Parliament.  Armies and navies have their several companies and ships, yet in any danger every particular company and ship is ordered by the counsels and directions of the officers and guides of the whole army or navy.  The Church is spiritual, but yet a kingdom, a body, an army, &c.  D. Ames himself affirms that the light of nature requires that particular churches ought to combine in synods for things of greater moment.  The God of nature and reason hath not left in his word a government against the light of nature and right reason.  Appeals are of divine and natural right, and certainly very necessary in every society, because of the iniquity and ignorance of judges.  That they are so, the practices of all ages and nations sufficiently testify.

Argum.  II.  The Jewish church government affords a second argument.  If in that they had synagogues in every city, which were subordinate to the supreme ecclesiastical court at Jerusalem, then there ought to be a subordination of particular churches among us to higher assemblies; but so it was among them:  therefore,

That the subordination was among them of the particular synagogues to the assembly at Jerusalem, is clear—­Deut. xvii. 8, 12; 2 Chron. xix. 8, 11; Exod. xviii. 22, 26.

That therefore it ought to be so among us, is as plain:  for the dangers and difficulties that they were involved in without a government, and for which God caused that government to be set up among them, are as great if not greater among us, and therefore why should we want the same means of prevention and cure?  Are not we in greater danger of heresies now in the time of the New Testament, the churches therein being thereby to be exercised by way of trial, as the apostle foretells, 1 Cor. xi. 19?  Doth not ungodliness in these last times abound, according to the same apostle’s prediction?  Is there not now a more free and permitted intercourse of society with infidels than in those times?

Nor are the exceptions against this argument of any strength:  as, 1.  That arguments for the form of church government must yet be fetched from the Jewish Church; the government of the Jews was ceremonial and typical, and Christians must not Judaize, nor use that Judaical compound of subordination of churches:  the Mosaical polity is abrogated now under the New Testament.  Not to tell those that make this exception, 1.  That none argue so much from the Jewish government as themselves for the power of congregations, both in ordination and excommunication, because the people of Israel laid hands on the Levites, and all Israel were to remove the unclean; 2.  We answer, the laws of the Jewish church, whether ceremonial or judicial, so far are in force, even at this day, as they were grounded upon common equity, the principles of reason and nature, and were serving to the maintenance of the moral law.  ’Tis of especial right, that the party unjustly aggrieved should have redress, that the adverse party should not be sole judge and