ch was
imposition of hands, belonged to those elders alone which laboured in the
word and doctrine. And so we are to understand that which the Apostle
there saith of the presbytery's laying on of hands upon Timothy. As for Dr
Downame's(1036) two glosses upon that place, which he borroweth from
Bellarmine, and whereby he thinketh to elude our argument, we thank Dr
Forbesse(1037) for confuting them. _Quod autem_, &c.: "But whereas (saith
he) some have expounded the presbytery in this place to be a company of
bishops, except by bishops thou would understand presbyteries, it is a
violent interpretation, and an insolent meaning, and whereas others have
understood the degree itself of eldership, this cannot stand, for the
degree hath not hands, but hands are men's." Wherefore the Doctor himself,
by the presbytery whereof the Apostle speaketh, understandeth (as we do)
_confessus presbyterorum_.

But since we cannot find, in the apostles' times, any other presbytery or
assembly of elders beside that which hath been spoken of, how cometh it,
nay, some say that the church of Scotland, and other reformed churches,
did appoint two sorts of presbyterial assemblies, one (which here we call
sessions) wherein the pastor of the parish, together with those elders
within the same, whom the Apostle calleth governments and presidents, put
order to the government of that congregation, another (which here we
presbyteries) wherein the pastors of sundry churches, lying near together,
do assemble themselves? Which difficulty yet more increaseth, if it be
objected that neither of these two doth in all points answer or conform
itself unto that primitive form of presbytery whereof we speak. _Ans._ The
division and multiplication of parishes, and the appointment of particular
pastors to the peculiar oversight of particular flocks, together with the
plantation of churches in villages as well as in cities, hath made it
impossible for us to be served with that only one form of presbytery which
was constitute in the apostles' times. But this difference of the times
being (as it ought to be) admitted, for an inevitable cause of the
differences of the former, both those two forms of presbyterial meetings
appointed by the church of Scotland do not only necessarily result from
that one apostolic form, but likewise (the actions of them both being laid
together) do accomplish all these ordinary ecclesiastical functions which
were by it performed.

And first,