the Gospel is two-fold, one part regarding solely the glory of God and salvation of souls, the other attending to things external. Having considered these things, I shall proceed to speak of the honour and reverence due by the law of nature, the law of God, and the law of nations, to those who minister in divine things; and, lastly, I shall treat of the punishment due to sacrilege and sacrilegious men, having therein respect to the plunder of the goods of the Church prevalent in these our times. These three subjects I have, on account of their diversity, considered in three separate books, but on account of the connexion subsisting between them, and their dependence the one on the other, I have set them forth in one and the same volume.

E

ALTHOUGH the inequality subsisting between the different Orders of the Ministers of the Gospel be the subject of this treatise, it will not be foreign from my purpose to begin by defining the term, " Ministry of the Gospel," and stating what the different Orders are of which it consists; for hence will more clearly appear what is common to all, and what peculiar to each. The "Ministry of the Gospel" may be variously defined from various passages of Scripture: but I consider its genus to be contained in two plain words of the Apostle Paula, and assert that it is a

a 1 Cor. iv. 1. 1 Tim. iii. 16.

dispensation of the mysteries of God," mysteries which have been made manifest to the whole world by the coming of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. By mystery I understand both the doctrine of the wonderful counsel of God in the redemption of mankind, and whatever things God has connected with that doctrine. These I divide into three parts; first, the Preaching of the Gospel; secondly, the Administration of the Sacraments; thirdly, Authority for governing the Church. Or, otherwise, it is the promulgation of the doctrine of the gratuitous remission of sin, which Christ by his death obtained for man; or it may be called the doctrine of free justification and sanctification by the Holy Ghost obtained through faith in Christ. Many other definitions might be given, but I omit them for sake of brevity. Any one may understand, from what has already been advanced, what is meant by the Gospel, and the preaching of the Gospel. The commands of our Lord respecting the baptism of believers, and the celebration of

the Eucharist in remembrance of Him, belong to the second part of this Ministry; to the third part, or government, further pertains the power of the keys of the kingdom of Heaven, and of binding and loosing on earth what shall be bound and loosed in Heaven"; and this has two subdivisions, one, the ordination of Ministers, the other, censorship of manners. This power the Apostles committed to the two Orders which they created of Bishops and Presbyters, that all things might be done with decency and in order, and that decorum ražia might be maintained among Christians. Presbyters with their Bishop maintain order among their people, and keep them in their duty. It was by this authority committed unto him that the Apostle delivered to Satan obstinate adversaries of the truth, and in his Epistles occasionally mingled threats with admonitions".

On this point, however, a controversy,

b Matt. xvi. 19. xviii. 18. c Acts xiv. 23. d 1 Tim. i. 20; 1 Cor. iv. 21; 2 Cor. xii. 21. and xiii. 2.