[Footnote 90:  Bilson, Sutlive, and Downham.]

[Footnote 91:  The London ministers have here inserted the testimonies of these ancient writers in favor of the divine right of the office of the ruling elder, viz.  Ignatius, Purpurius, Tertullian, Origen, Cyprian, Optatus, Ambrose, Augustine, and Isidorus; and of these three late ones, viz.  Whitaker, Thorndike, and Rivet.  The amount of their testimony, when taken together, appears to be simply this, that there have been ruling elders, as distinct from preaching elders, in the Church of Christ from the beginning.  It is therefore judged unnecessary to give the quotations from these authors at large.—­Editor.]

[Footnote 92:  Against the office of deacons, and the divine right thereof, fourteen objections are answered by Mr. S. Rutherford in his Due Right of Presbyteries, chap. 7, pages 159 to 175.  To which the reader that shall make any scruple about the deacon’s office, is referred for his further satisfaction.]

[Footnote 93:  Some of our brethren in New England, observing what confusion necessarily depends upon the government which hath been practised there, have been forced much to search into it within this four years, and incline to acknowledge the presbyters to be the subject of the power without dependence upon the people.  “We judge, upon mature deliberation, that the ordinary exercise of government must be so in the presbyters, as not to depend upon the express votes and suffrages of the people.  There hath been a convent or meeting of the ministers of these parts, about this question at Cambridge in the Bay, and there we have proposed our arguments, and answered theirs, and they proposed theirs, and answered ours; and so the point is left to consideration.”  Mr. Thomas Parker in his letter written from Newbury in New England, December 17, 1643, printed 1644.]

[Footnote 94:  Vid.  Hen.  Steph.  Thes.  L. Graec. in verb.]

[Footnote 95:  Piscator.]

[Footnote 96:  Beza.]

[Footnote 97:  Zanch. in loco.]

[Footnote 98:  Vid.  Hen.  Steph.  Thes. ad verb.]

[Footnote 99:  Mr. Jo.  Cotton’s Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, chap. vii. in propos. 3, pages 44-46.]

[Footnote 100:  See Mr. Cotton’s own words in chap.  XIV. at the end, in the margin.]

[Footnote 101:  See John Calvin, in 1 Cor. v. 4.]

[Footnote 102:  Cameron, in Matt. xviii. 15.]

[Footnote 103:  Thus Mr. Bayne remarkably expounds this text, Matt. xviii., saying:  Where first mark, that Christ doth presuppose the authority of every particular church taken indistinctly.  For it is such a church as any brother offended may presently complain to.  Therefore no universal, or provincial, or diocesan church gathered in a council. 2.  It is not any particular church that he doth send all Christians to, for then all Christians in the world should come to one particular church, were it possible.