Policie, and which hath indeed been a main foundation of
Tyranny, is that corrupt division of a State into Ecclesiasticall
and Civill; a fault whereof our latest Refiners of Politicall
Discours, are as guilty in their writings, as any others.
But that there is the least footstep in Scripture for Christians
to follow such a division of State, or to allow of a Nationall
way of Churching, which is the root of that division,
could never be proved yet by any of the most learned Pretenders,
and the contrary is very clear from the drift and
scope of the Gospel. We read indeed of the Commonwealth
of Israel's being thus divided, and that it was done according
to Rules and Constitutions of Gods own appointment,
it being Gods way then, when he was pleased to make
choyce of this people only out of all the world to be his own
peculiar, and so fixed his Church there in a Nationall form,
that it was confined and reftrained to that particular Nation,
excluding all others. But if any man will argue from
hence, that it is lawful for any Nation now under the Gospel
to follow this patern, then it behoves him first to prove, that
God intended the Jewish Government as a patern for us to
follow under the Gospel. And if any any will pretend to
this, then in the second place, it will concern him to prove,
that we are to follow it in every particular, or onely in some
particulars. That we are to follow it in every one, no sober
man did ever yet affirm: And if they will have us to follow
it in some particulars, re inquishing the rest, then it concerns
him to produce some Rule or Command out of Scripture,
plainly pointing out what parts of it we are to embrace, and
what not; or else he wil never be able to make it appear, that
the form of the Commonwealth of Israel was ever intended,
either in the whole or in part, as a patern for Christians
to follow under the Gospel. But never was any such Rule
alledged yet out of Scripture by the Church Nationall
Pretenders.
And therefore, if we seriously reflect upon the design of
God, in bringing Christ into the world, we shall find it was
to set an end to that pompous administration of the Jewish