Excerpt from An Essay on Church Government T is an obvious truth, that every community mutt have fome government. This afihres us that the Church of Chrifi, the molt important community that was ever ereeted on earth, is not without one. And to imagine that he, whom God has fet as king in Zion, on whofe {boulders the government is laid, and who is faithful as a fon in all his benfe, {hould not have prefcribed to his church any particular form of government, but left it to the difcretion of every religious fociety to frame one for itfelf, is a fuppofition' too extravagant to be fora mo ment admitted. We may.therefore expee'c to find in the writings of the apofiles and prophets, full informa tion refpeeting the government which Chrifi has infli. Tuted in his church. We are not indeed to look for a plan of government in all its parts drawn up in form. We mull collect it, as we do every thing elfe relating to the kingdom of Chrifl, from various parts of the holy fcriptures. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.