concerning this point both in his Annotations upon Bertram, p. 389, and Annot. in Cod. Middoth. p. 187, 188. The latter of these two passages is in the note,1 expressing not only his opinion, but the ground of

it.

And it is no obscure footstep of the ecclesiastical sanhedrim,2 which is cited out of Elias by Dr Buxtorff, in his Lexicon Chald. Talmud. et Rabbin. p. 1514.

The first institution of an ecclesiastical sanhedrim appeareth to me to be held forth in Exod. xxiv. 1, where God saith to Moses, "Come up unto the Lord, thou and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel." It is a controversy among interpreters who those seventy elders were. Tostatus maketh it clears that they were not the seventy elders chosen for the government of the commonwealth, Num. x1.; nor yet the judges chosen by the advice of Jethro, Exod. xviii.; nor yet any other judges who had before-time judged the people. These three negatives Willet upon

1 Cæterum supremus Senatus cujus in hoc conclavi sedes, duplex fuisse videtur, pro rerum ecclesiasticarum et politicarum diversitate: quoniam Deut. xvii. 12, ubi de supremis senatoribus agitur, manifeste sacerdos a Judice distinguitur; ad sacerdotem aut ad Judicem, i. e., sacerdotes aut Judices, ut com. 9, indicio est, ubi pro sacerdote ponuntur sacerdotes. Adde Jehoshaphatum, cum Judicia Hierosolymis restauraret, duos ordines constituisse, sacerdotes et capita familiarum, ad judicium Dei et ad litem similiter duos præsides com. 11, unum ad omnen causam Dei: alterum scilicet ducem Judæ

orum ad omne negotium regis. Quibus succinunt verba, Jer. xix. 1, quibus seniores populi ab senioribus sacerdotum distinguntur. Quocirca in N. T. sublato (ut videtur) per Herodem, uno synedrio, sc. politico; alterum apostolorum seculo superfuit, in quo politici etiam manebant reliquiæ: nam ab ecclesiasticis seniores populi distinguntur, Matt. xxvi. 3, 59; xxvii. 1. Ni magis placeat, quod ab aliis observatum fuit, Herodem, sublatis 70. Senioribus e familia Davidica, alios inferiores substituisse: quod judiciorum quibusdam exemplis firmari videtur. Adeo ut illis temporibus duplex quoque Synedrium fuerit, quamvis utriusque senatores subinde convenirent: quo forte referendum τὸ συνέδριον ὁλον, quod Matt. xxvi. 59; Mark xiv. 55: xv. 1; Acts xxii. 30, occurit. (Quin etiam c. 1, cod. Jomæ, eadem distinctio his verbis confirmatur ubi de præporatione sacerdotis magni ad diem expiationis agitur) tradunt eum seniores domus Judicii, senioribus sacerdotii.

2 Propter meritum assessorum Synedrii, qui occupati sunt in lege, et illuminant Judicium. Et descendit in Babyloniam ad concilium sapientum. Id non fuit Synedrium Judicum et magistratus summi, sed collegium doctorum.

3 In Exod. xxiv. Quest. 3.

the place holdeth with Tostatus. Not the first, for this was done at Mount Sinai, shortly after their coming out of Egypt. But on the twentieth day of the second month, in the second year, they took their journey from Sinai to the wilderness of Paran, Num. x. 11, 12, and there pitched at Hibroth-hataavath, Num. xxxiii. 16, where the seventy elders were chosen, to relieve Moses of the burden of government. So that this election of seventy, Exod. xxiv., was before that election of seventy, Num. xi. Not the second, for this election of seventy, Exod. xxiv., was before that election of judges by Jethro's advice, Exod. xviii., Jethro himself not having come to Moses till the end of the first year, or the beginning of the second year, after the coming out of Egypt, and not before the giving of the law; which Tostatus proves by this argument: the law was given the third day after they came to Sinai, but it was impossible that Jethro could in the space of three days hear that Moses and the people of Israel were in the wilderness of Sinai, and come there unto them,-that Moses should go forth and meet him, and receive him, and entertain him,-that Jethro should observe the manner of Moses' government, in litigious government from morning till evening, and give counsel to rectify it, that Moses should take course to help it. How could all this be done in those three days, which were also appointed for sanctifying the people against the receiving of the law? Therefore he concludeth that the story of Jethro, Exod. xviii., is an anticipation.1 Lastly, he saith, the seventy elders mentioned Exod. xxiv., could not be judges who did judge the people before Jethro came, because Jethro did observe the whole burden of government did lie upon Moses alone, and there were no other judges.

Now it is to be observed that the seventy elders chosen and called, Exod. xxiv., were also invested with authority in judging controversies,2 2 wherein Aaron or Hur were to preside, verse 14. They are joined with Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and are called up as a representative of the whole church, when God was making a covenant with his

1 In Exod. xviii. Quest. 2.

2 Menochius in Exod. xxiv. 14, redite ad populum, ut illum regatis, et in officio contineatis. Pelargus upon the place saith that Moses would not leave the church without rulers to avoid the danger of popular anarchy.

people. It is after the judicial laws, Exod. xxi., xxii., xxiii., and that xxiv. chapter is a transition to the ceremonial laws concerning the worship of God and structure of the tabernacle, which are to follow. Neither had the seventy elders, of which now I speak, any share of the supreme civil government, to judge hard civil causes, and to receive appeals concerning those things from the inferior judges; for all this did still lie upon Moses alone, Num. xi. 14. Furthermore they saw the glory of the Lord, and were admitted to a sacred banquet, and to eat of the sacrifices in his presence, Exod. xxiv. 5, 10,11, and were thereby confirmed in their calling. All which laid together may seem to amount to no less than a solemn interesting and investing of them into an ecclesiastical authority.

The next proof for the ecclesiastical sanhedrim shall be taken from Deut. xvii. 812, where observe, 1. It is agreed upon, both by Jewish and Christian expositors, that this place holds forth a supreme civil court of judges; and the authority of the civil sanhedrim is mainly grounded on this very text. Now if this text holds forth a superior civil jurisdiction, as is universally acknowledged, it holds forth also a superior ecclesiastical jurisdiction distinct from the civil; for the text carrieth the authority and sentence of the priests as high as the authority and sentence of the judges, and that in a disjunctive way, as two powers, not one, and each of them binding respectively and in its proper sphere. 2. The Hebrew doctors tell us of three kinds of causes, which, being found difficult, were transmitted from the inferior courts to those at Jerusalem: (1.) Capital causes; (2.) Mulcts; (3.) Leprosy, and the judgment of clean or unclean. Now this third belonged to the cognisance and judgment of the priests; yea, the text itself holdeth forth two sorts of causes and controversies: some forensical, between blood and blood; some ceremonial, between stroke and stroke. Not only Jerome, but the Chaldee and Greek readeth, between leprosy and leprosy. Grotius noteth the Hebrew word is used for leprosy many times in one chapter, Lev. xiii. Plea and plea seemeth common to both, there being difference of judgment concerning the one and the other. 3. Here are two judicatories distinguished by the disjunctive or, verse 12, which we have both in the Hebrew, Chaldee, Greek, and in our English translation; so that, verse 9,

and is put for or, as Grotius noteth, expounding that verse by verse 12; and as the priests and Levites are put in the plural, verse 9, the like must be understood of the judge, whereby we must understand judges; and so the Chaldee readeth, verse 9, even as, saith Ainsworth, many captains are in the Hebrew called an head, 1 Chron. iv. 42. And so you have there references of difficult cases from the inferior courts to the priests, or to the judges at Jerusalem. 4. There is also some intimation of a twofold sentence; one concerning the meaning of the law: "according to the sentence of the law, which they shall teach thee," verse 11; and this belonged to the priests, Mal. ii. 7, "for the priest's (it is not said the judge's) lips should preserve knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth." Another concerning matter of fact: "and according to the judgment which they shall tell thee thou shalt do." Grotius upon the place acknowledgeth a judgment of the priests distinct from that of the judges, and he addeth a simile from the Roman synod, consisting of seventy bishops, which was consulted in weighty controversies. But he is of opinion that the priests and Levites did only endeavour to satisfy and reconcile the dissenting parties, which if they did, well; if not, that then they referred the reasons of both parties to the sanhedrim, who gave forth their decree upon the whole matter. The first part of that which he saith helpeth me; but this last hath no ground in the text, but is manifestly inconsistent therewith; verse 12, "The man that will do presumptuously, and will not hearken unto the priest, or unto the judge, even that man shall die ;" which proves that the judgment of both was supreme in suo genere,1 that if it was a controversy ceremonial between leprosy and leprosy, or between clean and unclean, Lev. x. 9-11; Ezek. xxii. 26; or dogmatical and doctrinal, concerning the sense of the law, and answering de jure, when the sense of the law was controverted by the judges of the cities, then he that would not stand to the ecclesiastical sanhedrim, whereof the high priest was president, was to die the death. But if the cause was criminal, as between blood and blood, where

is,

1 Erastus Confirm thes. lib. 4, cap. 3, Moses operte ait, interficiendum esse illum, qui vel sacerdotis sententiæ vel Judicis assentire nollet. Non ergo liberum facit ab illo ad hunc provocare.

in the nature or proof of the fact could not be agreed upon by the judges of the cities, then he that would not submit to the decree of the civil sanhedrim at Jerusalem should die the death. And thus the English divines, in their late annotations, give the sense according to the disjunction, ver. 12. While the priest bringeth warrant from God for the sentence which he passeth in the cause of man, Ezek. xliv. 23, 24, he that contumaciously disobeyeth him, disobeyeth God, Luke x. 16; Matt. x. 14. The cause is alike, if the just sentence of a competent judge be contemned in secular affairs.

In the third place, we read that David did thus divide the Levites (at that time eight-and-thirty thousand), four-and-twenty thousand of them were to set forward the work of the house of the Lord; four thousand were porters, and four thousand praised the Lord with instruments, and six thousand of them were made, some schoterim officers, and some schophtim judges, 1 Chron. xxiii. 4. Some understand by schoterim, rulers, or those who were over the charge. To speak properly, schophtim were those that gave sentence, schoterim, those that looked to the execution of the sentence, and to the keeping of the law, like the vous among the Grecians; for vousθεσία was one thing, νομοφυλακία another: so 1 Chron. xxvi. 29, "Chenaniah and his sons were for the outward business over Israel, for officers (or rulers, or over the charge), and judges;" that is, they were not tied to attendance and service in the temple, as the porters and singers, and those that did service about the sacrifices, lights, washings, and such like things in the temple; but they were to judge and give sentence concerning the law, and the meaning thereof, when any such controversy should be brought before them from any of the cities in the land. They were not appointed to be officers and judges over the rest of the Levites, to keep them in order, for which course was taken in another way, but to be rulers and judges over Israel, saith the text, in "the outward business" which came from without to Jerusalem, in judging

1 Menochius in 1 Paral. xxiii. 4, idem sunt præpositi et Judices, quorum munus erat Israelitarum causas quæ juxta legem finiebantur, judicare, quod patet ex 2 Paral. xix. 8, ubi habemus constituit Jehoshaphat in Jerusalem levitas et sacerdotes et principes familiarum ex Israel, ut judicium et causam domini judicarent.

of which, peradventure, they were to attend by course, or as they were called. If any say that all those Levites who were judges did not sit in judgment at Jerusalem, but some of them in several cities of the land, that there might be the easier access to them; I can easily grant it, and I verily believe it was so, and it maketh the more for a church government in particular cities, which was subordinate to the ecclesiastical sanhedrim at Jerusalem. However the Levites had a ruling power, and, Deut. xxxi. 28, those who are schoterim in the original the Septuagints call γραμματοεισαγωγείς, Jerome, doctors, because their teachers were officers over the charge, and had a share in government. Now no man can imagine that there were no other officers over the charge not judges in Israel except the Levites only; for it followeth in that same story, 1 Chron. xxviii. 1, "And David assembled all the princes of Israel, the princes of the tribes, and the captains of the companies that ministered unto the king by course, and the captains over the thousands," &c. Nor yet will any man say that the Levites were officers over the charge, and judges of the same kind, in the same manner, or for the same ends, with the civil rulers or judges, or the military commanders; or that there was no distinction between the ruling power of the princes and the ruling power of the Levites. Where, then, shall the difference lie, if not in this,—that there was an ecclesiastical government besides the civil and military? I grant those Levites did rule and judge not only in all the business of the Lord, but also in the service of the king, 1 Chron. xxvi. 30, 32. But the reason was, because the Jews had no other civil law but God's own law, which the priests and Levites were to expound; so that it was proper for that time, and there is not the like reason that the ministers of Jesus Christ in the New Testament should judge or rule in civil affairs; nay, it were contrary to the rule of Christ and his apostles for us to do so, yet the Levites' judging and governing in all the business of the Lord, is a pattern left for the entrusting of church officers in the New Testament with a power of church government: there being no such reason for it, as to make it peculiar to the Old Testament, and not common to the New.

The fourth scripture which proves an ecclesiastical government and sanhedrim, is

2 Chron. xix. 8, 10, 11, where Jehoshaphat restoreth the same church government which was first instituted by the hand of Moses, and afterward ordered and settled by David. "Moreover (saith the text) in Jerusalem did Jehoshaphat set of the Levites, and of the priests, and of the chief of the fathers of Israel, for the judgment of the Lord, and for controversies," &c. It is not controverted whether there was a civil sanhedrim at Jerusalem, but that which is to be proved from the place is an ecclesiastical court, which I prove thus: Where there is a court made up of ecclesiastical members, judging spiritual and ecclesiastical causes, for a spiritual and ecclesiastical end, moderated by an ecclesiastical president, having power ultimately and authoritatively to determine causes and controversies brought before them by appeal or reference from inferior courts, and whose sentence is put into execution by ecclesiastical officers, there it must needs be granted that there was a supreme ecclesiastical court, with power of government. But such a court we find at Jerusalem in Jehoshaphat's time; therefore, the proposition, I suppose, no man will deny; for a court so constituted, so qualified, and so authorised, is the very thing now in debate. And he that will grant us the thing which is in the assumption, shall have leave to call it by another name if he please. The assumption I prove by the parts.

1. Here are Levites and priests in this court, as members thereof, with power of decisive suffrage, and with them such of the chief of the fathers of Israel as were joined in the government of that church; whence the reverend and learned Assembly of Divines, and many Protestant writers before them, have drawn an argument for ruling elders. And this is one of the scriptures alleged by our divines against Bellarmine, to prove that others beside those who are commonly, but corruptly, called the clergy, ought to have a decisive voice in synods.

2. Spiritual and ecclesiastical causes were here judged: which are called by the name

1 Salmasius apparat. ad libros de Primatu, p. 302. Quæ ad res sacras ac divinas pertinebant, de his præcipue judicium sacerdotum fuit, de aliis civilibus et regalibus, præsides si rege constituti, ut patet ex lib. 2 Chron. xix. Tirinus in 2 Chron. xix. 11, Ubi nota distinctionem forfori seu magistratus ecclesiastici et civilis, contra Anglo-Calvinistas et nostros Arminianos.

of "the judgment of the Lord," ver. 8, and the matters of the Lord," distinguished from "the king's matters," ver. 11; so ver. 10, beside controversies" between blood and blood," that is, concerning consanguinity and the interpreting of the laws concerning forbidden degrees in marriage (it being observed by interpreters that all the lawful or unlawful degrees are not particularly expressed, but some only, and the rest were to be judged of by parity of reason, and so it might fall within the cognisance of the ecclesiastical sanhedrim), though it may be also expounded otherwise, "between blood and blood," that is, whether the murder was wilful or casual (which was matter of fact), the cognisance whereof belonged to the civil judge; it is further added, “between law and commandment, statutes and judgments, noting seeming contradictions between one law and another (such as Manasseh Ben Israel hath spoken of in his Conciliator), or when the sense and meaning of the law is controverted (which is not matter of fact, but of right), wherein special use was of the priest, whose lips should preserve knowledge, and the law was to be sought at his mouth, Mal. ii. 7, and that not only ministerially and doctrinally, but judicially, and in the sanhedrim at Jerusalem, such controversies concerning the law of God were brought before them, as in 2 Chron. xix., the place now in hand: “Ye shall even warn them," &c., which, being spoken to the court, must be meant of a synedrical decree, determining those questions and controversies concerning the law which should come before them. As for that distinction in the text of "the Lord's matters and the king's matters," Erastus, p. 274, saith, that by the Lord's matters is meant any cause expressed in the law which was to be judged, whereby he takes away the distinction which the text makes; for in his sense the king's matters were the Lord's matters; which himself (it seems) perceiving, he immediately yieldeth our interpretation, that by the Lord's matters, are meant things pertaining to the worship of God, and by the king's matters, civil things. Si per illas libet res ad cultum Dei spectantes, per hæc res civiles accipere, non pugnabo. "If you please (saith he) by those to understand things pertaining to the worship of God, by these, civil things, I will not be against it."

3. It was for a spiritual and ecclesiastical