mplied pastors, without the addition of the word
governors, one act or function of the office being put for the whole
office. But prelates did not love to hear of such a distinction.
However, it is the judgment of many others no less learned or pious than
they, that in the same congregation where there are several ministers,
he that excels in exposition of scriptures, teaching sound doctrine, and
convincing gainsayers, may be designed hereunto, and called a teacher or
doctor: he that excels in application, and designed thereunto, may be
called a pastor; but where there is only one minister in one particular
congregation, he is to perform, as far as he is able, the whole work of
the ministry. 2. If pastors are to be understood by this term governors,
as contradistinct from teachers, formerly enumerated in the text; doth
not this seem to devolve the matter of government so wholly upon the
pastor, as that the teacher hath nothing to do with it? and hereby both
pastor and teacher are wronged at once: the teacher, while power of
governing is denied him, which belongs to him as well as to the pastor;
the teacher being a minister of the word, hath power of administration
of the sacraments and discipline, as well as the pastor: the pastor,
while he consequently is deprived of the necessary and comfortable
assistance of the teacher in point of government. Therefore the pastor
cannot here be intended by governors. 3. Bilson himself was not very
confident of this gloss, and therefore he immediately adds, "If this
content you not, I then deny they are all ecclesiastical functions that
are there specified," &c. What then doth he make them? viz. he makes
divers of them, and governments among the rest, to be but several gifts,
whereof one and the same officer might be capable. And a little after he
ingenuously confesses he cannot tell what these governors were, saying,
"I could easily presume, I cannot easily prove what they were. The
manner and order of those wonderful gifts of' God's Spirit, after so
many hundreds may be conjectured, cannot be demonstrated--governors they
were, or rather governments, (for so the apostle speaketh,) i.e. gifts
of wisdom, discretion, and judgment, to direct and govern the whole
church, and every particular member thereof, in the manifold dangers and
distresses which those days did not want. Governors also they might be
called, that were appointed in every congregation to hear and appease
the private stri