5.  The Lord Christ charges their flock and people with many duties to be performed to their pastors and teachers, because of their office; as to know them, love them, obey them, submit unto them, honor them, maintain them, &c., which he would not do were they not his own ordinance.  “But we beseech you, brethren, to know them that labor among you, and rule over you in the Lord, and esteem them very highly in love for their work’s sake,” 1 Thess. v. 12, 13.  “Obey your rulers, and submit; for they watch for your souls as those that must give an account,” Heb. xiii. 17.  “The elders that rule well count worthy of double honor; especially them that labor in the word and doctrine; for the Scripture saith, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn, and the laborer is worthy of his hire,” 1 Tim. v. 17, 18; compared With 1 Cor. ix. 6-15.  “Let him that is catechized, communicate to him that catechizeth him in all good things,” Gal. vi. 6-8.

Thus much for the present may suffice to have been spoken touching the divine right of pastors and teachers, the ordinary standing ministers of Christ under the New Testament.  But forasmuch as we observe that in these days some rigid Erastians and Seekers oppose and deny the very office of the ministry now under the gospel, and others profess that the ministry of the church of England is false and antichristian; we intend, (by God’s assistance,) as soon as we can rid our hands from other pressing employments, to endeavor the asserting and vindicating of the divine right of the ministers of the New Testament in general, and of the truth of the ministry of the church of England in particular.

II.  Ruling elders, distinct from all preaching elders and deacons, are a divine ordinance in the Church of God now under the New Testament.

The divine right of this church officer, the mere ruling elder, is much questioned and doubted by some, because they find not the Scriptures speaking so fully and clearly of the ruling elder as of the preaching elder and of the deacon.  By others it is flatly denied and opposed, as by divers that adhere too tenaciously to the Erastian and prelatical principles:  who yet are willing to account the assistance of the ruling elder in matter of church government to be a very prudential way.  But if mere prudence be counted once a sufficient foundation for a distinct kind of church officer, we shall open a door for invention of church officers at pleasure; then welcome commissioners and committee men, &c.; yea, then let us return to the vomit, and resume prelates, deans, archdeacons, chancellors, officials, &c., for church officers.  And where shall we stop? who but Christ Jesus himself can establish new officers in his church?  Is it not the fruit of his ascension, &c.?  Eph. iv. 7, 11, 12.  Certainly if the Scriptures lay not before us grounds more than prudential for the ruling elder, it were better never to have mere ruling elders in the church.  Both the Presbyterians and Independents[45] acknowledge the divine right of the ruling elder.  For satisfaction of doubting unprejudiced minds, (to omit divers considerations that might be produced,) the divine right of the ruling elder may be evinced by these ensuing arguments.