of it, to administer and dispense all its privileges, and to exercise all its authority, the consent and engagement insisted on is expressly required unto the constitution of this order and the preservation of it; for without this no believer can be brought into that relation unto another as his pastor, guide, overseer, ruler, unto the ends men- tioned, wherein he must be subject unto him, [and] partake of all ordinances of divine worship administered by him with authority, in obedience unto the will of Christ. " They gave their own selves to us," saith the apostle, " by the will of God."
16. Wherefore the formal cause of a church consisteth in an obediential act of believers, in such numbers as may be useful unto the ends of church- edification, jointly giving up themselves unto the Lord Jesus Christ, to do and observe all his commands, resting on the promise of his especial presence thereon, giving and communi- cating, by his law, all the rights, powers, and privileges of his church unto them; and in a mutual agreement among themselves jointly to perform all the duties required of them in that state, with an especial subjection unto the spiritual authority of rules and rulers appointed by Christ in that state.
17. There is nothing herein which any man who hath a conscien- tious sense of his duty, in a professed suhjectiou unto the gospel, can question, for the substance of it, whether it be according to the mind of Christ or no; and whereas the nature and essential properties of a divine covenant are contained in it, as such it is a foundation of any church-state.
18. Thus under the old testament, when God would take the posterity of Abraham into a new, pecidiar church-state, he did it by a solemn covenant. Herein, as he prescribed all the duties of his worship to them, and made them many blessed promises of his pre- sence, with powers and privileges innumerable, so the people so- lemnly covenanted and engaged with him that they would do and observe all that he had commanded them; whereby they coalesced into that church-state which abode unto the time of reformation. This covenant is at large declared, Exod. xxiv. : for the covenant which God made there with the people, and they with him, was not the covenant of grace under a legal dispensation, for that was estab- lished unto the seed of Abraham four hundred years before, in the promise with the seal of circumcision; nor was it the covenant of works under a gospel dispensation, for God never renewed that co- venant under any consideration wliatever; but it was a peculiar covenant which God then made with them, and had not made with their fathers, Deut. v. 2, 3, whereby they were raised and erected into a church-state, whei'ein they were intrusted with all the privileges and enjoined all the duties which God had annexed there- unto. This covenant was the sole formal cause of their church-
so TRUE NATURE OF A GOSPEL CHURCH.
state, which they are charged so often to have broken, and which they so often solemnly renewed unto God.
19. This was that covenant which was to be abolished, whereon the church-state that was built thereon was utterly taken away; for hereon the Hebrews ceased to be the peculiar church of God, because the covenant whereby they were made so was abolished and taken away, as the apostle disputes at large, Heb, vii.-ix. The covenant of grace in the promise will still continue unto the true seed of Abraham, Acts ii. 38, 39 ; but the church-covenant was utterly taken away.
20. Upon the removal, therefore, of this covenant, and the church- state founded thereon, all duties of worship and church-privileges were also taken away (the things substituted in their room being totally of another kind). But the covenant of grace, as made with Abraham, being continued and transferred unto the gospel worship- pers, the sign or token of it given unto him is changed, and another substituted in the room thereof. But whereas the privileges of this church-covenant were in themselves carnal only, and no way spiri- tual but as they were typical, and the duties prescribed in it were burdensome, yea, a yoke intolerable, the apostle declares in the same place that the new church-state, whereinto we are called by the gospel, hath no duties belonging unto it but such as are spiritual and easy, but withal hath such holy and eminent privileges as the church could no way enjoy by virtue of the first church-covenant, nor could believers be made partakers of them before that covenant was abolished. Wherefore, —
21. The same way for the erection of a church-state for the partici- pation of the more excellent privileges of the gospel, and performance of the duties of it, for the substance of it, must still be continued ; for the constitution of such a society as a church is, intrusted with powers and privileges by a covenant or mutual consent, with an engagement unto the performance of the duties belonging unto it, hath its foundation in the light of nature, so far as it hath any thing in common with other voluntary relations and societies, was insti- tuted by God himself as the way and means of erecting the church- state of the old testament, and consisteth in the performance of such duties as are expressly required of all believers.