may be had to make up
an eldership; otherwise let there be one eldership made up of two or three
of the next adjacent parishes, according as was ordained by the Church of
Scotland, in the 7th chapter of the Second Book of Discipline. _Sine
totius_ &c.: "Without the consent of some whole church (saith
Zanchius(1095)) no man ought to be excommunicate. Yea, I add, if it be a
small church, and not consisting of many learned and skilful men,
excommunication ought not to be done, except the neighbour churches be
asked counsel of." And, as touching the pastor's part, Calvin saith well,
_Nunquam_, &c.:(1096) "I never thought it expedient the liberty of
excommunicating should be permitted to every pastor." The fear of great
inconveniences, which he thought likely to follow upon such a custom, if
once it were permitted, makes him confess, in that epistle, that he durst
not advise Liserus to excommunicate any man without taking counsel of
other pastors. Now, I much marvel what butt Dr Forbesse(1097) shot at when
he entitleth one of his chapters _De Potestate Excommunicandi_, and then,
in the body of the chapter, doth no more at all but only quote those two
testimonies of Zanchius and Calvin; both of which do utterly condemn the
usurpation of bishops who appropriate to themselves the power of
excommunication, and ascribe this power to the consistory of pastors and
elders in every particular church; and, in the forequoted places, do only
(for preventing of abuses) set some bounds to the execution of their
power; which bounds we also think good to be kept, viz., that if a church
be so small that it hath not so many well-qualified men as may be
sufficient to assist the pastor in the government thereof, then let one
common eldership be made up out of it and some other neighbour churches:
by which means it shall moreover come to pass (which is the other caution
to be given), that not every pastor (no not with the elders of his
congregation) shall be permitted to have full liberty of binding and
loosing, but shall, in those matters, receive counsel and advice from
other pastors. Howbeit, for this latter purpose, the church of Scotland
hath profitably provided another remedy also, namely, that, in certain
chief places, all the pastors in the adjacent bounds shall, at set and
ordinary times, assemble themselves (which assemblies, in this nation, we
call presbyteries), that so the churches may be governed _communi
presbyterorum consilio_, as