2. The rule and law of the exercise of power in the elders of the church is the holy Scripture only. The Lord Christ is the only lawgiver of the church ; all his laws unto this end are recorded in the Scripture; no other law is effectual,. can oblige or operate upon the objects or unto the ends of church-rule. If the church make a thousand rules, or canons, or laws for government, neither any of them, nor all of them in general, have any the least power to oblige men unto obedience or compliance with them, but only so far as vir-
136 TEUE NATURE OF A GOSPEL CHUrvCII.
tually or materially they contain Avliat is of the law of Christ, and derive force from thence: as the judges in our courts of justice are bound to judge and determine in all cases out of and according to the laiu of the land; and when they do not, their sentence is of no validity, but may and ought to be reversed. But if, wilfully or of choice, they should introduce laws or rules not legally established in this nation, judging according unto them, it would render them highly criminal and punishable. It is no otherwise in the kingdom of Christ and the rule thereof It is by his law alone that rule is to be exercised in it. There is nothing left unto the elders of the church but the application of his laws and the general rules of them unto particular cases and occasions. To make, to bring, to execute, any other rvdes, laws, or canons, in the government of his church, is to usurp on his kingly dominion, whereunto all legislative power in the church is appropriate. Nor is it possible that any thing can fall out in the church, that any thing can be required in the rule of it, nor can any instance be given of any such thing, wherein, for the ends of church-rule, there is, or can be, any more left unto the rulers of it but only the application and execution of the laws of Christ. Unto this application, to be made in a due manner, the wisdom and skill before described is requisite, and that alone. Where there are other laws, rules, or canons of the government of the church, and where the administration of them is directed by laws civil or politi- cal, there is a skill in them required unto that administration, as all will confess. So is the wisdom we before described, and that alone, necessary unto that rule of the church which the Lord Christ hath or- dained ; the instrument and means whereof is his word and law alone. 3. The matter of this rule about which it is conversant, and so the acts and duties of it, may be reduced unto three heads : —
(1.) The admission and exclusion of members. Both these are acts of church power and authority, which are to be exercised by the elders only, in a church that is organical and complete in its officers. There is that in them both which is founded in and warranted from the light and law of nature and rules of equity. Every righteous voluntary society, coalescing therein rightfully, upon known laws and rules for the regulation of it unto certain ends, hath naturally a power inherent in it, and inseparable from it, to receive into its incorpora- tion such as, being meet for it, do voluntarily offer themselves there- unto; as also to reject or withhold the privileges of the society from such as refuse to be regulated by the laws of the society. This power is inherent in the church essentially considered, antecedently unto the instating of officers in it. By virtue of their mutual confedera- tion, they may receive into the privileges of the society those that are meet, and withdraw the same privileges from those that are un- worthy. But in these actings of the church, essentially considered,
CHURCH POLITY OR RULE, WITH THE DUTY OF ELDERS. lo7
there is no exercise of the power of the keys as unto authoritative rule but what is merely doctrinal. There is in what it doth a decla- ration of the mind of Christ as unto the state of the persons whom they do receive or reject. But unto the church as organical, as there are elders or rulers instated in it according unto the mind of Christ, there is a peculiar authority committed for those acts of the admis- sion and exclusion of members. Unto this end is the key of rule committed unto the elders of the church, to be applied with the con- sent of the whole society, as we shall see afterward.
(2.) The direction of the church, in all the members of it, unto the observance of the rule and law of Christ in all things, unto his glory and their own edification. And all these things may be reduced unto these four heads: — [1.] Mutual, intense, peculiar love among themselves, to be exercised continually in all the duties of it. [2.] Personal holiness, in gracious moral obedience. [3.] Usefulness to- wards the members of the same church, towards other churches, and all men absolutely, as occasion and opportunity do require. [4.] The due perforafiance of all those duties which all the members of the church owe mutually unto each other, by virtue of that place and order which they hold and possess in the body. About these things is church-rule to be exercised ; for they all belong unto the preserva- tion of its being and the attainment of its ends.