10: _to ordain elders_, Tit. i. 5; Acts xiv. 23: to use the _keys of the kingdom of heaven_, in the dispensing of all ordinances, Matt, xviii. 18-20, and John xx. 21, 23, with Matt, xxviii. 18-20: and, in a word, (as the cause shall require,) to judge of all them that are within the Church, 1 Cor. v. 12. This is the power and authority wherein the nature of church government generally doth consist. 2. That all governments in Scripture are styled by the common names of power or authority: e.g. the absolute government of God over all things, is power, Acts i. 7: the supreme government of Jesus Christ, is power, Matt, xxviii. 18; Rev. xii. 10: the political government of the magistrate in commonwealths, is power, as John xix. 10; Rom. xiii. 1-3; Luke xxiii. 7: the military government of soldiers under superior commanders, is power, &c., Matt. viii. 9: the family government that the master of a family hath over his household, is power, 1 Tim. iii. 5, "If any man know not how to rule his own house." Yea, the very tyrannical rule that sin and Satan exercise over carnal men, is styled power, Acts xxvi. 18; Col. i. 13. Thus, generally, all sorts of government are commonly called power or authority. 3. That thus the Scripture also styles church government, viz. power or authority, as 2 Cor. x. 8, "Of our authority" (or power) "which the Lord hath given us for your edification." Paul speaks it of this power of church government. And again, speaking of the same subject, he saith, "Lest being present, I should use sharpness, according to the power which the Lord hath given me to edification, and not to destruction." 2 Cor. xiii. 10. For further clearing hereof, consider the several sorts or kinds of ecclesiastical power, according to this type or scheme of ecclesiastical power and authority here subjoined. Ecclesiastical power is either supreme and magisterial; or subordinate and ministerial. I. Supreme magisterial power, consisting in a lordly dominion and sovereignty over the Church; and may come under a double consideration, viz: 1. As it is justly attributed to God alone. Thus the absolute sovereignty and supreme power (to speak properly) is only his over the Church, and all creatures in the whole universe: now this supreme divine power is either essential or mediatorial. 1. Essential, viz. that power which belongs to the essence of God, and to every person of the Trinity in common, as God. "His kingdom ruleth over all," Psal. ciii. 19. "God ruleth in Jacob to the ends of the earth," Psal. lix. 13. "The kingdom is the Lord's, and he is the Governor among the nations," Psal. xxii. 28.