Part 1 — Chapter 11: Doctor Field's Five Arguments against Ruling Elders

HIS first reason that shewed him to think there were any Church, is because Bishops, Presbyters, that preach and minister the Sacraments, and Deacons, however they much degenerated in later times, yet all still remained in all Christian Churches throughout the World, both Greek and Latin, in their names and offices also in some sort. But of these ruling Elders, there are no foot-steps to be found in any Christian Church in the World, nor were not for many hundred years; whereas there would have been some remains of these as well as the other, had they ever had any institution from Christ or his Apostles, as the other had. To this we answer. 1. If the Christian Churches throughout the World had wanted ruling Elders longer than they did, yet prescription can be no prejudice to the ordinance of God. 2. After that the golden age of the Apostles was spent and gone, exact diligence was not taken, to have the Church provided with well qualified ministers, but many unfit men, yes, sundry heretics entered into that sacred vocation, whereby it came to pass that corruption and error overflowed the Churches, as both Eusebius proves from Aegesippus and catalogus testium veritatis from Irenaus. Might not this be the cause of changing the office-bearers and government of the Church. 3. In the Roman, yes in Prelatical Churches there are scarce any foot-steps at all of the offices of preaching Presbyters, and Deacons, as they were instituted by the Apostles. The Apostles ordained Presbyters to preach the Word, to minister the Sacraments, to govern the Church, and to make use of the keys. But the Popish and Prelatical Presbyters have not the power of the keys, nor the power of Church government, for it is proper to their Prelates; as for the other two they are common to their Deacons, for they also do preach and baptize. The office of the Popish Priest stands in two things, to consecrate and offer up the body of Christ, and to absolve the faithful from their sins: see Conci. Triden. de sacr. Ordin. cap. 1. Hier. Savanarola. Triumph. cruc. lib. 3. cap. 16. And the same two make up the proper office of the Priest by the order of the English Service Book. As touching Deacons, they were ordained by the Apostles for collecting receiving, keeping, and distributing of Ecclesiastical goods, for maintaining of ministers, schools, Churches, the sick, stranger, and poor. The Popish and Prelatical Deacons have no such office, but an office which the Apostles never appointed to them; for they had no preaching nor baptizing Deacons. Philip preached and baptized, not as a Deacon, but as an Evangelist (Acts 21:8). Besides at the time of his preaching and baptizing, he could not have exercised the office of his Deaconship, by reason of the persecution, which scattered rich and poor and all (Acts 8:1). That which Steven did (Acts 7) was no more than every believer was bound to do, when he is called to give a testimony to the truth, and to give a reason of his faith and practice. 4. Others of the faithful, besides the ministers of the Word, have been admitted to Councils and Synods by many Christian Churches throughout the World, as is well known; and this is a manifest foot-step of the government of ruling Elders. 5. No, in the Church of England itself, at this day, there are foot-steps of ruling Elders, else what means the joining of laymen with the Clergy in the high Commission to judge of matters Ecclesiastical? Saravia says, the Churchwardens which are in every Parish of England, have some resemblance of ruling Elders, whose charge appointed by law, he says, is to collect, keep, and disburse the goods and revenues of the Church, to preserve the fabric of the Church and all things pertaining thereto sure and safe, to keep account of baptisms, marriages, and burials, to admonish delinquents and other inordinate livers, to relate to the Bishop or his substitutes, such as are incorrigible and scandalous, being sworn thereto: also to observe who are absent from the prayers in the Church upon the Lord's days, and upon the holy days, and to exact from them the penalty appointed by law, and finally to see to quietness and decency in time of divine service.

Doctor Field's second reason is for that Paul (1 Timothy 3), showing who should be Bishops and ministers, who Deacons, yes, who Widows; passes immediately from describing the quality of such as were to be Bishops and ministers of the Word and Sacraments, to the Deacons, omitting these ruling Elders that are supposed to lie in the midst between them, which he neither might nor would have omitted, if there had been any such. To this the answer is easy. 1. As we collect the actions and sufferings of Jesus Christ, and the institution of the last supper, not from any one of the Evangelists, but from all of them compared together, for that one touches what another omits; so do we judge of the office-bearers of the Church not from 2 Timothy 3 only, but from the collation of that and other places of Scripture of that kind. Ruling Elders are found in other places, and in the fifth chapter of that same Epistle, though not in the third. 2. Neither were there any absurdity to hold, that the Apostle in that third chapter comprehends all the ordinary office-bearers in the Church under these two Bishops and Deacons, and that under the name of Bishops, he comprehends both Pastors, Doctors, and ruling Elders: for as all these three are overseers, so to them all agree the qualities of a Bishop here mentioned, whereof there is only one, which seems not to agree to the ruling Elder, namely, that he should be apt to teach (verse 2). Yet Beza maintains against Saravia, that the ruling Elder teaches as well as the Pastor, only the Pastor does it publicly to the whole congregation; the ruling Elder does it privately, as he finds every one to have need. And we have showed before that as a private Christian is bound in charity to teach the ignorant, so the ruling Elder is bound to do it ex officio.

The third reason, which Doctor Field brings against us, is, for that neither Scripture nor practice of the Church, bounding the government of such governors, nor giving any direction how far they may go in the same, and where they must stay, lest they meddle with that they have nothing to do with, men should be left to a most dangerous uncertainty in an office of so great consequence. Our answer to this is: 1. We have showed already the certain bounds of the power and vocation of ruling Elders. 2. It was not necessary that the Apostle should severally set down canons and directions: first, touching Pastors, then Doctors; lastly, ruling Elders, since they are all Elders, and all members of the Eldership or Presbytery; it was enough to deliver canons and directions common to them all, especially since the duties of ruling Elders are the same which are the duties of Pastors, only the Pastors power is cumulative to theirs, and over reacheth the same in the public ministry of the Word and Sacraments, and so does Paul difference them (1 Timothy 5:17).

His fourth reason is, because we fetch the pattern of the government of ruling Elders, from the Sanhedrin of the Jews, the platform whereof we suppose Christ meant to bring into his Church, when he said, Tell the Church; whereas, says he, it is most clear that the court was a civil court, and had a power to banish, to imprison, yes and to take away life, till by the Romans the Jews were restrained. We answer that Beza de Presbyteri[illegible], I. B. A. C. De polit. civil. & Eccl. lib. 2, also Zepperus, Junius, Piscator, Wolphius, Godwin, Bucerus, Gerard, and sundry others have rightly observed that the Ecclesiastical Sanhedrin among the Jews was distinct from the civil, yet both called by the name of Sanhedrin. We grant with Beza that sometimes civil causes were debated and determined in the Ecclesiastical Sanhedrin, but this was done [in non-Latin alphabet], non [in non-Latin alphabet], as he says, the fact which was merely civil was judged in the civil Sanhedrin, but when the civil judges could not agree de jure, even in civil causes, in that case resolution was given by the other Sanhedrin; as in like cases by the juris-consults among the Romans, for the conservation and interpretation of the law did belong to the Levitical Tribe. Hence it is that we read (2 Chronicles 19:8, 11) Jehoshaphat set in Jerusalem of the Levites, and of the chief Priests, and of the chief of the Fathers of Israel, some for the Lord's matters, among whom presided Amariah the chief Priest, and some for the King's matters, among whom presided Zebadiah the Ruler of the house of Judah. Saravia says this place proves not that there were two distinct consistories, one for civil, another for Ecclesiastical things; because, says he, by the King's matters are meant matters of peace and war, by the Lord's matters, the matters of law and judgment which are called the Lord's matters, because the Lord was the author of their civil laws. What a crazy device is this? Did not matters of peace and war come under the civil laws, which God had delivered to the Jews, as well as any matter of judgment between man and man? And what can be more plain than that the Lord's matters or things pertaining to God, when they are differenced from other matters, are ever understood to be matters spiritual and Ecclesiastical? Therefore says Junius, the readers are to be warned whoever they be that consult the histories of ancient times, that where they read the name Synedrium, they wisely observe whether the civil Assembly or the Ecclesiastical be meant of, because that name was confused, and indistinct, after the times of Antiochus.

But notwithstanding that in these latter times all good order had much degenerated and grown to confusion, yet it seems to me, that even in the days of our Savior Christ, the civil and Ecclesiastical courts remained distinct. Let me say my opinion with all men's leave, and under correction of the more learned, that night that our Lord was betrayed, he was led to the Hall of Caiaphas, where there was holden an Ecclesiastical Sanhedrin, which asked Jesus of his disciples, and of his doctrine, received witness against him, and pronounced him guilty of blasphemy (Matthew 27:57; Mark 14:53, 55; John 18:19). Nothing I find in this Council why we should think it civil: for as touching the smiting and buffeting of Christ (Matthew 26:67; Luke 22:63), some think it was by the servants of the high Priests and Elders after that they themselves had gone home, and left the Council; however, it was done tumultuously, not judicially, and tumults may fall forth in any judicatory whether civil or Ecclesiastical. As for the sentence which they gave (Matthew 26:66), He is guilty of death, it proves not that this was a civil court: for just so, if an incestuous person should be convict before an Assembly of our Church, the Moderator might ask the Assembly, what think you? And they might well answer, He is guilty of death, away with him to the Magistrate. Shortly then the matter debated in this nocturnal Council, was merely Ecclesiastical, and the accusation of sedition and making himself a King, were not spoken of till he was brought before Pilate. But there was another Sanhedrin convocated in the morning (Matthew 27:1; Mark 15:1; Luke 22:66), and this seems to have been not Ecclesiastical but civil. 1. Because they meddle not with the trial of his doctrine, nor any examination of witnesses thereabout: only they desire to hear out of his own mouth, that which he had confessed in the other Council, namely that he was the Christ the Son of God; whereupon they take counsel how they might deliver him to Pilate, which was the end of their meeting. 2. Mark says, They bound him, and carried him away to Pilate. 3. The Ecclesiastical Council had already done that which they thought pertained to them: for what should they have convened again? Some say, that all the high Priests, Scribes and Elders, were not present at that nocturnal Council, and that therefore they convened more fully in the morning. But that the nocturnal Council was fully convened, it is manifest from (Matthew 26:59; Mark 14:53, 55). 4. This last Council led Jesus away to Pilate, and went themselves with him to accuse him before Pilate of sedition, and of making himself a King (Luke 23:1, 2; Matthew 27:12). 5. They complain that the power of capital punishment was taken from them by the Romans, importing that otherwise they might have put him to death by their law (John 18:31).

Now Doctor Fields last reason is, For that all Fathers or Councils mentioning Elders, place them between Bishops and Deacons, and make them to be clergy men, and that in the Acts where the Apostles are said to have constitute Elders in every Church, Pastors are meant, is strongly confirmed from Acts 20:17, 28, where the Elders of the Church of Ephesus are commanded to feed the flock of Christ over which they were appointed overseers, from where it follows inevitably, that they were Pastors. We answer, 1. Ambrose speaks of Elders which were not Pastors. 2. Beza & Gualther expound the place (Acts 14:23), where the Apostles are said to have ordained Elders through every Church, of ruling as well as preaching Elders. 3. As for that which he alleges from Acts 20, Beza, Junius, and the Professors of Leyden, hold, that the names of Bishops and Pastors are common both to ruling and preaching Elders, and that the Scripture gives these names to both, however in ecclesiastical use for distinction's cause, they are appropriate to teaching Elders. Surely the ruling Elder both oversees the flock and feeds the same, both by discipline, and by private admonition; and for these respects may be truly called both Bishop and Pastor. 4. How small reason he has to boast of the Fathers, we have already made it to appear. 5. It is a begging of the question to reason from the appropriation of the name of Elders to the Pastors.