36 The Inflitution and Government fence of Ordination was put into the Churches Hands. A. gain, There is not a Word of Ordination after the Church had chofen them. If the Apoftles ieferved this Power to themfelves, why had they not made ufe of it? ()bled. The Apofiles after the Church had chofen them, prayed and laid their Hands on them. I anfwer, it is true, but it is not faid theyordained them ; all that is faid is this, they prayed and laid their Hands on them : And fo they did on Paul and Barnabas, Ads xiii. yet Paul and Barnabas were not then ordained, as will be made appear when I come particularly to anfwer that Ob- jeetion. Ordination, and laying on of Hands with Prayer are two Things, the one may be where the other is not. But forne may fay, To what End was Prayer and laying on of Hands, if they were not ordained? I anfwer, the Scripture is filent in this Matter; and where the Scripture hath not a Tongue to fpeak, we ibould not be defirous to hear: Pofíibly it was an Apoftolical Signal, confirming this Way, of making Deacons by the Choice of the Church to the End of the World ; but whatever was the End of it, it is molt certain it was not done to (land on Record, to be a Precedent for future Generations, becaufe After.ages were not to be flored with Apoftles. There were no Apoftles to fucceed, and Elders of one Church have no Paftoral Rela- tion in another; nor can they ad as Elders in more than one Church, as the Apoftles did. Again, It is in the Power of the Church to ordain their own Elders, Adis xiv. 23. When they had ordained then Elders in all the Churches by Ele'1ion, &c. fo it fhould be read: though the word EleEtion be left out in the common Tranflation, yet is is granted that it is in the Greek : And it is fo tranf- lated in the Geneva Bible. Wi //òn in his Didionary tells us, that the Word ordained here fignifieth to make by Votes : and Beza's Note in the Margin is, that in the primitive Times Minifters were not made and thruft upon the People by Bribery and Lordly Superiority, but chofen by the com- mon Suffrages of the People. And Cartwright does ftoutly maintain it againft the Rheneif1s, that it was not done by Impofition of Hands, but by lifting up of Hands. The
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