Their due measure and bounds, as was said before, are given them by concernment and convenience; wherein respect also may be had unto the ability of some churches to promote edification above others. Such churches as are, in the same instances, concerned in the causes of them before declared, and may be helpful unto the ends men- tioned, are to convene in such synods. And this concernment may be either from some of those causes in themselves, or from that duty which they owe unto other churches which are immediately concerned. So it was in the assistance given by the church at Jeru- salem in that case which was peculiar to the church of Antioch.
With this interest or concernment there must be a concurrence of natural, moral, and political conveniences. Some churches are planted at such distances from others that it is naturally impossible that they should ever meet together to advise by their messengers; and some are at such as that they cannot assemble but with such difficulties and hazards as exempt them from the duty of it. And whereas they are placed under different civil governments, and those ofttimes engaged in mutual enmities, and always jealous of the actings of their own sub- jects in conjunction with them that are not so, they cannot so convene and preserve the outward peace of the churches. Hence the largest of the councils of old that are called " oecumenical" never extended farther than the single Roman empire, when there were innumerable churches planted under the civil jurisdiction of other sovereigns.
Wherefore, in the assembling of churches in synods, respect is to be had unto the convenience of their meeting, that it may be, so far as is possible, without trouble or danger. And this, with respect unto the causes or occasions of them, will determine what churches (which or how many) may be necessary on such occasions to constitute a synod. And it is useful hereunto that the churches which are planted within such a circumference as gives facility or convenience for such conven- tions should, by virtue of their mutual conununion, be in express readiness to convene on all occasions of common concernment.
Again; in the assistance which, in the way of advice and counsel, any one church may stand in need of from others, respect is to be had, in their desire, unto such churches as are reputed and known to have the best ability to give advice in the case; on which account the church at Antioch addressed themselves in a peculiar manner unto the church at Jerusalem, which was far distant from them.
But in all these cases use is to be made of spiritual prudence,
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with respect unto all sorts of circumstances; which although some would deny, [such] as the privilege of even matters of fact, and the application of general Scripture rules unto practice, because we re- quire divine institution unto all parts of religious worship, yet we must not decline from using the best we have in the service of Clirist and his church, rather than comply with any thing which, in tlie whole substance of it, is foreign to liis institution.
It was the Roman empire under one monarch, in its civil distribu- tions for rule and government, which gave the first rise and occasion unto a pretended visibly ruling catholic church under one spiritual monarch, distributed into those that were patriarchal, diocesan, me- tropolitical, and others of inferior kinds; for, retaining the people in their civil distributions, whereinto they were cast according to the polity and interest of the empire, thei'e were ecclesiastical officers assigned unto each distribution, answerable unto the civil officers which were ordained in the polity of the empire. So, in answer unto deputies, exarchs, prefects, governors of provinces and cities, there were found out and erected patriarchs, metropolitans, diocesans, in various allotments of tenitories and powers, requiring unto their com- plete state one visible monarchical head, as the empire had; — which was the pope. And whereas the emperors had not only a civil rule and power, but a military also, exercised under them by legates, generals, tribunes, centurions, and the like; so there was raised an ecclesiastical militia, in various orders of monks, friars, and votaries of all sorts, who, under their immediate generals and prefects, did depend absolutely on the sovereign power of the new ecclesiastical monarch. So was the visible professing church moulded and fashioned into an image of the old Roman pagan empire, as it was foretold it should be. Rev. xiii. 13-15. And although this image was first framed in compliance with it and for a resemblance of it, yet in process of time it substituted itself entirely in the room of the empire, taking all its power unto itself, and doing all its works.
From this distribution of various sorts of new-framed chmxhes in the Roman empire arose a constitution of synods or councils in sub- ordination one unto another, until, by sundry degrees of ascent, they arrived unto those which they called " general," under the conduct of the pope, whose senate they were.
But thesethings have no countenance given them byany divine insti- tution, apostolical example, or practice of the first churches, but are a mere product of secular interest working itself in a mystery of iniquity.
Since the dissolution of the Roman empire, nations have been cast into distinct civil governments of their own, whose sovereignty is in themselves, by the event of war and counsels thereon emergent. Unto each of these it is supposed there is a church-state accommo- dated, as the church of England, the church of Scotland, the church