Professed public conversion is not only from sins

First, doth their conversion amount to external turning from idols, 1 Thess. i. 9, beside their internal repentance, against the faith, love? &c. Secondly, who wrought this conversion, who begot these children? for though the Corinthians might have ten thousand teachers, yet Paul had begotten them by the word.

second table

in personal

repentance, but from

false worship also.

A true ministry

before con

therefore be

fore the

It is true, as Mr. Cotton himself elsewhere acknowledgeth, God sendeth many preachers in the way of his providence, even in Babel mystical, though not according to his ordinance and institution. So even in the wilderness God provideth for the sustentation of the woman, Rev. xii.; by which provision, even in the most popish times and places, yea, and by most false and popish callings (now in this lightsome age confessed so to be), God hath done great things to the personal conversion, consolation, and salvation of his people.

But as there seems yet to be desired such constitution necessary of the Christian church, as the first institution and pattern version, and calls for: so also such a calling and converting of God's people from anti-christian idols to the Christian worship: and therefore such a ministry, according to the first pattern, sent from Christ Jesus to renew and restore the worship and ordinances of God in Christ.

church, in

the first pattern.

Lastly, if it should be granted that without a ministry sent from Christ to gather churches, that God's people in this country may be called, converted from anti-christian idols, to the true worship of God in the true church estate and ordinances, will it not follow that in all other countries of the world God's elect must or may be so converted from their several respective false worships and idolatries, and brought into the true Christian church estate without such a ministry sent unto them? Or are Matt.xxviii. there two ways appointed by the Lord Jesus, one for this country, and another for the rest of the world? Or lastly,

The true way of the ministry

sent with that com

mission,

discussed.

if two or three more, without a ministry, shall arise up, become a church, make ministers, &c., I ask, whether those two or three, or more, must not be accounted immediately and extraordinarily stirred up by God? and whether this be that supreme power of Christ Jesus, which they speak of, sending forth two or three private persons to make a church and ministers, without a true ministry of Christ Jesus first sent unto themselves? Is this that commission, which all ministers pretend unto, Matt. xxviii. 19, &c. first, in the hands of two or three private persons becoming a church, without a mediate call from which church, say they, there can be no true ministry, and yet also confess that Christ sendeth forth to preach by his supreme power, and the magistrate by his power subordinate to gather churches?

CHAP. CIV.

Peace. You have taken great pains to show the irreconcilableness of those their two assertions, viz., First, there is now no ministry, as they say, but what is mediate from the church; and yet, secondly, Christ Jesus sends preachers forth by his supreme power to gather the church. I now wait to hear, how, as they say, "the magistrate may send forth by his power subordinate to gather churches, enforcing the people to hear," &c.

magistrate

ed with

Truth. If there be a ministry sent forth by Christ's supreme power, and a ministry sent forth by the magis- The civil trate's subordinate power, to gather churches-I ask, what not betrustis the difference between these two? Is there any gather- gathering of ing of churches but by that commission, Matt. xxviii. Teach and baptize? And is the civil magistrate entrusted

churches.

Jehoshaphat (2 Chron.

xvii. a

gure of

in his

with a power from Christ, as his deputy, to give this commission, and so to send out ministers to preach and baptize?

As there is nothing in the Testament of Christ concerning such a delegation or assignment of such power of Christ to the civil magistrate: so I also ask, since in every free state civil magistrates have no power but what the peoples of those states, lands, and countries betrust them with, whether or no, by this means, it must not follow, that Christ Jesus hath left with the peoples and nations of the world his spiritual kingly power to grant commissions, and send out ministers to themselves, to preach, convert, and baptize themselves? upon their conclusion of power in magistrates to send, &c., and what unchristian and unreasonable consequences must flow from hence, let all consider in the fear of God.

How inevitably this follows

Jehoshaphat's sending forth the Levites to teach in Judah, &c., as they allege it not, so elsewhere it shall Christ Jesus more fully appear to be a type and figure of Christ Jesus, church, not the only king of his church, providing for the feeding of magistrate his church and people by his true Christian priests and Levites, viz., the ministry which in the gospel he hath appointed.

of the civil

in the state.

CHAP. CV.

Peace. We have examined the ministry, be pleased, dear Truth, to speak to the second branch of this head: viz., the maintenance of it. They affirm that the magistrate may force out the minister's maintenance from all that are taught by them, and that after the pattern of Israel; and the argument from 1 Cor. ix., Gal. vi. 6.

Truth. This theme, viz., concerning the maintenance of the priests and ministers of worship, is indeed the apple of the eye, the Diana of the [Ephesians,1] &c.; yet all that love Christ Jesus in sincerity, and souls in and from him, will readily profess to abhor filthy lucre, Tit. i. 7, and the wages of Balaam, both more common and frequent than easily is discernible.

concerning

nance of the

amined.

To that scripture, Gal. vi. 6, Let him that is taught in Gal. vi. 6, the word make him that teacheth partaker of all his goods: I the mainteanswer, that teaching was of persons converted, believers ministry,exentered into the school and family of Christ, the church; which church being rightly gathered, is also rightly invested with the power of the Lord Jesus, to force every soul therein by spiritual weapons and penalties to do its duty.

But this forcing of the magistrate is intended and practised to all sorts of persons, without as well as within the church, unconverted, natural and dead in sin, as well as those that live and, feeding, enjoy the benefits of spiritual food.

never ap

mainte

ministers from the un

and unbe

Now for those sorts of persons to whom Christ Jesus Christ Jesus sends his word out of church estate, Jews or Gentiles, pointed a according to the parable of Matt. xiii. highway hearers, nance of stony ground, and thorny ground hearers, we never find converted, tittle of any maintenance to be expected, least of all to be lieving. forced and exacted, from them. By civil power they cannot be forced, for it is no civil payment or business, no matter of Cæsar, but concerning God: nor by spiritual power, which hath nothing to do with those which are without, 1 Cor. v.

It is reasonable to expect and demand of such as live within the state a civil maintenance of their civil officers, and to force it where it is denied. It is reasonable for a schoolmaster to demand his recompence for his labour in

They that compel men

pel men also

to pay for

their hear

his school; but it is not reasonable to expect or force it from strangers, enemies, rebels to that city, from such as come not within, or else would not be received into the school. What is the church of Christ Jesus, but the city, the school, and family of Christ? the officers of this city, school, family, may reasonably expect maintenance from such they minister unto, but not from strangers, enemies, &c.

Peace. It is most true that sin goes in a link; for that to hear, com- tenent, that all the men of the world may be compelled to hear Christ preached, and enjoy the labours of the teacher as well as the church itself, forceth on another also as evil, viz., that they should also be compelled to pay, as being most equal and reasonable to pay for their conversion.

ing and conversion.

Luke xiv. Compel them, examined.

Two sorts of compulsion.

Moral and

Truth. Some use to urge that text of Luke xiv. 23, Compel them to come in. Compel them to mass, say the papists; compel them to church and common prayer, say the protestants; compel them to the meeting, say the New English. In all these compulsions they disagree amongst themselves; but in this, viz., Compel them to pay, in this they all agree.

There is a double violence, which both error and falsehood use to the souls of men.

First, moral and persuasive; such was the persuasion first used to Joseph by his mistress: such was the persuasions of Tamar from Ammon; such was the compelling of the young man by the harlot, Prov. vii., she caught him by her much fair speech and kisses. And thus is the

2 ["I do not disapprove of the use frequently made of it by St. Augustine against the Donatists, to prove that godly princes may lawfully issue edicts to compel obstinate and rebellious persons to worship the true God, and to maintain the unity of the

faith; for although faith is a voluntary thing, yet we see that such means are useful to subdue the obstinacy of those who will not until compelled obey." Calvin in loc. tom. ii. 43. edit. Tholuck.]