their own wants: they never kissed the lips of the wise, and therefore think all the world breathes a breath as fenny and moorish as themselves.

15. Besides the consideration of the ability, that a separate number of men should be the teachers, and it be not permitted promiscuously to every person of a confident language and bold fancy, is highly necessary in the point of prudence and duty too. Of prudence, because there can be no sécurity against all the evil doctrines of the world in a promiscuous unchosen company of preachers. For if he be allowed the pretence of an extraordinary, he shall belie the Holy Spirit, to cozen you, when he hath a mind to it: if you allow him nothing but an ordinary spirit, that is, the abilities of art and nature, there cannot, in such discourses, be any compensation for the disorder, or the danger, or the schisms, and innumerable churches, when one head and two members shall make a distinct body, and all shall pretend to Christ, without any other common term of union. And this, which is disorder in the thing, is also dishonourable to this part of religion; and the divine messages shall be conveyed to the people by common carriers or rather messengers by chance, and as they go by; whereas God sent at first ambassadors extraordinary, and then left his liegers in his church for ever. But there is also a duty too to be secured; for they that have the guiding of souls, must remember, that they must be λόγον ἀποδώσοντες, " must render an account;" and that cannot "be done with joy," when it shall be indifferent to any man to superseminate what he please. And, by the way, I suppose, they who are apt to enter into the chair of doctors and teachers, would be unwilling to be charged with a cure of souls. If they knew what that means, they would article more strictly, before they would stand charged with it; and yet it is harder to say there is no such thing as 'the cure of souls; that Christ left his flock to wander and to guide themselves, or to find shepherds at the charges of accident and chance. Christ hath made a better provision; and after he had, with the greatest earnestness, committed to St. Peter the care of feeding his lambs and sheep, St. Peter did it carefully, and thought it part of the same duty to provide other shepherds, who should also feed the flocks by a continual provision and attendance; "The presbyters which are among you h, I who also am a presbyter, exhort,-feed the flock of God which is among you, ἐπισκοποῦντες ἑκουσίως, προθύμως, doing the office of bishops over them, taking supravision or oversight of them willingly and of a ready mind." The presbyters and bishops, they are to feed the flock;' there was ποίμνιον, 'a flock' to be distinguished from the ποιμένες, 'the shepherds;' the ' elders' ἐν ὑμῖν and the 'flock among you,' distinguished by a regular office of teaching, and a relation of shepherds and sheep.

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16. But this discourse would be unnecessarily long, unless I should omit many arguments, and contract the rest; I only shall desire it be considered, concerning the purpose of that part of Divine Providence, in giving the Christian church commandments1 concerning provisions to be made for the preachers; "Let the elders that rule well, have a double honour," an elder brother's portion at least, both of honour and maintenance, "especially if they labour in the word and doctrine;" and the reason is taken out of Moses's law, but derived from the natural, "Bovi trituranti non ligabis os." "For God hath ordained, that those that labour in the gospel, should live of the gospel." This argument will force us to distinguish persons, or else our purses will; and if all will have a right to preach the gospel that think themselves able, then also they have a right to be maintained too.

17. I shall add no more: 1. God hath designed persons to teach the people; 2. charged them with the cure of souls; 3. given them permission to go into all the world;' 4. given them gifts accordingly; 5. charged the people to attend and obey; 6. hath provided them maintenance and support; and, 7. separated them to "reading, to exhortation, and to doctrine," from the affairs of this world, that they may attend to these, by the care of the whole man. If any man, in charity or duty, will do any ghostly offices to his erring or weak brother, he may have a reward of charity: for in this sense it is that Tertullian says, that, in remote and barbarous countries, the laity do "sacerdotio aliquatenus fungi." But if he invades the public chair, he may meet with the curse of Korah, "if he intends maliciously;" or if he have fairer, but

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mistaken purposes, the gentler sentence, passed upon Uzza, may be the worst of his evil portion.

SECT. IV.

1. I INSTANCE next in the case of baptism, which indeed hath some difficulty and prejudice passed upon it; and although it be put in the same commission, intrusted to the same persons, be a sacred ministry, a sacrament and a mysterious rite, whose very sacramental and separate nature requires the solemnity of a distinct order of persons for its ministration: yet if the laity may be admitted to the dispensation of so sacred and solemn rites, there is nothing in the calling of the clergy, that can distinguish them from the rest of God's people, but they shall be holy enough to dispense holy offices without the charges of paying honour and maintenance to others to do what they can do themselves.

2. In opposition to which, I first consider, that the ordinary minister of baptism is a person consecrated; the apostles and their successors in the office apostolical, and all those that partake of that power; and it needs no other proof, but the plain production of the commission; they who are teachers by ordinary power and authority, they also had command to 'baptize all nations:" and baptism being the solemn rite of initiating disciples, and making the first public profession of the institution, it is, in reason and analogy of the mystery, to be ministered by those who were appointed to collect the church, and make disciples. It is as plain and decretory a commission, as any other mysteriousness of Christianity; and hath been accepted so for ever as the doctrine of Christianity, as may appear in Ignatius *, Tertullian1, St. GelasiusTM, St. Epiphanius", and St. Jerome°; who affirm, in variety of senses, that "bishops, priests, and deacons, only are to baptize;" some by ordinary right, some by deputation; of which I shall afterward give account; but all the 'jus ordinarium' they intend to fix upon the clergy, according to divine institution and commandment. So that in case lay-persons might baptize κατά περίστασιν, and δι' ἀνάγκην 'upon urgent necessity,'-yet this cannot, upon just pretence, invade the ordinary ministry, because God had dispensed the affairs of his church, so that cases of necessity do not often occur to the prejudice and dissolution of public order and ministries; and if permissions, being made to supply necessities, be brought further than the case of exception gives leave, the permission is turned into a crime, and does greater violence to the rule, by how much it was fortified by that very exception, as to other cases not excepted. And although, in case of extreme necessity, every man may preach the gospel, as to dying heathens, or unbelieving persons, yet if they do this without such or the like necessity, what at first was charity, in the other case is schism and pride, the two greatest enemies to charity in the world.

3. But now for the thing itself, whether indeed any case of necessity can transmit to lay-persons a right of baptizing, it must be distinctly considered; some say it does. For Ananias baptized Paul, who yet, as it was said, was not in holy orders; and that the three thousand converts at the first sermon of St. Peter were all baptized by the apostles, is not easily credible, it being too numerous a body for so few persons to baptize; and when Peter had preached to Cornelius and his family, he caused the brethren, that came along with him, to baptize them: and whether hands had been imposed upon them or no, is not certain. And in pursuance of the instance of Ananias, and the other probabilities, the doctors of the church have declared their opinion θετικῶς, " In cases of necessity, a lay-person may baptize." So Tertullian in his book of baptism: "Alioqui et laicis jus est baptizandi: quod enim ex æquo accipitur, ex æquo dari potest." The reason is also urged by St. Jerome to the same purpose; only requiring that the baptizer be a Christian, supposing "whatsoever they have received, they may also give;" but because the reason concludes not, because (as themselves believe) a presbyter cannot collate his presbyterate, it must therefore rest only upon their bare authority; if it shall be thought strong enough to bear the weight of the contrary reasons. And the fathers in the council of Eliberis a determined, "peregrè navigantes, aut si ecclesia in proximo non fuerit, posse

fidelem, qui lavacrum suum integrum habet, nec sit bigamus, baptizare in necessitate infirmitatis positum catechumenum; ita ut, si supervixerit, ad episcopum eum producat, ut per manus impositionem proficere possit." The synod, held at Alexandria under Alexander their bishop, approved the baptism of the children by Athanasius, being but a boy; and the Nicene fathers ratifying the baptism made by heretics (amongst whom they could not but know in some cases, there was no true priesthood or legitimate ordination), must, by necessary consequence, suppose baptism to be dispensed effectually by lay-persons. And St. Jerome is plain: "Baptizare, si necessitas cogat, scimus etiam licere laicis;" the same almost with the canon of the fourth council of Carthage: "Mulier baptizare non præsumat nisi necessitate cogente:" though, by the way, these words of 'nisi cogente necessitate' are not in the canon, but thrust in by Gratian and Peter Lombard. And of the same opinion is St. Ambrose, or he who under his name wrote the commentaries upon the fourth chapter to the Ephesians, Peter Gelasius1, St. Austin", and Isidore*, and generally all the scholars after their master.

4. But against this doctrine were all the African bishops for about one hundred and fifty years; who therefore rebaptized persons returning from heretical conventicles; because those heretical bishops, being deposed and reduced into laycommunion, could not therefore collate baptism for their want of holy orders; as appears in St. Basil's canonical epistle to Amphilochius, where he relates their reason, and refutes it not. And hower Firmilian and St. Cyprian might be deceived in the thinking heretics quite lost their orders, yet in this they were untouched, that although their supposition was questionable, yet their superstructure was not meddled with, viza that if they had been lay-persons, their baptizations were null and invalid.

5. I confess, the opinion hath been very generally taken up in these last ages of the church, and almost with a 'nee mine contradicente;' the first ages had more variety of opinion; and I think it may yet be considered anew upon the old stock. For since, absolutely, all the church affixes the