Finally, unto these testimonies and arguments from Scripture, many testimonies of ancient and modern writers (of no small repute in the Church of God) may be usefully annexed, speaking for ruling elders in the Church of Christ from time to time:  some speaking of such sort of elders, presbyters, or church-governors, as that ruling elders may very well be implied in their expressions; some plainly declaring that the Church of Christ in fact had such officers for government thereof; and some testifying that of right such officers ought to be in the Church of Christ now under the New Testament for the well guiding thereof; by which it may notably appear, that in asserting the office of the ruling elder in the Church, we take not upon us to maintain any singular paradox of our own devising, or to hold forth some new light in this old opinionative age:  and that the ruling elder is not a church officer first coined at Geneva, and a stranger to the Church of Christ for the first 1500 years, (as the adversaries of ruling elders scornfully pretend,) but hath been owned by the Church of Christ as well in former as in later times.[91]

An Appendix touching the Divine Right of Deacons.

Though we cannot find in Scripture that the power of the keys is committed by Christ unto deacons, with the other church governors, but conceive that deacons, as other members of the church, are to be governed, and are not to govern; yet forasmuch as deacons are ordinary officers in the Church of God, of which she will have constant use in all ages, and which at first were divinely appointed, and after frequently mentioned in the New Testament; it will not be thought unfit, before we conclude this section, touching the divine right of Christ’s church-officers, briefly to assert the divine right of deacons, as followeth.

Deacons in the church are an ordinance of Jesus Christ.  For,

1.  They are found in Christ’s catalogue of church officers, distinct from all other officers, both extraordinary and ordinary. Helps, 1 Cor. xii. 28.  The Greek word in the natural acceptation properly signifies, to lift over against one in taking up some burden or weight; metaphorically, it here is used for deacons, whose office it is to help and succor the poor and sick, to lend them a hand to lift them up, &c., and this office is here distinctly laid down from all other ordinary and extraordinary offices in the text.  So they are distinguished from all ordinary officers reckoned up, Rom. xii. 7, 8:  under prophecy, there is the teacher and pastor; under ministry, the ruling elder, and the deacon, verse 8.  This officer was so well known, and usual in the primitive churches, that when the apostle writes to the church at Philippi, he directs his epistle not only to the saints, but to the officers, viz. to the overseers, and deacons, Philip, i. 1.  The occasion of