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Updated: June 13, 2025
The Doctor himself holdeth, that one simple presbyter howsoever having, by virtue of his presbyterial order, power to give ordination, quod ad actum primum sive aptitudinem, yet quo ad exercitium cannot validly give ordination without a commission from the bishop or from the presbytery, if either there be no bishop, or else he be a heretic or wolf.
And first, of the presbyterial assembly, or classical presbytery, viz. an assembly made up of the presbyters of divers neighboring single congregations, for governing of all those respective congregations in common, whereunto they belong, in all matters of common concernment and greater difficulty in the Church.
He replieth, p. 12, “I confess I have had no great experience of the presbyterial government.” Why make you bold then to slander it, when you can give no sure ground for that you say? He tells us, His fears arise from Scotland and from London.
But Mr Coleman, by his own confession, adviseth the Parliament to lay no burden of government upon ministers and ruling elders; therefore, &c. How he will reconcile himself with himself let him look to it. He takes it ill that one, while I make him an enemy to all church government, then only to the presbyterial. Only is his own addition.
If this church is Presbyterial in practice, it is on no better footing than that of the Revolution Church of Scotland. The purity of divine worship is not guarded by the terms of fellowship in this church. It is true, "No Hymns merely of human composure, are allowed in her churches." But what mean these guarded terms and phrases, "merely;" "churches?"
A hundred years after the death of the apostles, the bishop, acting as the president of the presbyterial college, administered the sacrament and discipline of the Church, managed the public funds, and determined all such differences as the faithful were unwilling to expose before the tribunal of an idolatrous judge.
What that government is in particular, is evidenced both by the description of church government, and the confirmation of the parts thereof by Scripture, Part. II. chap. 1, and so to the end of the book: whereby it is cleared that the presbyterial government is that particular government which is of divine right, according to the word of God. 3.
It is referred to by Baillie in the following terms:—“Think not we live any of us here to be idle; Mr Henderson has ready now a short treatise, much called for, of our church discipline; Mr Gillespie has the grounds of Presbyterial Government well Asserted; Mr Blair, a pertinent answer to Hall’s Remonstrance: all these are ready for the press.” The valuable treatise here referred to has not been so much noticed as several other of Gillespie’s writings, but is included in this collective edition.
That there is in the word a pattern of divers single congregations in one church. 2. That there is in the word a pattern of one presbyterial government in common over divers single congregations in one church. 3. Finally, that the pattern of the said presbyterial government, is for a rule to the churches of Christ in all after ages.
"This Tai-Hoey is a child of God, which was 'born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. It is believed to be the first ecclesiastical organization for actual union and co-operation in mission lands by the representatives of churches holding the Reformed faith and Presbyterial polity.
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