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church and therefore, since all action proceeds from the essence of the agent, pastors and governors, without which churches, as such, cannot act, must necessarily be essential to churches: and hence the apostle tells us, that the great purpose for which Christ ordained apostles, prophets, evangelists, and pastors, and teachers was pos KатаρтIσμov, "for the compacting or joining together the saints," as one body in church-communion and society, Eph. iv. 11, 12. and hence also you find the churches of Asia following the number of the angels or rulers of them, Rev. i. 20. which plainly implies, that therefore they were seven distinct churches, because they had seven distinct rulers or bishops; and therefore, though the ordination of pastors and bishops is not confined to the ministry of any particular church, but extends to the ministry of the church catholic; for so St. Paul, Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, all are yours, and you are Christ's, that is, they are all ministers of the catholic church in common, of which you are members, and as such you have all a share in them, 1 Cor. iii. 22, 23. yet it is the particular application of this their general capacity to this or that particular number of Christians, or congregation of Christians, that constitutes them particular churches; and being first authorized ministers of the catholic church, they carry along with them into the particular church they are sent to, all that church-authority and power by which it acts and operates as a church. So that without pastors or governors, particular churches are nothing to so many bodies without souls, to animate and act them; and therefore, as in natural bodies the form that acts them doth also constitute their kind and

species, so in these ecclesiastical bodies, the pastors and governors that move and act them as churches do also constitute them churches. What these lawful pastors and governors are, I shall have occasion to discourse hereafter, when I come to treat of the ministers of Christ's kingdom; it being sufficient at present to shew the necessity of them to the constituting particular churches.

Seventhly, The church is one universal society of all Christian people, distributed into particular churches, [holding communion with each other:] by holding communion with each other, I mean, owning each other as parts of the same body, and admitting each other's members, as occasion serves, into actual communion with them in all their religious offices. It is true, in the primitive churches there were sundry prudential acts of communion passed between them, such as their formed and communicatory letters, by which the holy bishops gave an account to each other of the state and condition of their respective churches, and consulted each other's judgement about them but these were not at all essential to that communion which they were obliged, as true churches, to maintain with one another. All the communion which they are obliged to, as they are similar parts and distributions of the catholic church, is, that they should not divide into separate churches, so as to exclude each other's members from communicating in each other's worship, whenever they have occasion to travel from one church to another. For so long as there is no rupture between distant churches, no declared disowning of each other, no express refusal of any act of communion to each other's members, they may be truly said to maintain all ne

cessary communion with each other. And that this communion is absolutely necessary between all those particular churches, into which the catholic church is distributed, will evidently appear from these four considerations. First, that by baptism, as was shewed before, all Christian people are made members of the catholic church, and by being made members of it, they are all obliged to communicate with it: for how can they act as parts of the whole, that hold no communication with the whole? They who are members of any society have not only a right to communicate in all the common benefits of it, but also an obligation to communicate in all common offices of it and therefore since by baptism we are made members of the catholic church or society of Christians, we are thereby not only entitled to partake with it in all its privileges, but also obliged to join with it in all its offices. But then, secondly, it is farther to be considered, that the catholic church being all distributed into particular churches, we can no otherwise communicate with it, than by communicating with some particular church; for how can we communicate with the whole, that is all distributed into parts, without communicating with some part of the whole? And since the whole is nothing but only a collection of all the parts, what communion can they hold with the whole, who hold no communion with any part of it? So long therefore as there is any such thing as a visible catholic church upon earth, we are obliged by our baptism, unless necessity hinder us, to maintain a visible communion with it; and so long as this catholic church is all distributed into so many particular visible churches, we cannot visibly communicate with

it, unless we communicate with some one of those particular churches: for how can we be in communion with the whole body, when we are out of communion with all the parts, unless we can find a body to communicate with, without all its parts, or some universal church without all particular churches? But then, thirdly, it is also to be considered, that as we cannot communicate with the universal church without communicating with some particular one, so neither do we communicate with the universal church by communicating with any particular one, unless that particular one be in communion with the church universal. For if I cannot communicate with the whole without being in communion with some part of the whole, it is impossible I should communicate with the whole, unless I communicate with some part that is in communion with the whole. It is as possible for a finger to communicate with a body by being joined to an arm that is separated from the body, as it is for a Christian to communicate with the church catholic by being joined to a church that is separate from the church catholic. But then, fourthly and lastly, there is no particular church can be in communion with the catholic, that separates itself from the communion of any particular church that is in communion with the catholic. For they who separate from any part of any whole, because the whole is nothing but all the parts together; and it is a contradiction to say, that they who are separated from any one part are yet united to all; how then is it possible for any church to separate itself from the communion of any other church, which is a true part of the church catholic, without separating itself from the communion of the church

catholic itself; since the church catholic is nothing but a collection of all true churches? and to be at the same time united to all true churches, and separated from one true church, is the same absurdity as to be separated from all true churches, and yet united to one. In short, the catholic church is one, by the communion of all its parts, and therefore they who break communion with any one part must necessarily disunite themselves from the whole for when two churches separate from one another, it must be, either because the one requires such terms of communion as are not catholic, or because the other refuses such as are. Now that church which requires sinful or uncatholic terms of communion doth hereby exclude, not only one, but all parts of the catholic church from its communion, because they are all equally obliged not to communicate with any church upon sinful terms of communion; and that church which excludes all parts of the catholic church from its communion, must in so doing separate itself from the communion of the catholic church. And so on the other hand, that church which refuses the communion in any other church upon lawful and catholic terms, doth hereby separate itself from communion of all parts of the church catholic, because it separates from a part that is in communion with all the parts of it; for that church which may be lawfully communicated with, is in communion with all other churches that are in communion with the catholic church; and therefore that church which separates from its communion cannot be in the number of those churches that are in communion with the catholic church: and how then can this separating church be in the communion of the catholic church,