munication); 2 Cor. ii. 6, There is a "punishment," or censure,
"inflicted of many;" 1 Tim. v. 19, "Against an elder receive not an
accusation, but before two or three witnesses." Where acts of church
government or censures were neglected it is extremely blamed; Rev. ii. 14,
15, 20. Was not all this corrective? yet not civil or temporal.

3. Page 9, Whereas I had said, That without church government ministers
shall not keep themselves nor the ordinances from pollution, he replieth,
That he understands neither this keeping of themselves from pollution, nor
what this pollution of the ordinances is. I am sorry for it, that any
minister of the gospel is found unclear in such a point. I will not give
my own, but scriptural answers to both. The former is answered, 1 Tim. v.
22, Be not "partaker of other men's sins: keep thyself pure." It is sin to
dispense ordinances to the unworthy, whether ordination, or communion in
the sacrament. For the other, the pollution of ordinances is the Scripture
language. I hope he means not to quarrel at the Holy Ghost's language:
Ezek. xxii. 26, "Her priests have violated my law, and have profaned mine
holy things: they have put no difference between the holy and profane;"
Mal. i. 7, "Ye offer polluted bread upon mine altar;" ver. 12, "Ye have
profaned it;" Matt. xxi. 13, "Ye have made it a den of thieves;" Matt.
vii. 6, "Neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them
under their feet."

4. Page 11, Whereas I had objected to him, that he excludeth ruling elders
as well as ministers from government, he answers, That ruling elders are
either the same, for office and ordination, with the minister (which, as
he thinks, the Independents own, but not I), or they are the Christian
magistrate; and so he saith he doth not exclude them. Mark here, he
excludeth all ruling elders from a share in church government who are not
either the same, for office and ordination, with the minister, or else the
Christian magistrate; and so, upon the matter, he holdeth that ruling
elders are to have no hand in church government. Those ruling elders which
are in the votes of the Assembly, and in the reformed churches, have
neither the power of civil magistracy (_qua_ elders, and many of them not
at all, being no magistrates), nor yet are they the same, for office and
ordination, with the minister; for their office, and, consequently, their
ordination to that office, is distinct from that of the minister