n the particular kinds or individuals thereof, a
member of a body in general exists not but in this or that particular
member, eye, hand, foot, &c.: besides this, it is evident that Christ
hath not only in general appointed governors in his Church, and left
particulars to the church or magistrate's determination, but hath
himself descended to the particular determination of the several kinds
of officers which he will have in his Church; compare these places
together, Eph. iv. 7, 11, 12; 1 Cor. xii. 28; Rom. xii. 7, 8: though in
the ordinance of magistracy God hath only settled the general, but for
the particular kinds of it, whether it should be monarchical, &c., that
is left to the prudence of the several commonwealths to determine what
is fittest for themselves. (See Part 2, chap. IX.) 2. Not masters of
families: for all families are not in the Church, pagan families are
without. No family as a family is either a church or any part of a
church, (in the notion that church is here spoken of;) and though
masters of families be governors in their own houses, yet their power is
not ecclesiastical but economical or domestical, common to heathens as
well as Christians. Not the political magistrate,[54] for the reasons
hinted, (Part 1, chap. I.; see also Part 2, chap. IX.,) and for divers
other arguments that might be propounded. 4. Not the prelatical bishops,
pretending to be an order above preaching presbyters, and to have the
reins of all church government in their hands only; for, in Scripture
language, bishop and presbyter are all one order, (these words being
only names of the same officer;) this is evident by comparing Tit. i. 5,
with ver. 7. Hereunto also the judgment of antiquity evidently
subscribeth, accounting a bishop and a presbyter to be one and the same
officer in the church; as appears particularly in Ambrose, Theodoret,
Hierom, and others. Now, if there be no such order as prelatical
bishops, consequently they cannot be governments in the church. 5. Not
the same with _helps_, as the former corrupt impressions of our Bibles
seemed to intimate, which had it thus, _helps in governments_, which
some moderns seem to favor; but this is contrary to the original Greek,
which signifies _helps, governments_; contrary to the ancient Syriac
version, which hath it thus, (as Tremel. renders it,) _and helpers, and
governments_: and therefore this gross corruption is well amended in our
late printed Bible. _Helps, governments