08.Presbyterian Church Government
Presbyterian Church Government under the Noachic and Abrahamic Covenants Clearly then, in the treatment of Heb 11:2-7 in Owen’s Works XXIII:13, the antediluvian Presbuteroi Abel and Enoch and Noah were at least "Seniores." Owen also realized (e.g. in XX:259) from Gen 6:9-18; Gen 8:20-22 that precisely the Church is embraced also under the Noachic Covenant. Its universal laws were summarized already in Gen 9:1-12 (as a postdiluvian update of the Adamic Law in the covenant of life mentioned in Hos 6:7f).
Those Adamic/Noachic laws were explained to be binding on all mankind forever not only in Gen 9:12, but also in the B.C. Hebrew books of Enoch (chs. 54f & 60 & 65-69 &
106f) and Jubilees (7:20f). The same explanation was given by the pre-Christian Rabbis, as later recorded in that uninspired body of Judaistic literature known as the Talmud (at its
Sanhedrin 56a).
Moreover, and far more importantly, those very same Adamitic/Noachitic laws were enjoined also upon Gentile Christians precisely by the Christian Elders at the Synod of Jerusalemviz. the First General Assembly of the apostolic Presbyterian Church.
Compare: Acts 15:18-20; Acts 15:23-29; Acts 16:4-5.
Owen then (XXIII:56) "proceeds unto the next period of time, from the flood and the renovation of the world in the family of Noah, unto the giving of the law; so to manifest that in every state of the Church the way of pleasing God was one and the same.... He who in this period of time is first testified unto in the Scripture, is...Abraham."
Also others "were confederate with Abram." Gen 14:13. He himself was "a Prophet" alias a Minister of the Word or a Preaching Elder. Gen 20:7. Indeed, also Eliezer of Damascus was his "Eldest Servant" alias his Elder. Gen 24:2. There, the original Hebrew has Zeqan; the Greek Septuagint, Presbuterooi; and the Vulgate, Seniorem. In XVII:447-67, Owen notes "concernments of the Church in the posterity of Abraham...concerning the oneness of the Church." Thus "the Elders of his house[hold] and all the Elders of the land of Egypt" helped Joseph to go bury his father Jacob. Gen 50:7. Indeed, coming to Moses and God’s mercy in sparing the first-born of the Israelites in Egypt Owen remarks that "this also [was] not without a prospect toward the redemption of the ’Church of the first-born’ by Jesus Christ, Gen. xii.23(compilers note - verse does not exist?.) And this gave a period to the first dispensation of God towards the Church in the posterity of Abraham, [which had lasted] for the space of four hundred and thirty years."