The second thing which Mr. Cotton himself hath professed concerning English preachers is, that “although the word, yet not the seals may be received from them: because,” saith he, “there is no communion in hearing, and the word is to be preached to all, but the seals,” he conceives, and that rightly, “are profaned in being dispensed to the ungodly, &c.”
Answer. Mr. Cotton himself maintaineth, that “the dispensing of the word in a church estate, is Christ’s feeding of his flock, Cant. i. 8: Christ’s kissing of his spouse, or wife, Cant. i. 2: Christ’s embracing of his spouse in the marriage bed, Cant. i. 16: Christ’s nursing of his children at his wife’s breast, Cant. iv.:” and is there no communion between the shepherd and his sheep? the husband and his wife in chaste kisses and embraces? and the mother and her child at the breast?
Besides, he confesseth, that that fellowship in the gospel, Phil. i. 5, is a fellowship or communion in the apostles’ doctrine, community, breaking of bread, and prayer, in which the first church continued, Acts ii. 46. All which overthrows that doctrine of a lawful participation of the word and prayer in a church estate, where it is not lawful to communicate in the breaking of bread or seals.[272]