Except.  Receiving of alms is no act of government.

Ans.  True, the bare receiving of alms is no act of government, but the ordering and appointing how it shall be best improved and disposed of, cannot be denied to be an act of government, and for this did the elders meet together, Acts xi. 30.

4.  The apostles themselves, in their joint acts of government in such churches, acted as ordinary officers, viz. as presbyters or elders.  This is much to be observed, and may be evidenced as followeth:  for, 1.  None of their acts of church government can at all be exemplary or obligatory upon us, if they were not presbyterial, but merely apostolical; if they acted therein not as ordinary presbyters, but as extraordinary apostles.  For what acts they dispatched merely as apostles, none may meddle withal but only apostles. 2.  As they were apostles, so they were presbyters, and so they style themselves, “The elder to the elect lady,” 2 John i.  “The elders which are among you I exhort,” saith Peter, “who am also an elder,” (i.e. who am a fellow-elder, or co-presbyter,) 1 Pet. v. 1; wherein he ranks himself among ordinary presbyters, which had been improper, unless he had discharged the offices and acts of an ordinary presbyter. 3.  Their acts were such, for substance, as ordinary presbyters do perform, as preaching and prayer, Acts vi. 4:  ordaining of officers, Acts vi. 6, and xiv. 23:  dispensing of the sacraments, 1 Cor. i. 14; Acts ii. 42, and xx. 7:  and of church censures, 1 Cor. v. 4, 5, compared with 1 Tim. v. ver. 1, ult.:  which acts of government, and such like, were committed by Christ to them, and to ordinary presbyters (their successors) to the end of the world; compare Matt. xvi. 19, and xviii. 17, 18, to the end, and John xx. 21, 23, with Matt. xxviii. 18-20. 4.  They acted not only as ordinary elders, but also they acted jointly with other elders, being associated with them in the same assembly, as in that eminent synod at Jerusalem, Acts xv. 6, 22, 23, and xvi. 4, “And as they went through cities, they delivered them the decrees for to keep, that were ordained of the apostles and elders which were at Jerusalem.” 5.  And, finally, they took in the church’s consent with themselves, wherein it was needful, as in the election and appointment of deacons, Acts vi. 2, 3. 6.  The deacons being specially to be trusted with the church’s goods, and the disposal thereof, according to the direction of the presbytery, for the good of the church, &c.

Let all these considerations be impartially balanced in the scales of indifferent unprejudiced judgments; and how plainly do they delineate in the word, a pattern of one presbyterial government in common over divers single congregations within one church!

Except.  The apostles’ power over many congregations was founded upon their power over all churches; and so cannot be a pattern for the power of elders over many.

Ans. 1.  The apostles’ power over many congregations as one church, to govern them all as one church jointly and in common, was not founded upon their power over all churches, but upon the union of those congregations into one church; which union lays a foundation for the power of elders governing many congregations.