elders,
and pastors too, yea, and word and sacraments for a time: some things
are only respectively necessary to the well-being of a church; thus
officers are necessary, yet some more than others, without which the
church is lame, defective, and miserably imperfect.

_Except_. 4. Should ruling elders here be meant, then deacons that obey,
should be preferred before the elders that rule.[52]

_Ans_. Priority of order is no infallible argument of priority of worth
and dignity; as is evidenced in answer to the third exception against
Arg. II.--there see; we find Priscilla a woman named before Aquila a
man, and her husband, Acts xviii. 18; Rom. xvi. 3; 1 Tim. iv. 19; is
therefore the woman preferred before the man? the wife before the
husband? And again, Aquila is set before Priscilla, Acts xviii. 2, 26, 1
Cor. xvi. 19, to let us see that the Holy Ghost indifferently speaks
of superior and inferior before one another.

_Except_. 5. But here the apostle speaketh of divers gifts and graces,
for so _differing gifts_ do import, not of divers offices: for then they
might not concur in one man, and consequently neither might the prophet
teach, nor exhort, nor the deacon distribute, nor show mercy. Many gifts
may be common in one man, many offices cannot;--which of these gifts in
the apostles' times was not common as well to the people as to the
pastors; and to women as well as to men? &c.[53]

_Ans_. Divers considerations may be propounded to discover the vanity of
this exception: chiefly take these three.

1. There is no sufficient reason in this exception, proving the apostle
here to speak only of divers gifts and graces, and not of divers offices
also. For, 1. This is not proved by that expression, _differing gifts_,
ver. 6, for these differing gifts are not here spoken of abstractly and
absolutely, without reference to their subjects, but relatively with
reference to their subjects wherein they are, viz. in the several
officers, ver. 7, 8, and therefore, as the apostle mentions the
_differing gifts_, so here he tells us in the same sixth verse, that we
have these "different gifts, according to the grace given unto us," i.e.
according to the office given unto us of God's grace, (as hath been
manifested,) after which immediately is subjoined an enumeration of
offices. 2. Nor is this proved by the inference made, upon the granting
that divers offices are here meant, viz. [Then they might not concur in
one man, the prophet m