Kindle Notes & Highlights
‘The employment is not theirs but the Lord’s, from whom they may expect both their provision and also their reward. Let them arise and be doing, and the Lord shall be with them.’
our corrupt mixtures in church members and church-officers [office bearers][5] are one main cause why so much wrath is gone forth from the Lord against us and abides upon us.
We have boasted of a reformation of the ordinances, without seeking to reform office-bearers and church members in such a real manner, according to the same pattern.
And how shall this be attained, unless those who bear the vessels of the Lord, and to whom the charge of holy things be committed be holy?
It is more than manifest that there is a generation of ignorant, slothful, earthly-minded men, who bear the name of elders and deacons in many congregations.
they ought to be well acquainted with the condition of the congregation and its members, and therefore be careful to observe their carriage, and frequently to visit and take inspections of families, that they may instruct the ignorant, exhort the negligent, admonish
the slothful, and rebuke those who walk disorderly, comfort the afflicted, establish those who waver, visit the sick, encourage those who do well, and see piety and godliness promoted in families, and every one edifying another in love, walking in the fear of the Lord and comfort of the Holy Ghost.
And the discipline of our church appoints ministers and elders sharply to examine those who offer themselves to repentance, what fear and terror they have of God’s judgments, what hatred of sin and sorrow for the same, and what sense and feeling they have of God’s mercies.
Better it is that the number be few before we choose the ignorant and scandalous, and that they be of a low degree, if godly, than of a high degree, if otherwise.
In order that elders may more conveniently discharge their duty,[83] it is convenient that the congregation should be divided into so many parts and that some competent part be assigned to the more peculiar care and inspection of every elder—yet in such a way as he would not neglect to take
heed to all the flock of God, over which the Holy Ghost has m...
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It is true, whatever the deacon may do by virtue of his office, that the same may be done by an elder, as whatsoever is done by an elder may be done by a minister ‘because the higher and more eminent offices in the church includes the powers of the lower’.
That they should be careful to take notice of those who are sick, that they may acquaint the ministers and elders about them for visiting them, and if that they are poor their necessities may be supplied.
In order that deacons may the more conveniently discharge their duty, it is fit that some part of the congregation should be assigned to every one of them, for the better inspection of the poor of that part, and that the diets of collecting for the poor should be divided amongst them.
And though there is no necessity of an equal number of elders and deacons, yet it is fit that each elder should have some deacon to be assisting to him in the bounds of the district in which he has a more peculiar [special] inspection, that so both the one and the other may discharge their duty with the greater facility to themselves, and with the greater benefit and advantage of the congregation.
