CHAPTER VIII.

THAT THE LAWFULNESS OF THE CEREMONIES CANNOT BE WARRANTED BY ANY ORDINANCE OF THE CIVIL MAGISTRATE; WHOSE POWER IN THINGS SPIRITUAL OR ECCLESIASTICAL IS EXPLAINED.

Sect. 1. Now are we fallen upon the stronghold of our opposites, which is the king’s majesty’s supremacy in things ecclesiastical. If they did mean, in good earnest, to qualify the lawfulness of the ceremonies from holy Scripture, why have they not taken more pains and travail to debate the matter from thence? And if they meant to justify them by the laws and constitutions of the church, why did they not study to an orderly peaceable proceeding, and to have things concluded in a lawful national synod, after free reasoning and mature advisement? Why did they carry matters so factiously and violently? The truth is, they would have us to acquiesce, and to say no more against the ceremonies, when once we hear that they are enjoined by his Majesty, our only supreme governor. What I am here to say shall not derogate anything from his Highness’s supremacy, because it includeth no such thing as a nomothetical power to prescribe and appoint such sacred and significant ceremonies as he shall think good.

The Archbishop of Armagh, in his speech which he delivered concerning the King’s supremacy (for which king James returned him, in a letter, his princely and gracious thanks, for that he had defended his just and lawful power with so much learning and reason), whilst he treateth of the supremacy, and expoundeth that title of “the only supreme governor of all his Highness’s dominions and countries, as well in all spiritual or ecclesiastical things or causes, as temporal,” mentioneth no such thing as any power to dispose, by his laws and ordinances, of things external in the worship of God. Neither yet shall this following discourse tend to the cooling and abating of that care and zeal which princes owe to the oversight and promotion of religion. For alas! the corruptions which have stept into religion, and the decays which it hath felt since princes began to take small thought of it, and to leave the care of it to popes, bishops, monks, &c., can never be enough bewailed. Nihil enim, &c. “For there is nothing (saith Zanchius(915)) more pernicious, either to the commonwealth or to the church, than if a prince do all things by the judgment of others, and he himself understand not those things which are propounded to be done.”

Nor, lastly, are we to sound an alarm of rebellion; for to say that subjects are not bound to obey such laws and statutes of their prince, as impose upon them a yoke of ceremonies which he hath no power to impose, is one thing, and to say that they are not bound to subject themselves unto him faithfully and loyally, is another thing. Recte Gerson: Qui abusui potestatis resistit, non resistit divinae ordinationi, saith the Bishop of Salisbury.(916) “Subjection (saith Dr Field(917)) is required generally and absolutely, where obedience is not.” If we have leave to speak with divines,(918) the bond and sign of subjection is only homage, or the oath of fidelity, whereby subjects bind themselves to be faithful to their prince; and we take the Judge of all flesh to witness, before whose dreadful tribunal we must stand at that great day, how free we are of thoughts of rebellion, and how uprightly we mean to be his Majesty’s most true and loyal subjects to the end of our lives, and to devote ourselves, our bodies, lives, goods, and estates, and all that we have in the world, to his Highness’s service, and to the honour of his royal crown.

Sect. 2. Now, for the purpose in hand, we will first examine what the Archbishop of Spalato saith; for he discourseth much of the jurisdiction and office of princes, in things and causes ecclesiastical. The title of the first chapter of his sixth book, de Rep. Eccl., holdeth, that it is the duty of princes super ecclesiastica invigilare; but in the body of the chapter he laboureth to prove that the power of governing ecclesiastical things belongeth to princes (which is far more than to watch carefully over them). This the reader will easily perceive. Nay, he himself, num. 115 and 174, professeth he hath been proving, that divine and ecclesiastical things are to be ruled and governed by the authority and laws of princes. The title prefixed to the sixth chapter of that same book is this, Legibus et edictis principum laicorum, et ecclesiastica et ecclesiasticos gubernari. So that in both chapters he treateth of one and the same office of princes about things ecclesiastical.

Now, if we would learn what he means by those ecclesiastica which he will have to be governed by princes, he resolves us(919) that he means not things internal, such as the deciding of controversies in matters of faith, feeding with the word of God, binding and loosing, and ministering of the sacraments (for in pure spiritualibus, as he speaketh in Summa, cap. 5,) he yieldeth them not the power of judging and defining, but only things external, which pertain to the external worship of God, or concern external ecclesiastical discipline; such things he acknowledged to be res spirituales;(920) but vera spiritualia he will have to comprehend only things internal, which he removeth from the power of princes. Thus we have his judgment as plain as himself hath delivered it unto us.

Sect. 3. But I demand, 1. Why yieldeth he the same power to princes in governing ecclesiastica which he yieldeth them in governing ecclesiasticos? For ecclesiastical persons, being members of the commonwealth no less than laics, have the same king and governor with them, for which reason it is (as the Bishop himself showeth out of Molina(921)) that they are bound to be subject to their prince’s laws, which pertain to the whole commonwealth. But the like cannot be alleged, for the power of princes to govern ecclesiastica, for the Bishop, I trust, would not have said that things ecclesiastical and things civil do equally and alike belong to their power and jurisdiction.

2. Why confoundeth he the governing of things and causes ecclesiastical with watching over and taking care for the same? Let us only call to mind the native signification of the word Κυβεριάω, guberno signifieth properly to rule or govern the course of a ship; and in a ship there may be many watchful and careful eyes over her course, and yet but one governor directing the same.

3. Why holdeth he that things external in the worship of God are not vera spiritualia? For if they be ecclesiastical and sacred ceremonies (not fleshly and worldly), why will he not also acknowledge them for true spiritual things? And if they be not vera spiritualia, why calls he them res spirituales? for are not res and verum reciprocal as well as ens and verum.

4. Even as a prince in his sea voyage is supreme governor of all which are in the ship with him, and, by consequence, of the governor who directs her course, yet doth he not govern the actions of governing or directing the course of a ship, so, though a prince be the only supreme governor of all his dominions, and, by consequence, of ecclesiastical persons in his dominions, yet he cannot be said to govern all their ecclesiastical actions and causes. And as the governor of a ship acknowledgeth his prince for his only supreme governor even then whilst he is governing and directing the course of the ship (otherwise whilst he is governing her course he should not be his prince’s subject), yet he doth not thereby acknowledge that his prince governeth his action of directing the course of the ship (for then should the prince be the pilot); so when one hath acknowledged the prince to be the only supreme governor upon earth of all ecclesiastical persons in his dominions, even whilst they are ordering and determining ecclesiastical causes, yet he hath not thereby acknowledged that the prince governeth the ecclesiastical causes. Wherefore, whilst the Bishop(922) taketh the English oath of supremacy to acknowledge the same which he teacheth touching the prince’s power, he giveth it another sense than the words of it can bear; for it saith not that the king’s majesty is the only supreme governor of all his Highness’s dominions, and of all things and causes therein, as well ecclesiastical or spiritual as temporal,—but it saith that he is the only supreme governor of all his Highness’s dominions in all things or causes, &c. Now, the spiritual guides of the church, substituted by Christ as deputies in his stead, who is the most supreme Governor of his own church, and on whose shoulder the government resteth, Isa. ix. 6, as his royal prerogative, even then, whilst they are governing and putting order to ecclesiastical or spiritual causes, they acknowledge their prince to be their only supreme governor upon earth, yet hereby they imply not that he governeth their governing of ecclesiastical causes, as hath been shown by that simile of governing a ship.

Sect. 4. 5. Whereas the Bishop leaveth all things external, which pertain to the worship of God, to be governed by princes, I object, that the version of the holy Scripture out of Hebrew and Greek into the vulgar tongue is an external thing, belonging to the worship of God, yet it cannot be governed by a prince who is not learned in the original tongues.

6. Whereas he yieldeth to princes the power of governing in spiritualibus, but not in pure spiritualibus, I cannot comprehend this distinction. All sacred and ecclesiastical things belonging to the worship of God are spiritual things.

What, then, understands he by things purely spiritual? If he mean things which are in such sort spiritual, that they have nothing earthly nor external in them,—in this sense the sacraments are not purely spiritual, because they consist of two parts; one earthly, and another heavenly, as Rheneus saith of the eucharist;—and so the sacraments, not being things purely spiritual, shall be left to the power and government of princes. If it be said that by things purely spiritual he means things which concern our spirits only, and not the outward man, I still urge the same instance; for the sacraments are not in this sense spiritual, because a part of the sacraments, to wit, the sacramental signs or elements, concern our external and bodily senses of seeing, touching, and tasting.

7. The Bishop also contradicteth himself unawares; for in one place(923) he reserveth and excepteth from the power of princes the judging and deciding of controversies and questions of faith. Yet in another place(924) he exhorteth kings, and princes to compel the divines of both sides (of the Roman and reformed churches) to come to a free conference, and to debate the matters controverted betwixt them; in which conference he requireth the princes themselves to be judges.

Sect. 5. It remaineth to try what force of reason the Bishop hath to back his opinion. As for the ragged rabble of human testimonies which he raketh together, I should but weary my reader, and spend paper and ink in vain, if I should insist to answer them one by one. Only thus much I say of all those sentences of the fathers and constitutions of princes and emperors about things ecclesiastical, together with the histories of the submission of some ecclesiastical causes to emperors,—let him who pleaseth read them; and it shall appear,

1. That some of those things whereunto the power of princes was applied were unlawful.

2. There were many of them things temporal or civil, not ecclesiastical or spiritual, nor such as pertain to the worship of God.

3. There were some of them ecclesiastical or spiritual things, but then princes did only ratify that which had been determined by councils, and punish with the civil sword such as did stubbornly disobey the church’s lawful constitutions. Neither were princes allowed to do any more.

4. Sometimes they interposed their authority, and meddled in causes spiritual or ecclesiastical, even before the definition of councils; yet did they not judge nor decide those matters, but did only convocate councils, and urge the clergy to see to the mis-ordered and troubled state of the church, and by their wholesome laws and ordinances, to provide the best remedies for the same which they could.

5. At other times princes have done somewhat more in ecclesiastical matters; but this was only in extraordinary cases, when the clergy were so corrupted, that either through ignorance they were unable, or through malice and perverseness unwilling, to do their duty in deciding of controversies, making of canons, using the keys, and managing of other ecclesiastical matters, in which case princes might and did, by their coactive temporal jurisdiction, avoid disorder, error, and superstition, and cause a reformation of the church.

6. Princes have likewise, in rightly constituted and well reformed churches, by their own regal authority, straitly enjoined things pertaining to the worship of God, but those things were the very same which God’s own written word had expressly commanded.

7. When princes went beyond those limits and bounds, they took upon them to judge and command more than God hath put within the compass of their power.

Sect. 6. But as touching the passages of holy Scripture which the Bishop allegeth, I will answer thereto particularly. And first, he produceth that place, Deut. xvii. 19, where the king was appointed to have the book of the law of God with him, that he might learn to fear the Lord his God, and to keep all the words of this law and these statutes to do them. What logic, I pray, can from this place infer that princes have the supreme power of governing all ecclesiastical causes? Next, the Bishop tells us of David’s appointing of the offices of the Levites, and dividing of their courses, 1 Chron. xxiii and his commending of the same to Solomon, 1 Chron. xxviii.; but he might have observed that David did not this as a king, but as a prophet, or man of God, 2 Chron. viii. 14, yea, those orders and courses of the Levites were also commanded by other prophets of the Lord, 2 Chron. xxix. 25. As touching Solomon’s appointing of the courses and charges of the priests, Levites, and porters, he did not of himself, nor by his own princely authority, but because David, the man of God, had so commanded, 2 Chron. viii. 24. For Solomon received from David a pattern for all that which he was to do in the work of the house of the Lord, and also for the courses of the priests and Levites, 1 Chron. xxviii. 11-13.

Sect. 7. The Bishop comes on and tells us that Hezekiah did apply his regal power to the reformation of the Levites, and of the worship of God in their hands, saying, “Hear me, ye Levites, sanctify now yourselves, and sanctify the house of the Lord God of your fathers, and carry forth the filthiness out of the holy place.”

Ans. He exhorted them to no more than God’s law required of them, for the law ordained them to sanctify themselves, and to do the service of the house of the Lord, Num. viii. 6, 11, 15; xviii. 32; so that Hezekiah did here constitute nothing by his own arbitration and authority, but plainly showeth his warrant, ver. 11, “The Lord hath chosen you to stand before him, to serve him, and that you should minister unto him.”

But the Bishop further allegeth out of 2 Chron. xxxi. that Hezekiah appointed the courses of the priests and Levites, every man according to his service.

Ans. He might have read 2 Chron. xxix., 25, that Hezekiah did all this according to the commandment of David, and of Gad, the king’s seer, and Nathan the prophet, “For so was the commandment of the Lord by his prophets.” And who doubteth but kings may command such things as God hath commanded before them?

Sect. 8. The next example which the Bishop allegeth is out of 2 Chron. xxxv. where we read that Josias did set the priests and Levites again in their charges, which example cannot prove that kings have the supreme power of governing ecclesiastical causes, unless it be evinced that Josias changed those orders and courses of the Levites and priests which the Lord had commanded by his prophets, 2 Chron. xxix. 25, and that he did institute other orders by his own regal authority, whereas the contrary is manifest from the text; for Josias did only set the priests and Levites those charges and courses which had been assigned unto them after the writing of David and Solomon, ver. 4, and by the commandment of David, and Asaph, and Heman, and Jeduthun, the king’s seer, ver. 15. Neither did Josias command the priests and Levites any other service than that which was written in the book of Moses, ver. 12; so that, from his example, it only followeth, that when princes see the state of ecclesiastical persons corrupted, they ought to interpose their authority for reducing them to those orders and functions which God’s word commandeth.

Sect. 9. Moreover, the Bishop objecteth the example of Joash, who, while he yet did right in the days of Jehoiada the priest, 2 Chron. xxiv. sent the priests and Levites to gather from all Israel money for repairing the house of the Lord, and when they dealt negligently in this business, he transferred the charge of the same unto others, and, making himself the keeper of the holy money, did both prescribe how it was to be disbursed, and likewise take from good Jehoiada the priest the administration of the same. Now, where he hath read that Joash made himself the keeper of the money, and prescribed how it should be disbursed, also that he took the administration from Jehoiada, I cannot guess; for the text hath no such thing in it, but the contrary, viz. that the king’s scribe, and the high priest’s officer, kept the money, and disbursed the same, as the king and Jehoiada prescribed unto them. As to that which he truly allegeth out of the holy text, I answer, 1. The collection for repairing the house of the Lord was no human ordinance, for Joash showeth the commandment of Moses for it, ver. 6, having reference to Exod. xxx. 12-14. No other collections did Joash impose but those quae divino jure debebantur.(925) 2. As for the taking of the charge of this collection from the priests, he behooved to do so, because they had still neglected the work, when the twenty-third year of his reign was come. And so say we, that when the ministers of the church fail to do their duty, in providing that which is necessary for the service of God, princes ought by some other means to cause these things be redressed. 3. Joash did nothing with these monies without Jehoiada, but Pontifex eas primum laborantibus tribuit, tum in aedis sacrae restaurationem maxime convertit.(926) 4. And what if he had done this by himself? I suppose no man will reckon the hiring of masons and carpenters with such as wrought iron and brass, or the gathering of money for this purpose, among spiritual things or causes. 5. And if these employments about Solomon’s temple were not to be called spiritual or ecclesiastical, far less about our material churches, which are not holy nor consecrated as Solomon’s was for a typical use. Wherefore, without all prejudice to our cause, we may and do commend the building and repairing of churches by Christian princes.

Sect. 10. But the Bishop returneth to another example in Solomon, which is the putting of Abiathar, the chief priest, from his office, and surrogating of another in his place. Ans. Abiathar was civilly dead, as the lawyers used to speak, and it was only by accident or by consequent that Solomon put him from his office: he sent him away to Anathoth, because of his treasonable following and aiding of Adonijah, whereupon necessarily followed his falling away from the honour, dignity, and office of the high priest, whence it only followeth, that if a minister be found guilty of læse majesty, the king may punish him either with banishment or proscription, or some such civil punishment, whereupon by consequence will follow his falling from his ecclesiastical office and dignity. 2. As for Solomon’s putting of Zadok in the room of Abiathar, it maketh as little against us, for Zadok did fall to the place jure divino.

The honour and office of the high-priesthood was given to Eleazar, the elder son of Aaron, and was to remain in his family. How it came to pass that it was transferred to Eli, who was of the family of Ithmar, we read not. Always after that Abiathar, who was of the family of Ithamar and descended of Eli, had by a capital crime fallen from it, it did of very right belong to Zadok, who was chief of the family of Eleazar. And so all this flowed, not from Solomon’s, but from God’s own authority.

Sect. 11. The Bishop remembereth another example in Hezekiah too, telling us that he removed the high places, and brake the images, and cut down the groves, and brake in pieces the brazen serpent, when the children of Israel did burn incense unto it. Now, we wish from our hearts that from this example all Christian kings may learn to remove and destroy the monuments of idolatry out of their dominions. And if it be said that in so doing kings take upon them to govern by their princely authority an ecclesiastical or spiritual cause, it is easily answered, that when they destroy idolatrous monuments, they do nothing by their own authority, but by the authority of God’s law, which commanded to abolish such monuments, and to root out the very names of idols; which commandment is to be executed by the action of temporal power.

Sect. 12. Finally, saith the Bishop, the kings of the Jews, 1 Kings xxiii.; 2 Chron. xix.; have in the temple propounded the law of the Lord to the people, renewed the covenant of religion, pulled down profane altars, broken down idols, slain idolatrous priests, liberated their kingdom from abomination, purged the temple, 2 Chron. xxxiv., xxxv.; 1 Maccab. iv. 59; proclaimed the keeping of the passover, and of the feast of dedication, Esth. ix. 26 ; and have also instituted new feasts. For all which things they are in the Scriptures much praised by the Holy Spirit, 2 Chron. xxix. 2; xxxiv. 2, &c.

Ans. True it is, Josias did read the law of the Lord to the people in the temple, and made a covenant before the Lord; but, 1. he prescribed nothing at his own pleasure; only he required of the people to walk after the Lord, and to keep his commandments. 2. Neither did he this work by himself, but did convocate a council of the prophets, priests and elders of Israel, for the advancing of that reformation, 2 Kings xxiii. 1. 3. And if he had done it by himself, yet we are to remember that the reformation of a church generally and greatly corrupted, craveth the more immediate intermeddling of princes, and a great deal more than can be ordinarily and orderly done by them in a church already reformed. The slaying of the idolatrous priests had also the warrant and authority of the law of God, which appointed a capital punishment for blasphemers,(927) or such as, in contempt of God and to rub some ignominy upon his name, did traduce his doctrine and religion, and either detract from him, and attribute to idols that which appertained properly unto him, or else attributed unto him either by enunciation or imprecation, such things as could not stand with the glory of the Godhead. Concerning the abolishing of idolatry and all the relics thereof, we have answered that it was commanded by God. The keeping of the passover was also commanded in the law; but publish God’s own express ordinance.

Last of all, touching two remaining examples: 1. The feast of the dedication was not ordained by the sole authority of Judas, but by his brethren and by the whole congregation of Israel;(928) and the days of Purim were established by Mordecai, a prophet. Esth. ix. 20, 21. 2. We have elsewhere made it evident, that the days of Purim, by their first institution, were only days of civil joy and solemnity, and that the feast of the dedication was not lawfully instituted.

Sect. 13. Thus having dismissed the Bishop, we will make us for clearing the purpose in hand. But before we come to show particularly what princes may do, and what they may not do, in making laws about things ecclesiastical, we will first of all lay down these propositions following:—

1. Whatsoever the power of princes be in things and causes ecclesiastical, it is not, sure, absolute nor unbounded. Solius Dei est (saith Stapleton),(929) juxta suam sanctissimam voluntatem, uctiunes suas omnes dirigere, et omniafacere quæcunquc voluit. And again, Vis tuam voluntatem esse regulam rerum omnium, ut omnia fiant pro uuo beneplacito? Whether we respect the persons or the places of princes, their power is confined within certain limits, so that they may not enjoin whatsoever they list. As touching their poisons, Bishop Spotswood would do no less than warrant the articles of Perth by king James’s personal qualities: “His person (saith he(930)), were he not our sovereign, gives them sufficient authority, being recommended by him; for he knows the nature of things, and the consequences of them, what is fit for a church to have, and what not, better than we do all.”

I mean not to derogate anything from king James’s duly-deserved praise, nor to obscure his never-dying memory; only I say, that such a prince as the Bishop speaketh of, who knoweth what is fit for a church to have, and what not, better than many learned and godly pastors assembled in a synod, is rara avis in terris nigroque simillima Cygno. For a prince being but a man, and so subject to error, being but one man, and so in the greater hazard of error; for plus videns oculi, quam oculus; and, “woe to him that is alone when he falleth, for he hath not another to help him up,” saith the wisest of mortal kings, Eccl. iv. 10; being also compassed or assailed with so many tentations which other men are free of; and lastly, being so taken up and distracted with secular affairs and cares, that very seldom is he found well versed or singularly learned in the controversies of religion; may not such a one, in the common sense of Christians, be thought more like to fail and miscarry in his judgment about things ecclesiastical, than a whole synod, wherein there are many of the learned, judicious, and godly ministers of the church. Papists tell us, that they will not defend the personal actions of the Pope, quasi ipse solus omnibus horis sapere potuerit, id quod recte nemini concessum perhibetur.(931) Their own records let the world know the abominable vices and impieties of popes. Witness Platina, in the life of John X., Benedict IV., John XIII., Boniface VII., John XX., John XXII., Paul II., &c. And further, when our adversaries dispute of the Pope’s infallibility, they grant, for his own person, he may be an heretic, only they hold that he cannot err è cathedra.

And shall we now idolise the persons of princes more than Papists do the persons of popes? Or shall Papists object to us, that we extol the judgment of our princes to a higher degree of authority and infallibility than they yield to the judgment of their popes? Alas, why would we put the weapons in the hands of our adversaries!

Sect. 14. But what say we of princes in respect of their place and calling? Is not their power absolute in that respect? Recte quidam (saith Saravia),(932) illiberalis et inverecundi censet esse ingenii, de prencipum potestate et rebus gestis questionem movere, quando et imperator sacrilegium este scribit, de eo quod à principe factum est disputare. Camero holdeth,(933) that in things pertaining to external order in religion, kings may command what they will pro authoritate, and forbid to seek another reason beside the majesty of their authority; yea, that when they command frivola, dura, et iniqua respectu nostri, our consciences are bound by those their frivolous and unjust commandments, not only in respect of the end, because scandal should possibly follow in case we obey them not, but also jubentis respectu, because the Apostle biddeth us obey the magistrate for conscience’ sake. At the reading of these passages in Saravia and Camero, horror and amazement have taken hold on me. O wisdom of God, by whom kings do reign and princes decree justice, upon whose thigh and vesture is written, “King of kings and Lord of lords,” make the kings of the earth to know that their laws are but regulae regulatae, and mensurae mensuratae! Be wise now, therefore, O ye kings, be instructed ye judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, and lay down your crowns at the feet of the Lamb that sits upon the throne,(934) discite justitiam moniti, and remember that this is the beginning of wisdom, by casting pride away, to addict yourselves to the dominion of Christ, who, albeit he hath given the kingdoms of this world unto your hands, and non auferet mortalia, qui regna datio caelestia, yet hath he kept the government of his church upon his own shoulder, Psalm ix. 6, xxii. 21. So that rex non est propie rector ecclesiae sed reipublicae, ecclesiae vero defensor est. O all ye subjects of kings and princes, understand that in things pertaining to the church and kingdom of Christ, ye are not the servants of men, to do what they list, and that for their listing, 1 Cor. vii. 23. The Apostle, Rom. xiii. urgeth, not obedience to magistrates for conscience’ sake, but only subjection for conscience’ sake, for he concludeth his whole purpose,(935) ver. 7, “Render therefore to all their dues, tribute to whom tribute is due, custom to whom custom, fear to whom fear, honour to whom honour.”(936) There is not in all that chapter one word of obedience to magistrates.

And as touching the binding power of their laws, be they never so just, they cannot bind you any other way, nor in respect of the general end of them. For, per se, they cannot bind more than the church’s laws can. Which things Dr Forbesse(937) hath also told you out of Calvin.

And hence it followeth, that whensoever you may omit that which princes enjoin, without violating the law of charity, you are not holden to obey them for the majesty of princely authority. Be ashamed, O ye Formalists, of your ascribing to princes a jurisdiction so absolute! Bury it in the grave of eternal silence. Tell it not in Rome; publish it not among the vassals of antichrist, lest the daughters of Babylon rejoice, lest the worshippers of the Beast triumph! O how small confidence have the cardinals, I say not now into the Pope’s person, but even into his chair, when being entered in the conclave for the election of a new pope, they spend the whole day following in the making of laws belonging to the administration and handling of all things by him who shall be advanced to the popedom; which laws every one of them subscribeth, and sweareth to observe, if he be made pope, as Onephrius writeth. Though the Pope’s own creatures, the Jesuits, in their schools and books, must dispute for his infallibility è cathedra, yet we see what trust the wise cardinals, shut up in the conclave, do put in him, with what bond they tie him, and within what bounds they confine his power. Albeit the Pope, after he is created, observeth not strictly this oath, as that wise writer of the History of the Council of Trent noteth,(938) yet let me say once again, Shall we set up the power of princes higher, or make their power less limited than Papists do the power of popes? or shall they set bounds to popes and we set none to princes?

Sect. 15. But I find myself a little digressed after the roving absurdities of some opposites. Now, therefore, to return,—the second proposition which I am here to lay down, before I speak particularly of the power of princes, is this: Whatsoever princes can commendably either do by themselves, or command to be done by others, in such matters as any way appertain to the external worship of God, must be both lawful in the nature of it, and expedient in the use of it; which conditions, if they be wanting, their commandments cannot bind to obedience.

For, 1. The very ground and reason wherefore we ought to obey the magistrate(939) is, for that he is the minister of God, or a deputy set in God’s stead to us. Now, he is the minister of God only for our good, Rom. xiii. 4. Neither were he God’s minister, but his own master, if he should rule at his pleasure, and command things which serve not for the good of the subjects. Since, therefore, the commandments of princes bind only so far as they are the ministers of God for our good,—and God’s ministers they are not in commanding such things as are either in their nature unlawful, or in their use inconvenient,—it followeth that such commandments of theirs cannot bind.

2. Princes cannot claim any greater power in matters ecclesiastical than the apostle Paul had, or the church herself yet hath; that is to say, princes may not by any temporal or regal jurisdiction, urge any ceremony or form of ecclesiastical policy which the Apostle once might not, and the church yet may not, urge by a spiritual jurisdiction. But neither had the Apostle of old, nor hath the church now, power to urge either a ceremony or anything else which is not profitable for edifying. Paul could do nothing against the truth, but for the truth; and his power was given to him to edification, and not to destruction, 2 Cor. xiii. 8, 10; neither shall ecclesiastical persons, to the world’s end, receive any other power beside that which is for the perfecting of the saints, and for the edifying of the body of Christ, Eph. iv. 12. Therefore, as the church’s power(940) is only to prescribe that which may edify, so the power of princes is in like sort given to them for edification, and not for destruction; neither can they do aught against the truth, but only for the truth.

3. We are bound by the law of God to do nothing which is not good and profitable, or edifying, 1 Cor. vi. 12; xiv. 26. This law of charity is of a higher and straiter bond than the law of any prince in the world:—

“The general rule of all indifferent things, is, Let all things be done to edification; and, Rom. xv. 1, 2, ‘Let every man please his neighbour to edification, even as Christ pleased not himself but others.’ Whatsoever, then, is of this rank, which either would weaken or not edify our brother, be it ever so lawful, ever so profitable to ourselves, ever so powerfully by earthly authority enjoined,—Christians, who are not born unto themselves, but unto Christ, unto his church, and fellow-members, must not dare to meddle with it,” saith one(941) well to our well to our purpose.

Sect. 16. A third proposition I promit, which is this, Since the power of princes to make laws about things ecclesiastical is not absolute, but bound and adstricted unto things lawful and expedient, which sort of things, and no other, we are allowed to do for their commandments; and since princes many times may, and do, not only transgress those bounds and limits, but likewise pretend that they are within the same, when indeed they are without them, and enjoin things unlawful and inconvenient, under the name, title, and show of things lawful and convenient; therefore it is most necessary as well for princes to permit, as for subjects to take liberty to try and examine by the judgment of discretion, everything which authority enjoineth, whether it be agreeable or repugnant to the rules of the word; and if, after trial, it be found repugnant, to abstain from the doing of the same.

For, 1. The word teacheth us, that the spiritual man judgeth all things, 1 Cor. ii. 15; trieth the things that are different, Phil. i. 10; hath his senses exercised to discern both good and evil, Heb. v. 14; and that every one who would hold fast that which is good, and abstain from all appearance of evil, must first prove all things, 1 Thess. v. 21.

2. Whatsoever is not of faith is sin, Rom. xiv. 23. But whatsoever a man doth without the trial, knowledge, and persuasion of the lawfulness of it by the word of God, that is not of faith; therefore a sin. It is the word of God, and not the arbitration of princes whereupon faith is grounded. And though the word may be without faith, yet faith cannot be without the word. By it therefore must a man try and know assuredly the lawfulness of that which he doth.

3. “Every one of us shall give account of himself to God.” But as we cannot give an account to God of those actions which we have done in obedience to our prince, except we have examined, considered, and understood the lawfulness of the same; so an account could not be required of us for them, if we were bound to obey and to keep all his ordinances in such sort that we might not try and examine them, with full liberty to refuse those which we judge out of the word to be unlawful or inconvenient; for then princes’ ordinances were a most sufficient warrant to us: we needed try no more. Let him make an account to God of his command; we have account to make of our obedience.

4. If we be bound to receive and obey the laws of princes, without making a free trial and examining of the equity of the same, then we could not be punished for doing, unwillingly and in ignorance, things unlawful prescribed by them. Whereas every soul that sinneth shall die; and when the blind leads the blind, he who is lead falls in the ditch as well as his leader.

5. No man is permitted to do everything which seemeth right in his eyes, and to follow every conceit which takes him in the head; but every man is bound to walk by rule, Gal. vi. 6. But the law of a prince cannot be a rule, except it be examined whether it be consonant to the word of God, index secundum legem, and his law is only such a rule as is ruled by a higher rule. In so far as it is ruled by the own rule of it, in as far it is a rule to us; and in so far as it is not ruled by the own rule of it, in as far it is not a rule to us. Quid ergo? an non licebit Christiano cuique convenientiam regulae et regulati (ut vocant) observare? saith Junius.(942)

6. The rule whereby we ought to walk in all our ways, and according to which we ought to frame all our actions, is provided of God a stable and sure rule, that it being observed and taken heed unto, may guide and direct our practice aright about all those things which it prescribeth. But the law of a prince (if we should, without trial and examination, take it for our rule) cannot be such a stable and sure rule. For put the case that a prince enjoin two things which sometimes fall out to be incompatible and cannot stand together, in that case his law cannot direct our practice, nor resolve us what to do; whereas God hath so provided for us, that the case can never occur wherein we may not be resolved what to do if we observe the rule which he hath appointed us to walk by.

7. Except this judgment of discretion which we plead for be permitted unto us, it will follow that in point of obedience we ought to give no less, but as much honour unto princes as unto God himself. For when God publisheth his commandments unto us, what greater honour could we give him by our obedience than to do that which he commandeth, for his own sole will and authority, without making further inquiry for any other reason?

8. The Apostle, 1 Cor. vii. 23, forbiddeth us to be the servants of men, that is, to do things for which we have no other warrant beside the pleasure and will of men. Which interpretation is grounded upon other places of Scripture, that teach us we are not bound to obey men in anything which we know not to be according to the will of God, Eph. vi. 6, 7; that we ought not to live to the lusts of men, but to the will of God, 1 Pet. iv. 2, and that, therefore, we ought in everything to prove what is acceptable to the Lord, Eph. v. 20.

9. They who cleanse their way must take heed thereto according to the word, Psal. cxix. 9; therefore, if we take not heed to our way, according to the word, we do not cleanse it. They who would walk as the children of light, must have the word for a lamp unto their feet, and a light unto their path, Psal. cxix. 105; therefore, if we go in any path without the light of the word to direct us, we walk in darkness and stumble, because we see not where we go. They who would not be unwise, but walk circumspectly, must understand what the will of Lord is, Eph. v. 17; therefore, if we understand not what the will of the Lord is concerning that which we do, we are unwise, and walk not circumspectly.

10. Dona Dei in sanctis non sunt otiosa.(943) Whatsoever grace God giveth us, it ought to be used and exercised, and not to lie idle in us; but God giveth us actionem cognoscendi, τα διαφεροντα discernendi,(944) &c. a certain measure of the spirit of discretion, to teach us what to choose as good, and what to refuse as evil, 1 John ii. 27, “The same anointing teacheth you of all things;” 1 Cor. ii. 15, “He that is spiritual judgeth all things.” Therefore God would have us to exercise that measure of the gift of discretion which he hath bestowed on us, in discerning of things which are propounded to us, whether they ought to be done or not.

11. Do not our divines plead for this judgment of private discretion which ought to be permitted to Christians, when anything is propounded to be believed or done by them? And this their judgment is to be seen in their writings against Papists about the controversies de interpretatione Scripturae, de fide implicita, &c.

12. The Bishop of Salisbury, in his prelections de Judice Controversiarum, doth often and in many places commend unto Christians the same judgment of discretion which we stand upon, and holdeth it necessary for them to try and examine whatsoever either princes or prelates command them to do. Coactiva, &c. “The coactive power of a prince (saith he(945)), doth not absolutely bind the subject, but only with this condition, except he would compel him to that which is unlawful. Therefore there is ever left unto subjects a power of proving and judging in their own mind, whether that which is propounded be ungodly and unlawful or not; and if it be ungodly, that which the king threateneth should be suffered, rather than that which he commandeth be done. This Augustine hath taught,” &c. And whereas it may be objected, that this maketh a subject to be his prince’s judge, he answereth thus.(946) Non se, &c. He maketh not himself another’s judge, who pondereth and examineth a sentence published by another, in so far as it containeth something either to be done or to be believed by him; but only he maketh himself the judge of his own actions. For howsoever he who playeth the judge is truly said to judge, yet every one who judgeth is not properly said to play the judge. He playeth the judge who, in an external court pronounceth a sentence, which by force of jurisdiction toucheth another; but he judgeth, who in the inferior court of his own private conscience, conceiveth such a sentence of the things to be believed or done, as pertaineth to himself alone. This latter way private men both may and ought to judge of the sentences and decrees of magistrates, neither by so doing do they constitute themselves judges of the magistrates, but judges of their own actions.

Sect. 17. Finally, there is none of our opposites but saith so much as inferreth the necessity of this judgment of private and practical discretion; for every smatterer among them hath this much in his mouth, that if the king or the church command anything unlawful, then we ought to obey God rather than men; but when they command things indifferent and lawful, then their ordinance ought to be our rule. But (good men) will they tell us how we shall know whether the things which the king or the church (as they speak) do enjoin are lawful or unlawful, indifferent or not indifferent? and so we shall be at a point. Dare they say, that they may judge those things indifferent which our superiors judge to be such? and those unlawful which our superiors so judge of? Nay, then, they should deliver their distinction in other terms, and say thus: If our superiors enjoin anything which they judge to be unlawful, and which they command us so to account of, then we ought to obey God rather than men; but if they enjoin such things as they judge to be indifferent, and which they command us so to account of, then we ought to obey their ordinance. Which distinction, methinks, would have made Heraclitus himself to fall a laughing with Democritus. What then remaineth? Surely our opposites must either say nothing, or else say with us, that it is not only a liberty but a duty of inferiors, not to receive for a thing lawful that which is enjoined by superiors, because they account it and call it such, but by the judgment of their own discretion following the rules of the word, to try and examine whether the same be lawful or unlawful.

Sect.. 18. These praecognita being now made good, come we to speak more particularly of the power of princes to make laws and ordinances about things which concern the worship of God. The purpose we will unfold in three distinctions: 1. Of things; 2. Of times; 3. Of ties. First, Let us distinguish two sorts of things in the worship of God, viz., things substantial, and things circumstantial. To things substantial we refer as well sacred and significant ceremonies as the more necessary and essential parts of worship, and, in a word, all things which are not mere external circumstances, such as were not particularly determinable within those bounds which it pleased God to set to his written word, and the right ordering whereof, as it is common to all human societies, whether civil or sacred, so it is investigable by the very light and guidance of natural reason. That among this kind of mere circumstances sacred significant ceremonies cannot be reckoned, we have otherwhere made it evident. Now, therefore, of things pertaining to the substance of God’s worship, whether they be sacred ceremonies, or greater and more necessary duties, we say that princes have not power to enjoin anything of this kind which hath not the plain and particular institution of God himself in Scripture. They may indeed, and ought to publish God’s own ordinances and commandments, and, by their coactive temporal power, urge and enforce the observation of the same. Notwithstanding, it is a prince’s duty, “that in the worship of God, whether internal or external, he move nothing, he prescribe nothing, except that which is expressly delivered in God’s own written word.”(947) We must beware we confound not things which have the plain warrant of God’s word with things devised by the will of man. David, Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah, Josiah, and other kings among the people of God, did, as well laudably as lawfully, enjoin and command that worship and form of religion which God, in his law and by his prophets, commanded; and forbid, avoid, and abolish such corruptions as God had forbidden before them, and appointed to be abolished; whence it followeth not that kings may enjoin things which want the warrant of the word, but only this much, which all of us commend, viz., “That a Christian prince’s office in religion,(948) is diligently to take care that, in his dominion or kingdom, religion out of the pure word of God, expounded by the word of God itself, and understood according to the first principles of faith (which others call the analogy of faith), either be instituted, or, being instituted, be kept pure, or, being corrupted, be restored and reformed, that false doctrines, abuses, idols, and superstitions, be taken away, to the glory of God, and to his own and his subjects’ salvation.”

Sect. 19. But in all the Scripture princes have neither a commendable example, nor any other warrant, for the making of any innovation in religion, or for the prescribing of sacred significant ceremonies of men’s devising. Jeroboam caused a change to be made in the ceremonies and form of God’s worship, whereas God ordained the ark of the covenant to be the sign of his presence, and that his glory should dwell between the cherubims. Jeroboam set up two calves to be the signs representative of that God who brought “Israel out of Egypt;” and this he means while he saith, “Behold thy gods,” &c., 1 Kings xii. 28, giving to the signs the thing signified; whereas God ordained Jerusalem to be the place of worship, and all the sacrifices to be brought to the temple of Solomon, Jeroboam made Dan and Bethel to be places of worship, and built there altars and high places for the sacrifices; whereas God ordained the sons of Aaron only to be his priests, Jeroboam made priests of the lowest of the people, which were not of the sons of Levi; whereas God ordained the feast of tabernacles to be kept on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, Jeroboam appointed it on the fifteenth day of the eighth month. Now, if any prince in the world might have fair pretences for the making of such innovations in religion, Jeroboam much more. He might allege for his changing of the signs of God’s presence, and of the place of worship, that since Rehoboam’s wrath was incensed against him, and against the ten tribes which adhered unto him (as appeareth by the accounting of them to be rebels, 2 Chron. xiii. 6, and by the gathering of a huge army for bringing the kingdom again to Rehoboam, 2 Chron. xi. 1), it was no longer safe for his subjects to go up to Jerusalem to worship, in which case God, who required mercy more than sacrifice, would bear with their changing of a few ceremonies for the safety of men’s lives. For his putting down of the priests and Levites, and his ordaining of other priests which were not of the sons of Levi, he might pretend that they were rebellious to him, in that they would not assent unto his new ordinances,(949) which he had enacted for the safety and security of his subjects, and that they did not only simply refuse obedience to these his ordinances, but in their refusal show themselves so stedfastly minded, that they would refuse and withstand even to the suffering of deprivation and deposition; and not only so, but likewise drew after them many others of the rest of the tribes to be of their judgment, 2 Chron. xi. 16, and to adhere to that manner of worship which was retained in Jerusalem. Lastly, For the change which he made about the season of the feast of tabernacles, he might have this pretence, that as it was expedient for the strengthening of his kingdom(950) to draw and allure as many as could be had to associate and join themselves with him in his form of worship (which could not be done if he should keep that feast at the same time when it was kept at Jerusalem); so there was no less (if not more) order and decency in keeping it in the eighth month, when the fruits of the ground were perfectly gathered in(951) (for thankful remembrance whereof that feast was celebrated) than in the seventh, when they were not so fully collected.

These pretences he might have made yet more plausible, by professing and avouching that he intended to worship no idols, but the Lord only; that he had not fallen from anything which was fundamental and essential in divine faith and religion, that the changes which he had made were only about some alterable ceremonies which were not essential to the worship of God, and that even in these ceremonies he had not made any change for his own will and pleasure, but for important reasons which concerned the good of his kingdom and safety of his subjects. Notwithstanding of all this, the innovations which he made about these ceremonies of sacred signs, sacred places, sacred persons, sacred times, are condemned for this very reason, because he devised them of his own heart, 1 Kings xii. 33, which was enough to convince him of horrible impiety in making Israel to sin. Moreover, when king Ahaz took a pattern of the altar of Damascus, and sent it to Urijah the priest, though we cannot gather from the text that he either intended or pretended any other respect beside the honouring and pleasuring of his patron and protector, the king of Assyria, 2 Kings xvi. 10, 18 (for of his appointing that new altar for his own and all the people’s sacrifices, there was nothing heard till after his return from Damascus, at which time he began to fall back from one degree of defection to a greater), yet this very innovation of taking the pattern of an altar from idolaters is marked as a sin and a snare. Last of all, whereas many of the kings of Judah and Israel did either themselves worship in the groves and the high places, or else, at least, suffer the people to do so, howsoever they might have alleged(952) specious reasons for excusing themselves,—as namely, that they gave not this honour to any strange gods, but to the Lord only; that they chose these places only to worship in wherein God was of old seen and worshipped by the patriarchs, that the groves and the high places added a most amiable splendour and beauty to the worship of God, and that they did consecrate these places for divine worship in a good meaning, and with minds wholly devoted to God’s honour,—yet notwithstanding, because this thing was not commanded of God, neither came it into his heart, he would admit no excuses, but ever challengeth it as a grievous fault in the government of those kings, that those high places were not taken away, and that the people still sacrificed in the high places; from all which examples we learn how highly God was and is displeased with men for adding any other sacred ceremonies to those which he himself hath appointed.(953)

Sect. 20. Now as touching the other sort of things which we consider in the worship of God, namely, things merely circumstantial, and such as have the very same use and respect in civil which they have in sacred actions, we hold that whensoever it happeneth to be the duty and part of a prince to institute and enjoin any order or policy in these circumstances of God’s worship, then he may only enjoin such an order as may stand with the observing and following of the rules of the word, whereunto we are tied in the use and practice of things which are in their general nature indifferent.

Of these rules I am to speak in the fourth part of the dispute. And here I say no more but this: Since the word commandeth us to do all things to the glory of God, 1 Cor. x. 31; to do all things to edifying, 1 Cor. xiv. 29; and to do all things in faith, and full persuasion of the lawfulness of that which we do, Rom. xiv. 5, 23, therefore there is no prince in the world who hath power to command his subjects to do that which should either dishonour God, or not honour him; or that which should either offend their brother, or not edify him; or, lastly, that which their conscience either condemneth or doubteth of. For how may a prince command that which his subjects may not do? But a wonder it were if any man should so far refuse to be ashamed that he would dare to say we are not bound to order whatsoever we do according to these rules of the word, but only such matters of private action wherein we are left at full liberty, there being no ordinance of superiors to determine our practice, and that if such an ordinance be published and propounded unto us, we should take it alone for our rule, and no longer think to examine and order our practice by the rules of the word;

For, 1. This were as much as to say, that in the circumstances of God’s worship we are bound to take heed unto God’s rules, then only and in that case when men give us none of their rules, which, if they do, God’s rules must give place to men’s rules, and not theirs to his.

2. If it were so, then we should never make reckoning to God, whether that which we had done in obedience to superiors was right or wrong, good or bad, and we should only make reckoning of such things done by us as were not determined by a human law.

3. The law of superiors is never the supreme but ever a subordinate rule, and (as we said before) it can never be a rule to us, except in so far only as it is ruled by a higher rule. Therefore we have ever another rule to take heed unto beside their law.

4. The Scripture speaketh most generally, and admitteth no exception from the rules which it giveth: “Whatsoever ye do (though commanded by superiors) do all to the glory of God. Let all things (though commanded by superiors) be done to edifying. Whatsoever is not of faith (though commanded by superiors) is sin.”

5. We may do nothing for the sole will and pleasure of men, for this were to be the servants of men, as hath been shown. The Bishop of Salisbury also assenteth hereunto.(954) Non enim (saith he) Deus vult, ut hominis alicujus voluntatem regulam nostrae voluntatis atque vitae faciamus: sed hoc privilegium sibi ac verbo suo reservatum voluit. And again,(955) Pio itaque animo haec consideratio semper adesse debet, utrum id quod praecipitur sit divino mandato contrarium necne: atque ne ex hac parte fallantur, adhibendum est illud judicium discretionis, quod nos tantopere urgemus.

Sect. 21. These things if Saravia had considered,(956) he had not so absolutely pronounced that the power of the kings may make constitutions of the places and times, when and where the exercises of piety may be conveniently had, also with what order, what rite, what gesture, what habit, the mysteries shall be more decently celebrated. But what! thought he this power of kings is not astricted to the rules of the word? Have they any power which is to destruction and not to edification? Can they command their subjects to do anything in the circumstances of divine worship which is not for the glory of God, which is not profitable for edifying, and which they cannot do in faith? Nay, that all the princes in the world have not such power as this, will easily appear to him who attendeth unto the reasons which we have propounded. And because men do easily and ordinarily pretend that their constitutions are according to the rules of the word, when they are indeed repugnant to the same, therefore we have also proved that inferiors may and must try and examine every ordinance of their superiors, and that by the judgment of private discretion, following the rules of the word. I say following the rules of the word, because we will never allow a man to follow Anabaptistical or Swenckfeldian-like enthusiasms and inspirations.

Sect. 22. Touching the application of what hath been said unto the controverted ceremonies, there needs nothing now to be added. For that they belong not to that sort of things which may be applied to civil uses, with the same respect and account which they have being applied to religious uses, the account I mean of mere circumstances serving only for that common order and decency which is and should be observed in civil no less than in sacred actions, but that they belong to the substance of worship, as being sacred significant ceremonies, wherein both holiness and necessity are placed, and which may not without his sacrilege be used out of the compass of worship, we have elsewhere plainly evinced. And this kind of things, whensover they are men’s devices, and not God’s ordinances, cannot be lawfully enjoined by princes, as hath been showed.

But if any man will needs have these ceremonies in question to go under the name of mere circumstances, let us put the case they were no other, yet our conforming unto them, which is urged, cannot stand with the rules of the word.

It could not be for the glory of God, not only for that it is offensive to many of Christ’s little ones, but likewise for that it ministereth occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme; to atheists, because by these naughty observances they see the commandments of God made of little or no effect, and many godly both persons and purposes despised and depressed, whereat they laugh in their sleeve and say, Aha! so would we have it; to Papists, because as by this our conformity they confirm themselves in sundry of their errors and superstitions, so perceiving us so little to abhor the pomp and bravery of their mother of harlots, that we care not to borrow from her some of her meretricious trinkets, they promise to themselves that in the end we shall take as great a draught of the cup of the wine of her fornications as they themselves.

Neither yet can our conforming unto the ceremonies pressed upon us be profitable for edifying, for we have given sufficient demonstration of manifold hurts and inconveniences ensuing thereon.

Nor, lastly, can we conform to them in faith; for as our consciences cannot find, so the word cannot afford, any warrant for them. Of all which things now I only make mention, because I have spoken of them enough otherwhere.

Sect. 23. The second distinction which may help our light in this question about the power of princes, is of times; for when the church and ministers thereof are corrupted and must be reformed, princes may do much more in making laws about things ecclesiastical than regularly they may, when ecclesiastical persons are both able and willing to do their duty, in rightly taking care of all things which ought to be provided for the good of the church, and conservation or purgation of religion. “For (saith Junuis(957)) both the church, when the joining of the magistrate faileth, may extraordinarily do something which ordinarily she cannot; and again, when the church faileth of her duty, the magistrate may extraordinarily procure that the church return to her duty; that is, in such a case extraordinarily happening, these (ecclesiastical persons) and those (magistrates) may extraordinarily do something which ordinarily they cannot. For this belongeth to common law and equity, that unto extraordinary evils, extraordinary remedies must also be applied.” We acknowledge that it belongeth to princes(958) “to reform things in the church, as often as the ecclesiastical persons shall, either through ignorance, disorder of the affection of covetousness, or ambition, defile the Lord’s sanctuary.” At such extraordinary times, princes, by their coactive temporal power, ought to procure and cause a reformation of abuses, and the avoiding of misorders in the church, though with the discontent of the clergy, for which end and purpose they may not only enjoin and command the profession of that faith, and the practice of that religion which God’s word appointeth, but also prescribe such an order and policy in the circumstances of divine worship as they in their judgment of Christian discretion, observing and following the rules of the word, shall judge and try to be convenient for the present time and case, and all this under the commination of such temporal losses, pains, or punishments as they shall deprehend to be reasonable. But at other ordinary times, when ecclesiastical persons are neither through ignorance unable, nor through malice and perverseness of affection unwilling, to put order to whatsoever requireth any mutation to be made in the church and service of God, in that case, without their advice and consent, princes may not make an innovation of any ecclesiastical rite, nor publish any ecclesiastical law.

Sect. 24. When Dr Field(959) speaketh of the power of princes to prescribe and make laws about things spiritual or ecclesiastical, he saith, That the prince may, with the advice and direction of his clergy, command things pertaining to God’s worship and service, both for profession of faith, ministration of the sacraments, and conversation fitting to Christians in general, or men of ecclesiastical order in particular, under the pains of death, imprisonment, banishment, confiscation of goods, and the like; and by his princely power establish things formerly defined and decreed, against whatsoever error and contrary ill custom and observation. In all this the Doctor saith very right; but I demand, further, these two things: 1. What if the thing have not been decreed before? and what if the free assent of the clergy be not had for it? Would the Doctor have said that in such a case the prince hath not power by himself, and by his own sole authority, to enjoin it, and to establish a law concerning it? For example, that king James had not power by himself to impose the controverted ceremonies upon the church of Scotland at that time when as no free assent (much less the direction) of the clergy was had for them, so neither had they been formerly decreed, but laws and decrees were formerly made against them. If the Doctor would have answered affirmatively that he had this power, then why did he, in a scornful dissimulation, so circumscribe and limit the power of princes, by requiring a former decree, and the free assent of the clergy? If he would have answered negatively, that he had no such power, we should have rendered him thanks for his answer. 2. Whether may the clergy make any laws about things pertaining to the service of God which the prince may not as well by himself, and without them, constitute and authorise? If the affirmative part be granted unto us, we gladly take it. But we suppose Dr Field did, and our opposites yet do, hold the negative. Whereupon it followeth that the prince hath as much, yea, the very same power, of making laws in all ecclesiastical things which the clergy themselves have when they are convened in a lawful and free assembly, yet I guess from the Doctor’s words that he would have replied, namely, that the difference is great betwixt the power of making laws about things ecclesiastical in the prince, and the same power in the clergy assembled together; for he describeth the making of a law to be the prescribing of something, under some pain or punishment, which he that so prescribeth hath power to inflict. Whereby he would make it appear that he yieldeth not unto princes the same power of spiritual jurisdiction, in making of ecclesiastical laws, which agreeth to the clergy; because, whereas a council of the clergy may frame canons about things which concern the worship of God, and prescribe them under the pain of excommunication, and other ecclesiastical censures, the ordinance of princes about such matters is only under the pain of some external or bodily punishment. But I answer, potestas διατακτικὴ is one thing, and potestas κειτικὴ is another thing. When the making of a law is joined either with the intention, or with the commination of a punishment, in case of transgression, this is but accidental and adventitious to the law, not naturally nor necessarily belonging to the essence of the same; for many laws there hath been, and may be, which prescribe not that which they contain under the same pain or punishment. Gratian distinguisheth three sorts of laws: Omnis, &c. “Every law (saith he(960)) either permits something; for example, let a valorous man seek a reward: or forbids; for example, let it be lawful to no man to seek the marriage of holy virgins: or punisheth; for example, he who committeth murder let him be capitally punished.” And in this third kind only there is something prescribed under a pain or punishment. It is likewise holden by schoolmen,(961) that it is a law which permitteth something indifferent, as well as it which commandeth some virtue, or forbiddeth some vice. When a prince doth statute and ordain, that whosoever, out of a generous and magnanimous spirit, will adventure to embark and hazard in a certain military exploit against a foreign enemy, whom he intendeth to subdue, shall be allowed to take for himself in propriety all the rich spoil which he can lay hold on,—there is nothing here prescribed under some pain or punishment, yet it is a law, and properly so termed. And might not the name of a law be given unto that edict of King Darius, whereby he decreed that all they in his dominions should fear the God of Daniel, forasmuch as he is the living and eternal God, who reigneth for ever, Dan. vi.; yet it prescribed nothing under some pain or punishment to be inflicted by him who so prescribed. Wherefore, though the prince publisheth ecclesiastical laws under other pains and punishments than the clergy doth, this showeth only that potestas κειτικὴ is not the same, but different, in the one and in the other; yet if it be granted that whatsoever ecclesiastical law a synod of the clergy hath power to make and publish, the prince hath power to make and publish without them, by his own sole authority, it followeth, that the power of the church to make laws which is called potestas διατακτικὴ, doth agree as much, as properly, and as directly to the prince, as to a whole synod of the church.

Sect. 25. Now, therefore, we firmly hold, 1. That the prince may not innovate any custom or rite of the church, nor publish any ecclesiastical law, without the free assent of the clergy, they being neither unable for, nor unwilling unto, their ecclesiastical functions and duties; yea, further, that so far as is possible, the consent of the whole church ought to be had whensoever any change is to be made of some order or custom in the church; for that which toucheth the whole church, and is to be used by the whole church, ab omnibus etiam merito curatur.(962) Therefore, when there is any change to be made in the rites of the church, merito fit hoc cum omnium ordinum ecclesiae consensu.(963) Neither was there ever a rightly reformed church which was helped and not hurt by such rites and customs as, to their grief and miscontentment, princes did impose upon them. Whence it was, that “they who were orthodox did ever withstand such a magistrate as would have, by his commandments, tied the church to that which was burdensome to their consciences.”(964) That such inconveniences may be shunned, it is fit, that, when any change is to be made in the policy of a church, not the clergy alone, but the elders also, and men of understanding among the laity, in a lawful assembly, freely give their voices and consent thereunto. Good reason have our writers to hold against Papists, that laymen ought to have place in councils wherein things which concern the whole church are to be deliberated upon. 2. Lest it be thought enough that princes devise, frame, and establish, ecclesiastical laws as them best liketh, and then, for more show of orderly proceeding, some secret and sinistrous way extort and procure the assent of the synod of the church; therefore we add, that it belongeth to the synod (the clergy having the chief place therein, to give direction and advice), not to receive and approve the definition of the prince in things which concern the worship of God, but itself to define and determine what orders and customs are fittest to be observed in such things, that thereafter the prince may approve and ratify the same, and press them upon his subjects by his regal coactive power. To me it is no less than a matter of admiration how Camero could so far forget himself as to say,(965) that in things pertaining unto religion, dirigere atque disponere penes magistratum est proprie, penes ecclesiasticos ministerium atque executio proprie, telling us further, that the directing and disposing of such things doth then only belong to ecclesiastical persons when the church suffereth persecution, or when the magistrate permitteth that the matter be judged by the church.

Our writers have said much of the power of the church to make laws, but this man (I perceive) will correct them all, and will not acknowledge that the church hath any power of making laws about things pertaining to religion (except by accident, because of persecution or permission), but only a power of executing what princes please to direct. More fully to deliver our mind, we say, that in the making of laws about things which concern the worship of God, the prince may do much per actus imperatos, but nothing per actus elicitos. For the more full explanation of which distinction, I liken the prince to the will of man; the ministers of the church to man’s particular senses; a synod of the church to that internal sense which is called sensus communis; the fountain and original of all the external things and actions ecclesiastical, or such as concern the worship of God, to the objects and actions of the particular senses; and the power of making ecclesiastical laws to that power and virtue of the common sense, whereby it perceiveth, discerneth, and judgeth of the objects and actions of all the particular senses. Now as the will commandeth the common sense to discern and judge of the actions and objects of all the particular senses, thereafter commandeth the eye to see, and the ear to hear, the nose to smell, &c., yet it hath not power by itself to exercise or bring forth any of these actions, for the will can neither see nor yet judge of the object and action of sight, &c. So the prince may command a synod of the church to judge of ecclesiastical things and actions, and to define what order and form of policy is most convenient to be observed in things pertaining to divine worship, and thereafter he may command the particular ministers of the church to exercise the works of their ministry, and to apply themselves unto that form of church regiment and policy which the synod hath prescribed, yet he may not by himself define and direct such matters, nor make any laws thereanent.

Sect. 26. For proof of these things I add, 1. Politic government, versatur circa res terrenas et hominem externum (saith one of our writers(966)); magistratus (saith another(967)) instituti sunt à Deo rerum humanarum quae hominum societati necessariae sunt respectu, et ad carum curam; but they are ecclesiastical ministers who are “ordained for men in things pertaining to God,” Heb. v. 1, that is, in things which pertain unto God’s worship. It belongeth not therefore to princes to govern and direct things of this nature, even as it belongeth not to pastors to govern and direct earthly things which are necessary for the external and civil society of men, I mean ordinarily and regularly, for of extraordinary cases we have spoken otherwise. But according to the common order and regular form we are ever to put this difference betwixt civil and ecclesiastical government, which one of our best learned divines hath excellently conceived after this manner:(968) Altera differentia, &c., “The other difference (saith he) taken from the matter and subject of the administrations. For we have put in our definition human things to be the subject of civil administration, but the subject of ecclesiastical administration we have taught to be things divine and sacred. Things divine and sacred we call both those which God commandeth for the sanctification of our mind and conscience as things necessary, and also those which the decency and order of the church requireth to be ordained and observed for the profitable and convenient use of the things which are necessary; for example, prayers, the administration of the word and sacraments, ecclesiastical censure, are things necessary, and essentially belonging to the communion of saints; but set days, set hours, set places, fasts, and if there be any such like, they belong to the decency and order of the church, without which the church cannot be well edified, nor any particular member thereof rightly fashioned and fitly set in the body. But human things we call such duties as touch the life, the body, goods, and good name, as they are expounded in the second table of the Decalogue, for these are the things in which the whole civil administration standeth. Behold how the very circumstances which pertain to ecclesiastical order and decency are exempted from the compass of civil government.”

2. “Natural reason (saith the Bishop of Salisbury) telleth,(969) that to judge of everything, and to instruct others, belongeth to them who before others take pains and study to the care and knowledge of the same, so physicians judge which meat is wholesome, which noisome. Lawyers declare what is just, what unjust, and in all arts and sciences, they who professedly place their labour and study in the polishing and practising of the same, both use and ought to direct the judgments of others.” Since therefore(970) the ministers of the church are those quibus ecclesiae cura incumbit vel maxime, since they do above and before the civil magistrate devote themselves to the care and knowledge of things pertaining to God and his worship, whereabout they profess to bestow their ordinary study and painful travail, were it not most repugnant to the law of natural reason to say that they ought not to direct, but be directed by, the magistrate in such matters?

3. The ministers of the church are appointed to be “watchmen in the city of God,” Mic. vii. 4, and “overseers of the flock,” Acts xx. 28; but when princes do, without the direction and definition of ministers, establish certain laws to be observed in things pertaining to religion, ministers are not then watchmen and overseers, because they have not the first sight, and so cannot give the first warning of the change which is to be made in the church. The watchmen are upon the walls, the prince is within the city. Shall the prince now view and consider the breaches and defects of the city better and sooner than the watchmen themselves? Or shall one, within the city, tell what should be righted and helped therein, before them who are upon the walls? Again, the prince is one of the flock, and is committed, among the rest, to the care, attendance, and guidance of the overseers; and, I pray, shall one of the sheep direct the overseers how to govern and lead the whole flock, or prescribe to them what orders and customs they shall observe for preventing or avoiding any hurt and inconvenience which may happen to the flock?

4. Christ hath ordained men of ecclesiastical order, not only “for the work of the ministry,”(971) that is, for preaching the word and ministering the sacraments, for warning and rebuking them who sin, for comforting the afflicted, for confirming the weak, &c., but also for providing whatsoever concerneth either the private spiritual good of any member of the church, which the Apostle calleth “the perfecting of the saints,” or the public spiritual good of the whole church, which he calleth the “edifying of the body of Christ,” Eph. iv. 12. Since, therefore, the making of laws about such things, without which the worship of God cannot be orderly nor decently (and so not rightly) performed, concerneth the spiritual good and benefit of the whole church, and of all the members thereof, it followeth that Christ hath committed the power of judging, defining, and making laws about those matters, not to magistrates, but to the ministers of the church.

5. The Apostle, speaking of the church ministers, saith, “Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves for they watch for your souls as they that must give account,” Heb. xiii. 17. Whence we gather, that in things pertaining to God, and which touch the spiritual benefit of the soul, the ministers of the church ought to give direction, and to be obeyed, as those who, in things of this nature, have the rule over all others of the church (and by consequence over princes also), so that it be in the Lord. And lest this place and power which is given to ministers, should either be abused by themselves to the commanding of what they will, or envied by others, as too great honour and pre-eminence, the Apostle showeth what a painful charge lieth on them, and what a great reckoning they have to make. They watch for your souls, saith he, not only by preaching and warning every one, and by offering up their earnest prayers to God for you, but likewise by taking such care of ecclesiastical discipline, order, and policy, that they must provide and procure whatsoever shall be expedient for your spiritual good, and direct you in what convenient and beseeming manner you are to perform the works of God’s worship, as also to avoid and shun every scandal and inconveniency which may hinder your spiritual good. And of these things, whether they have done them or not, they must make account before the judgment seat of the great Bishop of your souls. Surely, if it belong to princes to do fine and ordain what order and policy should be observed in the church, what forms and fashions should be used, for the orderly and right managing of the exercises of God’s worship, how scandals and misorders are to be shunned, how the church may be most edified, and the spiritual good of the saints best helped and advanced, by wholesome and profitable laws, concerning things which pertain to religion, then must princes take also upon them a great part of that charge of pastors, to watch for the souls of men, and must liberate them from being liable to a reckoning for the same.

Sect. 27. 6. Constantine the Great, Theodosius, both the one and the other, Martianus, Charles the Great, and other Christian princes, when there was any change to be made of ecclesiastical rites, did not, by their own authority, imperiously enjoin the change, but convocate synods for deliberating upon the matter, as Balduine noteth.(972) The great Council of Nice was assembled by Constantine, not only because of the Arian heresy, but, also (as Socrates witnesseth(973)), because of the difference about the keeping of Easter; and though the bishops, when they were assembled, did put up to him libels of accusation, one against another, so that there could be no great hope of their agreement upon fit and convenient laws; yet, notwithstanding, he did not interpone his own definition and decree, for taking up that difference about Easter, only he exhorted the bishops convened in the council to peace, and so commended the whole matter to be judged by them.

7. We have for us the judgment of worthy divines. A notable testimony of Junius we have already cited. Danaeus will not allow princes by themselves to make laws about ecclesiastical rites,(974) but this he will have done by a synod. Porro quod ad ritus, &c. “Furthermore (saith he), for rites and ceremonies, and that external order which is necessary in the administration of the church, let a synod of the church convene, the supreme and godly magistrate both giving commandment for the convening of it, and being present in it; and let that synod of the church lawfully assembled define what should be the order and external regiment of the church. This decree of the ecclesiastical synod shall the godly and supreme magistrate afterward confirm, stablish, and ratify by his edict.” Joh. Wolphius observeth of king Joash,(975) that he did not by himself take order for the reparation of the temple, nor define what was to be done unto every breach therein, but committed this matter to be directed and cared for by the priests, whom it chiefly concerned, commanding them to take course for the reparation of the breaches of the house, wheresoever any breach should be found, and allowing them money for the work. Whereupon he further noteth, that as the superior part of man’s soul doth not itself hear, see, touch, walk, speak, but commandeth the ears, eyes, hands, feet, and tongue, to do the same; so the magistrate should not himself either teach or make laws, but command that these things be done by the doctors and teachers. Cartwright and Pareus upon Heb. xiii. 17, tell the Papists, that we acknowledge princes are holden to be obedient unto pastors in things that belong unto God, if they rule according to the word, which could not be so, if the making of laws about things pertaining to God and his worship did not of right and due belong unto pastors, but unto princes themselves. Our Second Book of Discipline, chap. 12, ordaineth, “That ecclesiastical assemblies have their place, with power to the kirk to appoint times and places convenient for the same, and all men, as well magistrates as inferiors, to be subject to the judgment of the same in ecclesiastical causes.” Balduine holdeth,(976) that a prince may not by himself enjoin any new ecclesiastical rite, but must convocate a synod for the deliberation and definition of such things. And what mean our writers when they say,(977) that kings have no spiritual but only a civil power in the church? As actions are decerned by the objects, so are powers by the actions: if, therefore, kings do commendably by themselves make laws about things pertaining to God’s worship, which is a spiritual action, then have they also a spiritual power in the church; but if they have no spiritual power, that is, no power of spiritual jurisdiction, how can they actually exercise spiritual jurisdiction? That the making of laws about things pertaining to God’s worship is an action of spiritual jurisdiction, it needeth no great demonstration; for, 1. When a synod of the church maketh laws about such things, all men know that this is an action of spiritual jurisdiction flowing from that power of spiritual jurisdiction which is called potestas διατακτικὴ. And how then can the prince’s making of such laws be called an action of civil, not of spiritual jurisdiction? I see not what can be answered, except it be said, that the making of those laws by a synod is an action of spiritual jurisdiction, because they are made and published with the commination of spiritual and ecclesiastical punishments in case of transgression, but the making of them by the prince is an action of jurisdiction only, because he prescribeth and commandeth, under the pain of some temporal loss or punishment. But I have already confuted this answer, because notwithstanding of the different punishments which the one and the other hath power to threaten and inflict, yet, at least, that part of spiritual jurisdiction which we call potestas διατακτικὴ remaineth the same in both, which power of making laws must not (as I show) be confounded with that other power of judging and punishing offenders. 2. Actions take their species or kind from the object and the end, when other circumstances hinder not. Now, a prince’s making of laws about things pertaining to religion, is such an action of jurisdiction, as hath both a spiritual end, which is the edification of the church and spiritual good of Christians, and likewise a spiritual object; for that all things pertaining to divine worship, even the very external circumstances of the same, are rightly called things spiritual and divine, not civil or human, our opposites cannot deny, except they say, not only that such things touch the lives, bodies, estates, or names of men, and are not ordained for the spiritual benefit of their souls, but also that the synod of the church, whose power reacheth only to things spiritual, not civil or human, can never make laws about those circumstances which are applied unto, and used in the worship of God; and as the prince’s making of laws about things of this nature, is in respect of the object and end, an action of spiritual jurisdiction, so there is no circumstance at all which varieth the kind, or maketh it an action of civil jurisdiction only. If it be said, that the circumstance of the person changeth the kind of the action, so that the making of laws about things pertaining to religion, if they be made by ecclesiastical persons, is an action of spiritual jurisdiction; but if, by the civil magistrate, an action of civil jurisdiction, this were a most extremely unadvised distinction; for so might Uzziah the king have answered for himself, 2 Chron. xxvi. 18, that, in burning incense, he did not take upon him to execute the priest’s office, because he was only a civil person; so may the Pope say, that he might not take upon him the power of emperors and monarchs, because he is an ecclesiastical person. Many things men do de facto, which they cannot de jure. Civil persons may exercise a spiritual jurisdiction and office, and, again, ecclesiastical persons may exercise a civil jurisdiction de facto, though not de jure. Wherefore the prince’s making of laws about things spiritual remaineth still an action of spiritual jurisdiction, except some other thing can be alleged to the contrary, beside the circumstance of the person. But some man, peradventure, will object that a prince, by his civil power, may enjoin and command not only the observation of those ecclesiastical rites which a synod of the church prescribeth, but also that a synod (when need is) prescribe new orders and rites, all which are things spiritual and divine. And why then may he not, by the same civil power, make laws about the rites and circumstances of God’s worship, notwithstanding that they are (in their use and application to the actions of worship) things spiritual, not civil.

Ans. The schoolmen say,(978) that an action proceedeth from charity two ways, either elicitive or imperative, and that those actions which are immediately produced and wrought out by charity, belong not to other virtues distinct from charity, but are comprehended under the effects of charity itself, such as are the loving of good and rejoicing for it. Other actions, say they, which are only commanded by charity, belong to other special virtues distinct from charity. So, say I, an action may proceed from a civil power either elicitive or imperative. Elicitive a civil power can only make laws about things civil or human; but imperative it may command the ecclesiastical power to make laws about things spiritual, which laws thereafter it may command to be observed by all who are in the church.

Sect. 28. 8. Our opposites themselves acknowledge no less than that which I have been pleading for. “To devise new rites and ceremonies (saith Dr Bilson(979)), is not the prince’s vocation, but to receive and allow such as the Scriptures and canons commend, and such as the bishops and pastors of the place shall advise.” And saith not the Bishop of Salisbury,(980) Ceremonias utiles et decoras excogitare, ad ecclesiasticos pertinet; tamen easdem comprobare, et toti populo observandas imponere, ad reges spectat? Camero saith,(981) that it is the part of a prince to take care for the health of men’s souls, even as he doth for the health of their bodies, and that as he provideth not for the curing or preventing of bodily diseases directly and by himself, but indirectly and by the physicians, so he should not by himself prescribe cures and remedies for men’s spiritual maladies. Perinde principis est curare salutem animarum, ac ejusdem est saluti corporum prospicere: non est autem principis providere ne morbi grassentur directe, esset enim medicus, at indirecte tamen princeps id studere debet. Whence it followeth, that even as when some bodily sickness spreadeth, a prince’s part is not to prescribe a cure, but to command the physicians to do it; just so, when any abuse, misorder, confusion, or scandal in the church, requireth or maketh it necessary that a mutation be made of some rite or order in the same, and that wholesome laws be enacted, which may serve for the order, decency, and edification of the church, a prince may not do this by himself, but may only command the pastors and guides of the church, who watch for the souls of men as they who must give account, to see to the exigency of the present state of matters ecclesiastical, and to provide such laws as they, being met together in the name of the Lord, shall, after due and free deliberation, find to be convenient, and which, being once prescribed by them, he shall by his royal authority confirm, establish, and press.

Sect. 29. Needs now it must be manifest, that the lawfulness of our conforming unto the ceremonies in question can be no way warranted by any ordinance of the supreme magistrate, or any power which he hath in things spiritual or ecclesiastical; and if our opposites would ponder the reasons we have given, they should be quickly quieted, understanding that, before the prince’s ordinance about the ceremonies can be said to bind us, it must first be showed that they have been lawfully prescribed by a synod of the church, so that they must retire and hold them as the church’s ordinance. And what needeth any more? Let us once see any lawful ordinance of the synod or church representative for them, we shall, without any more ado, acknowledge it to be out of all doubt that his Majesty may well urge conformity unto the same.

Now, of the church’s power we have spoken in the former chapter; and if we had not, yet that which hath been said in this chapter maketh out our point. For it hath been proved, that neither king nor church hath power to command anything which is not according to the rules of the word; that is, which serveth not for the glory of God, which is not profitable for edifying, and which may not be done in faith; unto which rules, whether the things which are commanded us be agreeable or not, we must try and examine by the private judgment of Christian discretion, following the light of God’s word.

Sect. 30. Resteth the third distinction, whereof I promised to speak, and that was of ties or bonds. Quoedam obligatio, &c. “Some bond (saith Gerhard(982)) is absolute, when the law bindeth the conscience simply, so that, in no respect, nor in no case, without the offence of God and wound of conscience, one may depart from the prescript thereof; but another bond is hypothetical, when it bindeth not simply, but under a condition, to wit, if the transgression of the law be done of contempt,—if for the cause of lucre or some other vicious end,—if it have scandal joined with it.” The former way, he saith that the law of God and nature bindeth, and that the law of the civil magistrate bindeth the latter way; and with him we hold that whatsoever a prince commandeth his subjects in things any way pertaining to religion, it bindeth only this latter way, and that he hath never power to make laws binding the former way, for confirmation wherefore we say,

1. The laws of an ecclesiastical synod, to the obedience whereof, in things belonging to the worship of God, we are far more strictly tied than to the obedience of any prince in the world, who (as hath been showed) in this sort of things hath not such a vocation nor power to make laws. The laws, I say, of a synod cannot bind absolutely, but only conditionally, or in case they cannot be transgressed without violating the law of charity, by contempt showed or scandal given, which, as I have made good in the first part of this dispute, so let me now produce for it a plain testimony of the Bishop of Salisbury,(983) who holdeth that the church’s rites and ordinance do only bind in such sort, ut si extra, &c., “That if, out of the case of scandal or contempt, through imprudence, oblivion, or some reasonable cause enforcing, they be omitted, no mortal sin is incurred before God; for as touching these constitutions, I judge the opinion of Gerson to be most true, to wit, that they remain inviolated so long as the law of charity is not by men violated about the same.” Much less, then, can the laws of princes about things spiritual or ecclesiastical bind absolutely, and out of the case of violating the law of charity.

2. If we be not bound to receive and acknowledge the laws of princes as good and equitable, except only in so far as they are warranted by the law of God and nature, then we are not bound in conscience to obey them, except only conditionally, in case the violating of them include the violating of the law of God and nature; but the former is true, therefore the latter. It is God’s peculiar sovereignty, that his will is a rule ruling, but not ruled, and that therefore a thing is good because God will have it to be good. Man’s will is only such a rule as is ruled by higher rules, and it must be known to be norma recta before it can be to us norma recti.

3. If we be bound to try and examine, by the judgment of discretion (following the rules of the word), whether the things which princes command be right, and such as ought to be done; and if we find them not to be such, to neglect them, then their laws cannot bind absolutely and by themselves, (else what need were there of such trial and examination?) but only conditionally, and in case they cannot be neglected without violating some other law, which is of a superior bond. But the former we have proved by strong reasons, therefore the latter standeth sure.

4. If neither princes may command, nor we do anything which is not lawful and expedient, and according to the other rules of the word, then the laws of princes bind not absolutely, but only in case the neglecting of them cannot stand with the law of charity and the rules of the word; but the former hath been evinced and made good, therefore the latter necessarily followeth.

5. If the laws of princes could bind absolutely and simply, so that in no case, without offending God and wounding our conscience, we could neglect them, this bond should arise either from their own authority, or from the matter and thing itself which is commanded, but from neither of these it can arise, therefore from nothing. It cannot arise from any authority which they have, for if, by their authority, we mean their princely pre-eminence and dignity, they are princes when they command things unlawful as well as when they command things lawful, and so if, because of their pre-eminence their laws do bind, then their unlawful ordinances do bind no less than if they were lawful; but if by their authority we mean the power which they have of God to make laws, this power is not absolute (as hath been said) but limited; therefore from it no absolute bond can arise, but this much at the most, that “kings on earth must be obeyed,(984) so far as they command in Christ.”

Neither yet can the bond be absolute in respect of the thing itself which is commanded.

When princes publish the commandments of God, the things themselves bind whether they should command them or not, but we speak of such things as God’s word hath left in their nature indifferent, and of such things we say, that if being enjoined by princes they did absolutely bind, then they should be in themselves immutably necessary, even secluding as well the laws of princes which enjoin them, as the end of order, decency, and edification, whereunto they are referred. To say no more, hath not Dr Forbesse told us in Calvin’s words,(985) Notatu dignum, &c.? “It is worthy of observation, that human laws, whether they be made by the magistrate or by the church, howsoever they be necessary to be observed (I speak of such as are good and just), yet they do not, therefore, by themselves bind the conscience, because the whole necessity of observing them looketh to the general end, but consisteth not in the things commanded.”

6. Whatsoever bond of conscience is not confirmed and warranted by the word is, before God, no bond at all. But the absolute bond wherewith conscience is bound to the obedience of the laws of princes is not confirmed nor warranted by the word; therefore the proposition no man can deny, who acknowledged that none can have power or dominion over our consciences but God only, the great Lawgiver, who alone can save and destroy, James iv. 12. Neither doth any writer, whom I have seen, hold that princes have any power over men’s consciences, but only that conscience is bound by the laws of princes, for this respect, because God, who hath power over our consciences, hath tied us to their laws. As to the assumption, he who denyeth it must give instance to the contrary. If those words of the Apostle be objected, Rom. xiii. 5, “Ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience’ sake.”

I answer, 1. The Apostle saith not that we must obey, but that we must be subject, for conscience’ sake; and how oft shall we need to tell our opposites that subjection is one thing, and obedience another?

2. If he had said that we must obey for conscience’ sake, yet this could not have been expounded of an absolute bond of conscience, but only of an hypothetical bond, in case that which the magistrate commandeth cannot be omitted without breaking the law of charity. If it be said again, that we are not only bidden be subject, but likewise to obey magistrates, Tit. iii. 1: Ans. And who denyeth this? But still I ask, are we absolutely and always bound to obey magistrates? Nay, but only when they command such things as are according to the rules of the word, so that either they must be obeyed or the law of charity shall be broken; in this case, and no other, we are bidden obey.

Sect. 31. Thus have we gained a principal point, viz., that the laws of princes bind not absolutely but conditionally, not propter se, but propter aliud. Whereupon it followeth, that except the breach of those ceremonial ordinances wherewith we are pressed include the breach of the law of charity, which is of a superior bond, we are not holden to obey them. Now that it is not the breach, but the obedience of those ordinances which violateth the law of charity, we have heretofore made manifest, and in this place we will add only one general: Whensoever the laws of princes about things ecclesiastical do bind the conscience conditionally, and because of some other law of a superior bond, which cannot be observed if they be transgressed (which is the only respect for which they bind, when they bind at all), then the things which they prescribe belong either to the conservation or purgation of religion; but the controverted ceremonies belong to neither of these, therefore the laws made thereanent bind not, because of some other law which is of a superior bond. As to the proposition, will any man say that princes have any more power than that which is expressed in the twenty-fifth article of the Confession of Faith, ratified in the first parliament of king James VI., which saith thus: “Moreover, to kings, princes, rulers, and magistrates, we affirm that chiefly and most principally, the conservation and the purgation of the religion appertains, so that not only they are appointed for civil policy, but also for maintenance of the true religion, and for suppressing of idolatry and superstition whatsoever?” Hoc nomine, saith Calvin,(986) maxime laudantur sancti reges in scriptura, quod Dei cultum corruptum vel eversum restituerint, vel curam gesserint religionis, ut sub illis pura et incolumis floreret. The twenty-first Parliament of king James, holden at Edinburgh 1612, in the ratification of the acts and conclusions of the General Assembly, kept in Glasgow 1610, did innovate and change some words of that oath of allegiance which the General Assembly, in reference to the conference kept 1751, ordained to be given to the person provided to any benefice with cure, in the time of his admission, by the ordinate. For the form of the oath, set down by the Act of the Assembly, beginneth thus: “I, A. B., now nominate and admitted to the kirk of D., utterly testify and declare in my conscience, that the right excellent, right high, and mighty prince, James VI., by the grace of God king of Scots, is the only lawful supreme governor of this realm, as well in things temporal as in the conservation and purgation of religion,” &c. But the form of the oath set down by the Act of Parliament beginneth thus: “I, A. B., now nominate and admitted to the kirk of D., testify and declare in my conscience, that the right excellent, &c., is the only lawful supreme governor of this realm, as well in matters spiritual and ecclesiastical, as in things temporal,” &c. Yet I demand, whether or not do the matters spiritual and ecclesiastical, of which the Act of Parliament speaketh, or those all spiritual or ecclesiastical things or causes, of which the English oath of supremacy speaketh, comprehend any other thing than is comprehended under the conservation and purgation of religion, whereof the Act of Assembly speaketh? If it be answered affirmatively, it will follow that princes have power to destruction, and not to edification only; for whatsoever may edify or profit the church, pertaineth either to the conservation or the purgation of religion. If negatively, then it cannot be denied that the conservation and purgation of religion do comprehend all the power which princes have in things ecclesiastical.

Sect. 32. Now to the assumption. And first, that the controverted ceremonies pertain not to the conservation of religion, but contrariwise to the hurt and prejudice of the same, experience hath, alas! made it too manifest; for O what a doleful decay of religion have they drawn with them in this land! Let them who have seen Scotland in her first glory tell how it was then, and how it is now. Idle and idol-like bishopping hath shut too the door of painful and profitable catechising.(987) The keeping of some festival days is set up instead of the thankful commemoration of God’s inestimable benefits, howbeit the festivity of Christmas hath hitherto served more to bacchanalian lasciviousness than to the remembrance of the birth of Christ.(988) The kneeling down upon the knees of the body hath now come in place of that humiliation of the soul wherewith worthy communicants addressed themselves unto the holy table of the Lord; and, generally, the external show of these fruitless observances hath worn out the very life and power of religion. Neither have such effects ensued upon such ceremonies among us only, but let it be observed everywhere else, if there be not least substance and power of godliness among them who have most ceremonies, whereunto men have, at their pleasure, given some sacred use and signification in the worship of God; and most substance among them who have fewest shows of external rites. No man of sound judgment (saith Beza(989)) will deny, Jesum Christum quo nudior, &c., “that Jesus Christ, the more naked he be, is made the more manifest to us; whereas, contrariwise, all false religions use by certain external gesturings to turn away men from divine things.” Zanchius saith well of the surplice and other popish ceremonies,(990) Quod haec nihil ad pietatem accendendam, multum autem ad restinguendam valeant. Bellarmine,(991) indeed, pleadeth for the utility of ceremonies, as things belonging to the conservation of religion. His reason is, because they set before our senses such an external majesty and splendour, whereby they cause the more reverence. This he allegeth for the utility of the ceremonies of the church of Rome. And I would know what better reason can be alleged for the utility of ours. But if this be all, we throw back the argument, because the external majesty and splendour of ceremonies doth greatly prejudge and obscure the spirit and life of the worship of God, and diverteth the minds of men from adverting unto the same, which we have offered to be tried by common experience. Durand himself, for as much as he hath written in the defence of ceremonies, in his unreasonable Rationale, yet he maketh this plain confession:(992) Sane in primitiva ecclesia, sacrificium fiebat in vasis ligneis et vestibus communibus: tunc enim erant lignei calices et aurei sacerdotes: nunc vero è contra est. Behold what followeth upon the majesty and splendour which ceremonies carry with them, and how religion, at its best and first estate, was without the same!

Sect. 33. Neither yet do the ceremonies in question belong to the purgation of religion; for wheresoever religion is to be purged in a corrupted church, all men know that purgation standeth in putting something away, not in keeping it still; in voiding somewhat, nor in retaining it; so that a church is not purged, but left unpurged, when the unnecessary monuments of bypast superstition are still preserved and kept in the same. And as for the church of Scotland, least of all could there be any purgation of it intended by the resuming of those ceremonies; for such was the most glorious and ever memorable reformation of Scotland, that it was far better purged than any other neighbour church. And of Mr Hooker’s jest we may make good earnest; for, in very deed, as the reformation of Geneva did pass the reformation of Germany, so the reformation of Scotland did pass that of Geneva.

Sect. 34. Now hitherto we have discoursed of the power of princes, in making of laws about things which concern the worship of God; for this power it is which our opposites allege for warrant, of the controverted ceremonies, wherefore to have spoken of it is sufficient for our present purpose. Nevertheless, because there are also other sorts of ecclesiastical things beside the making of laws, such as the vocation of men of ecclesiastical order, the convocation and moderation of councils, the judging and deciding of controversies about faith, and the use of the keys, in all which princes have some place and power of intermeddling, and a mistaking in one may possibly breed a mistaking in all; therefore I thought good here to digress, and of these also to add somewhat, so far as princes have power and interest in the same.

DIGRESSION I.

OF THE VOCATION OF MEN OF ECCLESIASTICAL ORDER.

In the vocation and calling of ecclesiastical persons, a prince ought to carry himself ad modum procurantis speciem, non designantis individuum. Which shall be more plainly and particularly understood in these propositions which follow.

Propos. 1. Princes may and ought to provide and take care that men of those ecclesiastical orders, and those only which are instituted in the New Testament by divine authority, have vocation and office in the church.

Now, beside the apostles, prophets, and evangelists, which were not ordained to be ordinary and perpetual offices in the church, there are but two ecclesiastical orders or degrees instituted by Christ in the New Testament,(993) viz., elders and deacons. Excellenter canones duos tantum sacros ordines appellari censet, diaconatus scilicet et presbyteratus, quia hos solos primitiva ecclesia legitur habuisse, et de his solis preceptum apostoli habemus, saith the Master of sentences.(994) As for the order and decree of bishops superior to that of elders, that there is no divine ordinance nor institution for it, it is not only holden by Calvin, Beza, Bucer, Martyr, Sadeel, Luther, Chemnitius, Gerhard, Balduine, the Magdeburgians, Musculus, Piscator, Hemmingius, Zanchius, Polanus, Junius, Pareus, Fennerus, Danaeus, Morney, Whittakers, Willets, Perkins, Cartwright, the Professors of Leyden, and the far greatest part of writers in reformed churches, but also by Jerome, who, upon Tit. i., and in his epistle to Evagrius, speaketh so plainly, that the Archbishop of Spalato is driven to say,(995) Deserimus in hac parte Hieronymum, neque ei in his dictis assentimus; also by Ambrose on 1 Tim. iii.; Augustine in his Book of Questions out of both Testaments, quest. 101; Chrysostom on 1 Tim. iii.; Isidore, dist. 21, cap. 1; the Canon Law, dist. 93, cap. 24, and dist. 95, cap. 5; Lombard., lib. 4, dist. 24. And after him, by many schoolmen, such as Aquinas, Alensis, Albertus, Bonaventura, Richardus, and Dominicus Soto, all mentioned by the Archbishop of Spalato, lib. 2, cap. 4, num. 25. Gerhard(996) citeth for the same judgment, Anselmus, Sedulius, Primasius, Theophylactus, Oecumenius, the Council of Basil, Arelatensis, J. Parisiensis, Erasmus, Medina, and Cassander, all which authors have grounded that which they say upon Scripture; for beside that Scripture maketh no difference of order and degree betwixt bishops and elders, it showeth also that they are one and the same order. For in Ephesus and Crete, they who were made elders were likewise made bishops, Acts xx. 17, 28; Tit. i. 5, 7. And the Apostle, Phil. i. 1, divideth the whole ministry in the church of Philippi into two orders, bishops and deacons. Moreover, 1 Tim. iii., he giveth order only for bishops and deacons, but saith nothing of a third order. Wherefore it is manifest, that beside those two orders of elders and deacons, there is no other ecclesiastical order which hath any divine institution, or necessary use in the church; and princes should do well to apply their power and authority to the extirpation and rooting out of popes, cardinals, patriarchs, primates, archbishops, bishops, suffragans, abbots, deans, vice-deans, priors, archdeacons, subdeacons, abbots, chancellors, chantors, subchantors, exorcists, monks, eremites, acoloths, and all the rabble of popish orders, which undo the church, and work more mischief in the earth than can be either soon seen or shortly told.

But, contrariwise, princes ought to establish and maintain in the church, elders and deacons, according to the apostolical institution. Now elders are either such as labour in the word and doctrine, or else such as are appointed for discipline only. They who labour in the word and doctrine are either such as do only teach, and are ordained for conserving, in schools and seminaries of learning, the purity of Christian doctrine, and the true interpretation of Scripture, and for detecting and confuting the contrary heresies and errors, whom the Apostle calleth doctors or teachers; or else they are such as do not only teach, but also have a more particular charge to watch over the flock, to seek that which is lost, to bring home that which wandereth, to heal that which is diseased, to bind up that which is broken, to visit every family, to warn every person, to rebuke, to comfort, &c., whom the Apostle called sometimes pastors, and sometimes bishops or overseers. The other sort of elders are ordained only for discipline and church government, and for assisting of the pastors in ruling the people, overseeing their manners, and censuring their faults. That this sort of elders is instituted by the Apostle, it is put out of doubt, not alone by Calvin, Beza, and the divines of Geneva, but also by Chemnitius (Exam. part 2, p. 218), Gerhard (Loc. Theol., tom. 6, p. 363, 364), Zanchius (in 4 Proec., col. 727), Martyr (in 1 Cor. xii. 28), Bullinger (in 1 Tim. v. 17), Junius (Animad. in Bell., contr. 5, lib. 1, cap. 2), Polanus (Synt., lib. 7, cap. 11), Pareus (in Rom. xii. 8; 1 Cor. xii. 28), Cartwright (on 1 Tim. v. 17), the Professors of Leyden (Syn. Pur. Theol. disp. 42, thes. 20), and many more of our divines, who teach that the Apostle, 1 Tim. v. 17, directly implieth that there were some elders who ruled well, and yet laboured not in the word and doctrine; and those elders he meaneth by them that rule, Rom. xii. 8; and by governments, 1 Cor. xii. 28, where the Apostle saith not, helps in governments, as our new English translation corruptly readeth, but helps, governments, &c. plainly putting governments for a different order from helps or deacons. Of these elders(997) speaketh Ambrose,(998) as Dr Fulk also understandeth him,(999) showing that with all nations eldership is honourable; wherefore the synagogue also, and afterwards the church, hath had some elders of the congregation, without whose council and advice nothing was done in the church; and that he knew not by what negligence this had grown out of use, except it had been by the sluggishness of the teachers, or rather their pride, whilst they seemed to themselves to be something, and so did arrogate the doing of all by themselves.

Deacons were instituted by the apostles(1000) for collecting, receiving, keeping, and distributing ecclesiastical goods, which were given and dedicated for the maintenance of ministers, churches, schools, and for the help and relief of the poor, the stranger, the sick, and the weak; also for furnishing such things as are necessary to the ministration of the sacrament.(1001) Besides which employments, the Scripture hath assigned neither preaching, nor baptising, nor any other ecclesiastical function to ordinary deacons.

Propos. 2. Princes, in their dominions, ought to procure and effect, that there be never wanting men qualified and fit for those ecclesiastical functions and charges which Christ hath ordained, and that such men only be called, chosen, and set apart for the same.

There are two things contained in this proposition. 1. That princes ought to procure that the church never want men qualified and gifted for the work and service of the holy ministry, for which end and purpose they ought to provide and maintain schools and colleges, entrusted and committed to the rule and oversight of orthodox, learned, godly, faithful, and diligent masters, that so qualified and able men may be still furnished and sent to take care that the ministers of the church neither want due reverence, 1 Tim. v. 17; Heb. xiii. 17, nor sufficient maintenance, 1 Cor. ix., that so men be not scarred from the service of the ministry, but rather encouraged unto the same, 2 Chron. xxxi. 4.

2. That princes ought also to take order and course, that well-qualified men, and no others, be advanced and called to bear charge and office in the church, for which purpose they should cause not one disdainful prelate, but a whole presbytery or company of elders, to take trial of him who is to be taken into the number of preaching elders, and to examine well the piety of his life, the verity of his doctrine, and his fitness to teach. And further, that due trial may be continually had of the growth or decay of the graces and utterance of every pastor, it is the part of princes to enjoin the visitation of particular churches, and the keeping of other presbyterial meetings, likewise the assembling of provincial, and national synods, for putting order to such things as have not been helped in the particular presbyteries. And as for the other sort of elders, together with deacons, we judge the ancient order of this church to have been most convenient for providing of well-qualified men for those functions and offices; for the eighth head of the First Book of Discipline, touching the election of elders and deacons, ordaineth that only men of best knowledge and cleanest life be nominate to be in election, and that their names be publicly read to the whole church by the minister, giving them advertisement that from among them must be chosen elders and deacons, that if any of these nominate be noted with public infamy, he ought to be repelled; and that if any man know others of better qualities within the church than those that be nominate, they shall be put in election, that the church may have the choice.

If these courses, whereof we have spoken, be followed by Christian princes, they shall, by the blessing of God, procure that the church shall be served with able and fit ministers; but though thus they may procurare speciem, yet they may not designare individuum, which now I am to demonstrate.

Propos. 3. Nevertheless,(1002) princes may not design nor appoint such or such particular men to the charge of such or such particular churches, or to the exercise of such or such ecclesiastical functions, but ought to provide that such an order and form be kept in the election and ordination of the ministers of the church, as is warranted by the example of the apostles and primitive church.

The vocation of a minister in the church is either inward or outward. The inward calling which one must have in finding himself, by the grace of God, made both able and willing to serve God and his church faithfully in the holy ministry, lieth not open to the view of men, and is only manifest to him from whom nothing can be hid; the outward calling is made up of election and ordination: that signified in Scripture by cheirotonia this by cheirothesia concerning which things we say with Zanchius,(1003) Magistratus, &c.: “It pertaineth to a Christian magistrate and prince to see for ministers unto his churches. But how? Not out of his own arbitrement, but as God’s word teacheth; therefore let the Acts of the Apostles and the epistles of Paul be read, how ministers were elected and ordained, and let them follow that form.”

The right of election pertaineth to the whole church, which as it is maintained by foreign divines who write of the controversies with Papists, and as it was the order which this church prescribed in the Books of Discipline, so it is commended unto us by the example of the apostles, and of the churches planted by them. Joseph and Matthias were chosen and offered to Christ by the whole church, being about 120 persons, Acts i. 15, 23; the apostles required the whole church and multitude of disciples, to choose out from among them seven men to be deacons, Acts vi. 2, 3; the Holy Ghost said to the whole church at Antioch, being assembled together to minister unto the Lord, “Separate me Barnabas and Saul,” Acts xiii. 1, 2; the whole church chose Judas and Silas to be sent to Antioch, Acts xv. 22; the brethren who travelled in the church’s affairs were chosen by the church, and are called the church’s messengers, 2 Cor. viii. 19, 23; such men only were ordained elders by Paul and Barnabas who were chosen and approved by the whole church, their suffrages being signified by the lifting up of their hands, Acts xiv. 23. Albeit, Chrysostom and other ecclesiastical writers use the word cheirotonia for ordination and imposition of hands, yet when they take it in this sense, they speak it figuratively and synecdochically, as Junius showeth.(1004) For these two, election by most voices, and ordination by laying on of hands, were joined together, did cohere, as an antecedent and a consequent, whence the use obtained, that the whole action should be signified by one word, per modum intellectus, collecting the antecedent from the consequent, and the consequent from the antecedent. Nevertheless, according to the proper and native signification of the word, it noteth the signifying of a suffrage or election by the lifting up of the hand, for cheimotonehin is no other thing nor chehiras tehinein or hanatehineiu to lift or hold up the hands in sign of a suffrage; and so Chrysostom himself useth the word when he speaketh properly, for he saith that the senate of Rome took upon him cheirosoiehin theohne; that is (as D. Potter turneth his words(1005)), to make gods by most voices.

Bellarmine(1006) reckoneth out three significations of the word cheirosoiehin: 1. To choose by suffrages; 2. Simply to choose which way soever it be; 3. To ordain by imposition of hands. Junius answereth him,(1007) that the first is the proper signification; the second is metaphorical; the third synecdochical.

Our English translators, 2 Cor. i. 19, have followed the metaphorical signification, and in this place, Acts xiv. 23, the synecdochical. But what had they to do either with a metaphor or a synecdoche when the text may bear the proper sense? Now that Luke, in this place, useth the word in the proper sense, and not in the synecdochical, Gerhard(1008) proveth from the words which he subjoineth, to signify the ordaining of those elders by the laying on of hands; for he saith that they prayed, and fasted, and commended them to the Lord, in which words he implieth the laying on of hands upon them, as may be learned from Acts vi. 6, “When they had prayed, they laid their hands on them;” Acts xiii. 3, “When they had fasted, and prayed, and laid their hands on them;” so Acts viii. 15, 17, prayer and laying on of hands went together. Wherefore by cheirotouhêsagtes Luke pointeth at the election of those elders by voices, being, in the following words, to make mention of their ordination by imposition of hands.

Cartwright(1009) hath for the same point other weighty reasons: “It is absurd (saith he) to imagine that the Holy Ghost, by Luke, speaking with the tongues of men, that is to say, to their understanding, should use a word in that signification in which it was never used before his time by any writer, holy or profane, for how could he then be understood, if using the note and name they used, he should have fled from the signification whereunto they used it, unless therefore his purpose was to write that which none could read? It must needs be that as he wrote so he meant the election by voices. And if Demosthenes, for knowledge in the tongue, would have been ashamed to have noted the laying down of hands by a word that signifieth the lifting of them up, they do the Holy Ghost (which taught Demosthenes to speak) great injury in using this impropriety and strangeness of speech unto himself, which is yet more absurd, considering that there were both proper words to utter the laying on of hands by, and the same also was used in the translation of the LXX, which Luke, for the Gentiles’ sake, did, as it may seem (where he conveniently could), most follow. And yet it is most of all absurd that Luke, which straiteneth himself to keep the words of the seventy interpreters, when as he could have otherwise uttered things in better terms than they did, should here forsake the phrase wherewith they noted the laying on of hands, being most proper and natural to signify the same. The Greek Scholiast also, and the Greek Ignatius, do plainly refer this word to the choice of the church by voices.”

But it is objected, that Luke saith not of the whole church, but only of Paul and Barnabas, that they made them by voices elders in every city.

Ans. But how can one imagine that betwixt them two alone the matter went to suffrages? Election by most voices, or the lifting up of the hand in taking of a suffrage, had place only among a multitude assembled together. Wherefore we say with Junius,(1010) that τὸ χειροτονεὶν is both a common and a particular action whereby a man chooseth, by his own suffrage in particular, and likewise with others in common, so that in one and the same action we cannot divide those things which are so joined together.

From that which hath been said, it plainly appeareth that the election of ministers, according to the apostolic institution, pertaineth to the whole body of that church where they are to serve; and that this was the apostolic and primitive practice, it is acknowledged even by some of the Papists, such as Lorinus, Salmeron, and Gaspar Sanctius, all upon Acts xiv. 23. The canon law(1011) itself commendeth this form and saith, Electio clericorum est petitio plebis. And was he not a popish archbishop(1012) who condescended that the city of Magedeburg should have jus vocandi ac constituendi ecclesiae ministros? Neither would the city accept of peace without this condition.

That in the ancient church, for a long time, the election of ministers remained in the power of the whole church or congregation, it is evident from Cypr., lib. 1, epist. 4, 68; August., epist. 106; Leo I., epist. 95; Socrat., lib. 4, cap. 30; and lib. 6, cap. 2; Possidon, in Vita Aug., cap. 4. The testimonies and examples themselves, for brevity’s cause, I omit. As for the thirteenth canon of the Council of Laodicea, which forbiddeth to permit to the people the election of such as were to minister at the altar, we say with Osiander,(1013) that this canon cannot be approved, except only in this respect, that howbeit the people’s election and consent be necessary, yet the election is not wholly and solely to be committed to them, excluding the judgment and voice of the clergy. And that this is all which the Council meant, we judge with Calvin(1014) and Gerhard.(1015) That this is the true interpretation of the canon, Junius(1016) proveth both by the words ὄχλοις ἐπιτρέπειν, permittere turbis, for ἐπιτρέπειν signifieth to quit and leave the whole matter to the fidelity and will of others; and, likewise, by the common end and purpose of that Council which was to repress certain faults of the people which had prevailed through custom. Indeed, if the whole matter were altogether left to the people, contentions and confusions might be feared; but whilst we plead for the election of the people, we add,

1. Let the clergy of the adjacent bounds, in their presbyterial assembly, try and judge who are fit for the ministry; thereafter let a certain number of those who are by them approven as fit, be offered and propounded to the vacant church, that a free election may be made of some one of that number, providing always that if the church or congregation have any real reason for refusing the persons nominate and offered unto them, and for choosing of others, their lawful desires be herein yielded unto.

2. Even when it comes to the election,(1017) yet populus non solus judicat, sed proeunte et moderante actionem clero et presbyterio, let the elders of the congregation, together with some of the clergy concurring with them, moderate the action, and go before the body of the people.

Would to God that these things were observed by all who desire the worthy office of a pastor; for neither the patron’s presentation, nor the clergy’s nomination, examination and recommendation, nor the bishop’s laying on of hands and giving of institution, nor all these put together, can make up to a man’s calling to be a pastor to such or such a particular flock, without their own free election. Even, as in those places where princes are elected, the election gives them jus ad rem (as they speak), without which the inauguration can never give them jus in re; so a man hath, from his election, power to be a pastor so far as concerneth jus ad rem, and ordination only applieth him to the actual exercising of his pastoral office, which ordination ought to be given unto him only who is elected, and that because he is elected. And of him who is obtruded and thrust upon a people, without their own election, it is well said by Zanchius, that he can neither with a good conscience exercise his ministry, nor yet be profitable to the people, because they will not willingly hear him, nor submit themselves unto him.

Furthermore, because patronages and presentation to benefices do often prejudge the free and lawful election which God’s word craveth, therefore the Second Book of Discipline, chap. 12, albeit it permitteth and alloweth the ancient patrons of prebendaries, and such benefices as have not curam animarum, to reserve their patronages, and to dispone thereupon to benefices that have curam animarum, may have no place in this light of reformation. Not that we think a man presented to a benefice that hath curam animarum cannot be lawfully elected, but because of the often and ordinary abuse of this unnecessary custom, we could wish it abolished by princes.

It followeth to speak of ordination, wherein, with Calvin,(1018) Junius,(1019) Gersom Burer,(1020) and other learned men, we distinguish betwixt the act of it and the rite of it. The act of ordination standeth in the mission to the deputation of a man to an ecclesiastical function, with power and authority to perform the same; and thus are pastors ordained when they are sent to a people with power to preach the word, minister the sacraments, and exercise ecclesiastical discipline among them. For “How shall they preach except they be sent?” Rom. x. 15. Unto which mission or ordination neither prayer nor imposition of hands, nor any other of the church’s rites, is essential and necessary, as the Archbishop of Spalato showeth,(1021) who placeth the essential act of ordination in missione potestativa, or a simple deputation and application of a minister to his ministerial function with power to perform it. This may be done, saith he, by word alone, without any other ceremony, in such sort that the fact should hold, and the ordination thus given should be valid enough. When a man is elected by the suffrages of the church, then his ordination is quasi solennis missio in possessionem honoris illius, ex decreto, saith Junius.(1022) Chemnitius noteth,(1023) that when Christ, after he had chosen his twelve apostles, ordained them to preach the gospel, to cast out devils, and to heal diseases, we read of no ceremony used in this ordination, but only that Christ gave them power to preach, to heal, and to cast out devils, and so sent them away to the work. And howsoever the church hath for order and decency used some rite in ordination, yet there is no such rite to be used with opinion of necessity, or as appointed by Christ or his apostles. When our writers prove against Papists that order is no sacrament, this is one of their arguments, that there is no rite instituted in the New Testament to be used in the giving of orders. Yet because imposition of hands was used in ordination not only by the apostles, who had power to give extraordinarily the gifts of the Holy Ghost, but likewise by the presbytery or company of elders; and Timothy did not only receive the gift that was in him, by the laying on of Paul’s hands. 2 Tim. i. 16, as the mean, but also with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery, 1 Tim. iv. 14, as the rite and sign of his ordination; therefore the church, in the after ages, hath still kept and used the same rite in ordination, which rite shall, with our leave, be yet retained in the church, providing, 1. It be not used with opinion of necessity; for that the church hath full liberty either to use any other decent rite (not being determined by the word to any one), or else to use no rite at all, beside a public declaration that the person there presented is called and appointed to serve the church in the pastoral office, together with exhortation to the said person, and the commending of him to the grace of God, the church not being tied by the word to use any rite at all in the giving of ordination. 2. That it be not used as a sacred significant ceremony to represent and signify either the delivering to the person ordained authority to preach and to minister the sacraments, or the consecration and mancipation of him to the holy ministry; or, lastly, God’s bestowing of the gifts of his Spirit upon him, together with his powerful protection and gracious preservation in the performing of the works of his calling, but only as a moral sign, solemnly to assign and point out the person ordained; which, also, was one of the ends and uses whereunto this rite of laying on of hands was applied by the apostles themselves, as Chemnitius showeth.(1024) And so Joshua was designed and known to the people of Israel as the man appointed to be the successor of Moses, by that very sign, that Moses laid his hands on him, Deut. xxxiv.

As a sacred significant ceremony we may not use it, 1. Because it hath been proved,(1025) that men may never, at their pleasure, ascribe to any rite whatsoever, a holy signification of some mystery of faith or duty of piety. The apostles, indeed, by laying on of their hands, did signify their giving of the gift of the Holy Ghost; but, now, as the miracle, so the mystery hath ceased, and the church not having such power to make the signification answer to the sign, if now a sacred or mystical signification be placed in the rite, it is but an empty and void sign, and rather minical than mystical. 2. All such sacred rites as have been notoriously abused to superstition, if they have no necessary use, ought to be abolished, as we have also proven;(1026) therefore, if imposition of hands in ordination be accounted and used as a sacred rite, and as having a sacred signification (the use of it not being necessary), it becometh unlawful, by reason of the bygone and present superstitious abuse of the same in Popery.

Now the right and power of giving ordination to the ministers of the church belongeth primarily and wholly to Christ, who communicateth the same with his bride the church. Both the bridegroom for his part, and the bride for her part, have delivered this power of ordination to the presbytery jure DIVINO. Afterward the presbytery conferred, jure humano, this power upon them, who were specially called bishops, whence the tyrannical usurpation of bishops hath in process followed, claiming the proper right and ordinary position of that which at first they had only by free concession; and thus that great divine, Franciscus Junius,(1027) deriveth the power of ordination. All which, that it may be plain unto us, let us observe four several passages.

1. The whole church(1028) hath the power of ordination communicated to her from Christ, to whom it wholly pertaineth; for, 1. It is most certain (and among our writers agreed upon) that, to the whole church collectively taken, Christ hath delivered the keys of the kingdom of heaven with power to use the same, promising that whosoever the church bindeth on earth, shall be bound in heaven, and whosoever she looseth on earth, shall be loosed in heaven, Matt. xviii. 18; therefore he hath also delivered unto the whole church power to call and ordain ministers for using the keys, otherwise the promise might be made void, because the ministers which she now hath may fail. 2. Christ hath appointed a certain and an ordinary way how the church may provide herself of ministers, and so may have ever in herself the means of grace and comfort sufficient to herself, according to that of the Apostle, 1 Cor. iii. 21, 22, “All things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos,” &c. But if she had not the power of ordaining ministers unto herself when she needeth, then might she sometimes be deprived of such an ordinary and certain way of providing herself. 3. When the ministry of the church faileth or is wanting, Christian people have power to exercise that act of ordination which is necessary to the making of a minister. Dr Fulk(1029) showeth out of Ruffinus and Theodoret, that Ædesius and Frumentius, being but private men, by preaching of the gospel, converted a great nation of the Indians; and that the nation of the Iberians being converted by a captive woman, the king and the queen became teachers of the gospel to the people. And might not, then, the church in those places both elect and ordain ministers?

2. The church hath, by divine institution, delivered the power of ordaining ordinary ministers to the presbytery, whereof the church consisteth repræsentative. And so saith Pareus,(1030) that the power of mission (which is ordination) belongeth to the presbytery. Scriptura, saith Balduine,(1031) ordinationem tribuit toti presbyterio, non seorsim episcopo. With whom say the Professors of Leyden in like manner.(1032) Now when the divines of Germany and Belgia speak of a presbytery, they understand such a company as hath in it both those two sorts of elders which we speak of, viz., some who labour in the word and doctrine, whom the Apostle calleth bishops, and others who labour only in discipline. The apostolic and primitive times knew neither parishional nor diocesan churches. Christians lived then in cities only, not in villages, because of the persecution; and it is to be remembered, that in Rome, Corinth, Ephesus, Colosse, Philippi, Thessalonica, and such other cities inhabited by Christians, there were more pastors than one. The Apostle called unto him the elders (not elder) of the church of Ephesus, Acts xx. 17; he writeth to the bishops (not bishop) of the church at Philippi, Phil. i. 1; he biddeth the Thessalonians know them (not him) which laboured among them, 2 Thess. v. 12. Now that number of pastors or bishops which was in one city, did in common govern all the churches within the city, and there was not any one pastor who, by himself, governed a certain part of the city particularly assigned to his charge, to which purpose the Apostle exhorteth the elders of the church at Ephesus, to take heed to all the flock, παντι τῳ ποιμιῳ, Acts xx. 28. And to the same purpose it is said by Jerome,(1033) that before schemes and divisions were, by the devil’s instigation, made in religion, communi presbyterorum consilio ecclesiæ gubernabantur.

This number of preaching elders in one city, together with those elders which, in the same city, laboured for discipline only, made up that company which the Apostle,(1034) 1 Tim. iv. 14, calleth a presbytery, and which gave ordination to the ministers of the church. To the whole presbytery, made up of those two sorts of elders, belonged the act of ordination, which is mission, howbeit the right,(1035) which was imposition of hands, belonged to those elders alone which laboured in the word and doctrine. And so we are to understand that which the Apostle there saith of the presbytery’s laying on of hands upon Timothy. As for Dr Downame’s(1036) two glosses upon that place, which he borroweth from Bellarmine, and whereby he thinketh to elude our argument, we thank Dr Forbesse(1037) for confuting them. Quod autem, &c.: “But whereas (saith he) some have expounded the presbytery in this place to be a company of bishops, except by bishops thou would understand presbyteries, it is a violent interpretation, and an insolent meaning, and whereas others have understood the degree itself of eldership, this cannot stand, for the degree hath not hands, but hands are men’s.” Wherefore the Doctor himself, by the presbytery whereof the Apostle speaketh, understandeth (as we do) confessus presbyterorum.

But since we cannot find, in the apostles’ times, any other presbytery or assembly of elders beside that which hath been spoken of, how cometh it, nay, some say that the church of Scotland, and other reformed churches, did appoint two sorts of presbyterial assemblies, one (which here we call sessions) wherein the pastor of the parish, together with those elders within the same, whom the Apostle calleth governments and presidents, put order to the government of that congregation, another (which here we presbyteries) wherein the pastors of sundry churches, lying near together, do assemble themselves? Which difficulty yet more increaseth, if it be objected that neither of these two doth in all points answer or conform itself unto that primitive form of presbytery whereof we speak. Ans. The division and multiplication of parishes, and the appointment of particular pastors to the peculiar oversight of particular flocks, together with the plantation of churches in villages as well as in cities, hath made it impossible for us to be served with that only one form of presbytery which was constitute in the apostles’ times. But this difference of the times being (as it ought to be) admitted, for an inevitable cause of the differences of the former, both those two forms of presbyterial meetings appointed by the church of Scotland do not only necessarily result from that one apostolic form, but likewise (the actions of them both being laid together) do accomplish all these ordinary ecclesiastical functions which were by it performed.

And first, Sessions have a necessary use, because the pastors and those elders who assist them in the governing of their flocks must, as well conjunctly as severally, as well publicly as privately, govern, admonish, rebuke, censure, &c. As for presbyteries, because the parishes being divided in most places, there is but one pastor in a parish, except there should be a meeting of a number of pastors out of divers parishes, neither could trial be well had of the growth or decay of the gifts, graces, and utterance of every pastor, for which purpose the ninth head of the First book of Discipline appointed the ministers of adjacent churches to meet together at convenient times, in towns and public places, for the exercise of prophecying and interpreting of Scripture, according to that form commended to the church at Corinth, 1 Cor. xiv. 29-32. For yet could the churches be governed by the common council and advice of presbyteries, which being necessary by apostolic institution, and being the foundation and ground of our presbyteries, it maketh them necessary too.

3. After the golden age of the apostles was spent and away, presbyteries, finding themselves disturbed with emulations, contentions, and factions, for unity’s sake, chose one of their number to preside among them, and to confer, in name of the rest, the rite and sign of initiation (which was imposition of hands) on them whom they ordained ministers. This honour did the presbyters yield to him who was specially and peculiarly called bishop, jure humano; yet the act of ordination they still reserved in their own power. And wheresoever the act doth thus remain in the power of the whole presbytery, the conferring of the outward sign or rite by one in the name of the rest, none of us condemneth, as may be seen in Beza, Didoclavius, and Gersom Bucer. Neither is there any more meant by Jerome(1038) when he saith, “What doth a bishop (ordination being excepted) which a presbyter may not do?” For, 1. He speaketh not of the act of ordination, which remained in the power of the presbytery, but of the outward sign or rite, which synedochically he calls ordination.(1039) 2. He speaketh only of the custom of that time, and not of any divine institution; for that the imposition of hands pertained to the bishop alone, not by divine institution, but only by ecclesiastical custom, Junius proveth(1040) out of Tertullian, Jerome and Ambrose.

4. Afterward bishops began to appropriate to themselves that power which pertained unto them jure devoluto, as if it had been their own jure proprio. Yet so that some vestiges of the ancient order have still remained; for both Augustine and Ambrose (whose words, most plain to this purpose, are cited by Dr Forbesse(1041)) testify that, in their time, in Alexandria and all Egypt, the presbyters gave ordination when a bishop was not present. The canon law(1042) ordaineth that, in giving of ordination, presbyters lay on their hands, together with the bishop’s hands. And it is holden by many Papists (of whom Dr Forbesse(1043) allegeth some for the same point) that any simple presbyter (whom they call a priest) may, with the Pope’s commandment or concession, give valid ordination. That which maketh them grant so much is, because they dare not deny that presbyters have the power of ordination jure divino. Yet saith Panormitanus,(1044) Olim presbytery in communi regebant ecclesiam, et ordinabant sacradotes. The Doctor himself holdeth, that one simple presbyter howsoever having, by virtue of his presbyterial order, power to give ordination, quod ad actum primum sive aptitudinem, yet quo ad exercitium cannot validly give ordination without a commission from the bishop or from the presbytery, if either there be no bishop, or else he be a heretic or wolf. But I would learn why may not the presbytery validly ordain, either by themselves, or by any one presbyter with commission and power from them, even where there is a bishop (and he no heretic) who consenteth not thereto; for the Doctor(1045) acknowledgeth, that not only quo ad aptitudinem, but even quo ad plenariam ordinationis executionem, the same power pertaineth to the presbytery collegialiter, which he allegeth (but proveth not) that the apostles gave to bishops personaliter.

Now from all these things princes may learn how to reform their own and the prelates’ usurpation, and how to reduce the orders and vocation of ecclesiastical persons unto conformity with the apostolic and primitive pattern, from which if they go on either to enjoin or to permit a departing, we leave them to be judged by the King of terrors.

DIGRESSION II.

OF THE CONVOCATION AND MODERATION OF SYNODS.

Touching the convocation of synods, we resolve with the Professors of Leyden,(1046) that if a prince do so much as tolerate the order and regiment of the church to be public, his consent and authority should be craved, and he may also design the time, place, and other circumstances; but much more,(1047) if he be a Christian and orthodox prince, should his consent, authority, help, protection, and safeguard be sought and granted. And that according to the example, both of godly kings in the Old Testament, and of Christian emperors and kings in the New.(1048) Chiefly, then, and justly(1049) the magistrate may and ought to urge and require synods, when they of the ecclesiastical order cease from doing their duty. Veruntamen si contra,(1050) &c. “Nevertheless (say they), if, contrariwise, the magistrate be an enemy and persecutor of the church and of true religion, or cease to do his duty; that is, to wit, in a manifest danger of the church, the church notwithstanding ought not to be wanting to herself, but ought to use the right and authority of convocation, which first and foremost remaineth with the rulers of the church, as may be seen, Acts xv.”

But that this be not thought a tenet of anti-episcopal writers alone, let us hear what is said by one of our greatest opposites:(1051) Neque defendimus ita, &c.: “Neither do we so defend that the right of convocating councils pertaineth to princes, as that the ecclesiastical prelates may no way either assemble themselves together by mutual consent, or be convocated by the authority of the metropolitan, primate, or patriarch. For the apostles did celebrate councils without any convocation of princes. So many councils that were celebrate before the first Nicea, were, without all doubt, gathered together by the means alone of ecclesiastical persons; for to whom directly the church is fully committed, they ought to bear the care of the church. Yet princes in some respect indirectly, for help and aid, chiefly then when the prelates neglect to convocate councils, or are destitute of power for doing of the same, of duty may, and use to convocate them.” Where we see his judgment to be, that the power of convocating councils pertaineth directly to ecclesiastical persons, and to princes only indirectly, for that they ought to give help and aid to the convocation of the same, especially when churchmen either will not or cannot assemble themselves together. His reasons whereupon he groundeth his judgment are two, and those strong ones.

1. The apostolical councils, Acts vi. 2; iv. 16, and so many as were assembled before the first council of Nice, were not convocated by princes, but by ecclesiastical persons without the leave of princes; therefore, in the like cases, the church ought to use the like liberty, that is, when there is need of synods, either for preventing or reforming some corruptions in the doctrine or policy of the church; and for avoiding such inconveniences as may impede the course of the gospel (princes in the meantime being hostile opposites to the truth of God and to the purity of religion), then to convocate the same without their authority and leave.

2. The church is fully committed (and that directly) to the ministers whom Christ hath set to rule over the same; therefore they ought to take care and to provide for all her necessities as those who must give account, and be answerable to God for any hurt which she receiveth in things spiritual or ecclesiastical, for which (when they might) they did not provide a remedy, which being so, it followeth, that when princes will neither convocate synods, nor consent to the convocating of them, yet if the convocating of a synod be a necessary mean for healing of the church’s hurt, and ecclesiastical persons be able (through the happy occasion of a fit opportunity) synodically to assemble themselves, in that case they ought by themselves to come together, unless one would say that princes alone, and not pastors, must give account to God how it hath gone with the church in matters spiritual and ecclesiastical.

If it be objected that our divines maintain against Papists, that the right and power of convocating synods pertaineth to princes: Ans., And so say I; but for making the purpose more plain I add three directions: 1. In ordinary cases, and when princes are not enemies to the truth and purity of the gospel, ecclesiastical persons should not do well to assemble themselves together in a synod, except they be convocate with the authority or consent of princes. Yet, as Junius showeth,(1052) in extraordinary cases, and when the magistrate will not concur nor join with the church, the church may well assemble and come together beside his knowledge, and without his consent, for that extraordinary evils must have extraordinary remedies. 2. Ecclesiastical persons may convocate councils simply, and by a spiritual power and jurisdiction; but to convocate them by a temporal and coactive power, pertaineth to princes only. “Ecclesiastical power (saith the Archbishop of Spalato(1053)) may appoint and convocate councils; but yet the ecclesiastical power itself cannot, with any effect or working, compel bishops, especially if the bishops of another province, or kingdom, or patriarchship, be to be convocated. For because the church can work by her censures, and deprive them who refuse of her communion, if they come not, yet they shall not therefore come to the council if they contemn the censure; therefore that no man may be able to resist, it is necessary that they be called by a coactive authority, which can constrain them who gainstand, both with banishments and bodily punishments, and compel the bishops, not only of one province, but also of the whole kingdom or empire, to convene.” 3. In the main and substantial respects, the convocations of councils pertaineth to the ministers of the church, that is, as councils are ecclesiastical meetings, for putting order to ecclesiastical matters, they ought to be assembled by the spiritual power of the ministers, whose part it is to espy and note all the misorders and abuses in the church, which must be righted; but because councils are such meetings as must have a certain place designed for them in the dominions and territories of princes, needing further, for their safe assembling, a certification of their princely protection; and, finally, it being expedient for the better success of councils, that Christian princes be present therein, either personal or by their commissioners, that they may understand the councils, conclusions, and decrees, and assenting unto the same, ratify and establish them by their regal and royal authority, because of these circumstances it is, that the consent and authority of Christian princes is, and ought to be, sought and expected for the assembling of synods.

As for the right of presidency and moderation, we distinguish, with Junius,(1054) two sorts of it, both which have place in councils, viz., the moderation of the ecclesiastical action, and the moderation of the human order; and with him we say, that in councils, the whole ecclesiastical action ought to be moderated by such a president as is elected for the purpose; even as Hosius, bishop of Corduba, was chosen to preside in the first council of Nice: which office agreeth not with princes; for in the point of propounding rightly the state of questions and things to be handled, and of containing the disputation in good order, certe præsidere debet persona ecclesiastica, in sacris literis erudita, saith the Archbishop of Spalato.(1055) The presiding and moderating in the human order, that is, by a coactive power to compass the turbulent, to avoid all confusion and contention, and to cause a peaceable proceeding and free deliberation, pertaineth indeed to princes, and so did Constantine preside in the same council of Nice.

DIGRESSION III.

OF THE JUDGING OF CONTROVERSIES AND QUESTIONS OF FAITH.

There is a twofold judgment which discerneth and judgeth of faith. The one absolute, whereby the Most High God, whose supreme authority alone bindeth us to believe whatsoever he propoundeth to be believed by us, hath in his written word pronounced, declared, and established, what he would have us to believe concerning himself or his worship; the other limited and subordinate, which is either public or private. That which is public is either ordinary or extraordinary. The ministerial or subordinate public judgment, which I call ordinary, is the judgment of every pastor or doctor, who, by reason of his public vocation and office, ought by his public ministry to direct and instruct the judgments of other men in matters of faith, which judgment of pastors and doctors is limited and restricted to the plain warrants and testimonies of Holy Scripture, they themselves being only the ambassadors(1056) of the Judge to preach and publish the sentence which he hath established, so that a pastor is not properly judex but index. The subordinate public judgment, which is extraordinary, is the judgment of a council assembled for the more public and effectual establishment and declaration of one or more points of faith and heads of Christian doctrine, and that in opposition to all contrary heresy or error, which is broached and set a-foot in the church. From which council,(1057) no Christian man who is learned in the Scriptures may be excluded, but ought to be admitted to utter his judgment in the same; for in the indagation or searching out of a matter of faith, they are not the persons of men which give authority to their sayings, but the reasons and documents which every one bringeth for his judgment. The subordinate judgment, which I call private, is the judgment of discretion whereby every Christian,(1058) for the certain information of his own mind, and the satisfaction of his own conscience, may and ought to try and examine, as well the decrees of councils as the doctrines of particular pastors, and in so far to receive and believe the same, as he understandeth them to agree with the Scriptures.

Besides these, there is no other kind of judgment which God hath allowed to men in matters of faith, which being first observed, we say next, concerning the part of princes, that when questions and controversies of faith are tossed in the church, that which pertaineth to them is, to convocate a council for the decision of the matter, civilly to moderate the same, by causing such an orderly and peaceable proceeding as is alike necessary in every grave assembly, whether of the church or of the commonwealth; and, finally, by their coactive temporal power to urge and procure that the decrees of the council be received, and the faith therein contained professed, by their subjects.

But neither may they, by their own authority and without a council, decide any controverted matter of faith, nor yet having convocated a council, may they take upon them to command, rule, order, and dispose the disputes and deliberations according to their arbitrement; nor, lastly, may they, by virtue of their regal dignity, claim any power to examine the decrees concluded in the council, otherwise than by the judgment of private discretion which is common to every Christian.

First, I say, they may not by themselves presume, publicly and judicially, to decide and define any matter of faith, which is questioned in the church; but this definition they ought to remit unto a lawful and free council. Ambrose would not come to the court to be questioned and judged by the emperor Valentinian in a matter of faith, whenever he heard that emperors judged bishops in matters of faith, seeing, if that were granted, it would follow that laymen should dispute and debate matters, and bishops hear, yea, that bishops should learn of laymen.

The true ground of which refusal (clear enough in itself) is darkened by Dr Field,(1059) who allegeth, 1. That the thing which Valentinian took on him was, to judge of a thing already resolved in a general council called by Constantine, as if it had been free, and not yet judged of at all. 2. That Valentinian was known to be partial; that he was but a novice; and the other judges which he meant to associate himself suspected; but howsoever these circumstances might serve the more to justify Ambrose’s not compearing to be judged in a matter of faith by Valentinian, yet the Doctor toucheth not that which is most considerable, namely, the reason which he alleged for his not compearing, because it hath been at no time heard of that emperors judged bishops in matters of faith, and if that were granted, it would follow that bishops should learn of laymen; which reason holdeth ever good, even though the thing hath not been formerly judged by a council.

And, furthermore, if those (which the Doctor mentioneth) were the true reasons of his refusing to be judged by Valentinian, then why did he pretend another reason (whereof we have heard), and not rather defend himself with the real and true reason? Wherefore we gather, that the reason which made Ambrose refuse to be judged by him was no other than this, because he considered that princes, neither by themselves, nor by any whom they please to choose, may, without a lawfully assembled and free council, usurp a public judgment and decisive sentence in controversies of faith, which, if they arrogate to themselves, they far exceed the bounds of their vocation; for it is not said of princes, but of priests, that their lips should preserve knowledge, and that they should seek the law from their mouths, Mal. ii. 7. And the priests did Jehoshaphat set in “Jerusalem, for the judgment of the Lord, and for controversies,” 2 Chron. xix. 8, 10, and for judging betwixt law and commandment, statutes and judgments.

In the meanwhile we deny not but that in extraordinary cases, when lawful councils cannot be had, and when the clergy is universally corrupted through gross ignorance, perverse affections, and incorrigible negligence, in such a case the prince, notwithstanding the defect of the ordinary and regular judges, may yet, by the power of the civil sword, repress and punish so many as publish and spread such doctrines as both he and other Christians, by the judgment of discretion, plainly understand from Scripture to be heretical.

Next, I say, that the prince, having assembled a council, may not take so much upon him as imperiously to command what he thinketh good in the disputes and deliberations, and to have everything ordered, disposed, and handled according to his mind. “To debate and define theological controversies, and to teach what is orthodoxal, what heretical, is the office of divines, yet, by a coactive authority, to judge this orthodox faith to be received by all, and heretical pravity to be rejected, is the office of kings, or the supreme magistrates, in every commonwealth,” saith the Bishop of Salisbury.(1060) And, again,(1061) “In searching, directing, teaching, divines ordinarily, and by reason of their calling, ought to go before kings themselves; but in commanding, establishing, compelling, kings do far excel:” where he showeth how, in defining of the controversies of religion, in one respect ecclesiastical persons, and in another respect kings, have the first place.

In the debating of a question of faith, kings have not, by virtue of their princely vocation, any precedency or chief place, the action being merely ecclesiastical. For howbeit kings may convocate a council, preside also and govern the same as concerning the human and political order, yet, saith Junius,(1062) Actiones, deliberationes, et definitiones, ad substantiam rei ecclesiasticae pertinentes, a sacerdotio sunt, a caetu servoram Dei, quibus rei suoe administrationem mandavit Deus. And, with him, the Archbishop of Spalato saith, in like manner,(1063) that howbeit Christian princes have convocated councils, and civilly governed the same, yet they had no power nor authority in the very discussing, handling and deciding of matters of faith.

What then? In the handling of controversies of faith, have princes no place nor power at all beside that of political government only? Surely, by virtue of their princely authority, they have no other place in the handling of these matters. Yet, what if they be men of singular learning and understanding in the Scriptures? Then let them propound their own suffrage, with the grounds and reasons of it, even as other learned men in the council do. But neither as princes, nor as men singularly learned, may they require that others in the council shall dispute and debate matters, and that they themselves shall sit as judges having judicial power of a negative voice; for in a council no man’s voice hath any greater strength than his reasons and probation have. Non enim admitto, &c: “For I admit not in a council (saith the same prelate(1064)) some as judges, others as disputators, for I have showed that a conciliary judgment consisteth in the approbation of that sentence which, above others, hath been showed to have most weight, and to which no man could enough oppose. Wherefore no man in the council ought to have a judiciary voice, unless he be withal a disputator, and assigns a reason wherefore he assigns to that judgment and repels another, and that reason such a one as is drawn from the Scripture only, and from antiquity.”

Lastly, I hold, that, after the definition and decision of a council, princes may not take upon them, by any judicial power or public vocation, to examine the same, as if they had authority to pronounce yet another decisive sentence, either ratifying or reversing what the council hath decreed. Most certain it is, that, before princes give their royal assent unto the decrees of any council whatsoever, and compel men to receive and acknowledge the same, they ought, first of all, carefully to try and examine them whether they agree with the Scriptures or not; and, if they find them not to agree with the Scriptures, then to deny their assent and authority thereto. But all the princes do not by any judicial power or public authority, but only by the judgment of private discretion, which they have as Christians, and which, together with them, is common also to their subjects; for neither may a master of a family commend to his children and servants the profession of that faith which is published by the decrees of a council, except, in like manner, he examine the same by the Scriptures.

DIGRESSION IV.

OF THE POWER OF THE KEYS, AND ECCLESIASTICAL CENSURES.

Ecclesiastical censures and punishments, wherewith delinquents are bound, and from which, when they turn penitents, they are loosed, are of two sorts: either such as are common, and agree unto all, as excommunication and absolution; or such as are peculiar, and agree only to men of ecclesiastical order, as suspension, deprivation, &c.

As touching the power of the keys, to bind and loose, excommunicate and absolve; first of all, princes are to remember, that neither they may, by themselves, exercise this power (for regum est corporalem irrogare paenam; sacerdotum spiritualem inferre vindictam(1065)), nor yet by their deputies or commissioners in their name, and with authority from them; because, as they have not themselves the power of the keys, so neither can they communicate the same unto others. Secondly, Forasmuch as princes are the wardens, defenders, and revengers of both the Tables, they ought, therefore, to provide and take course that neither laymen be permitted to have and exercise, the power of excommunication, nor yet that the prelates themselves be suffered, in their particular dioceses, to appropriate this power and external jurisdiction, as peculiar to themselves; but that it remain in their hands to whom it pertaineth by divine institution. What a woeful abuse is it, that, in our neighbour churches of England and Ireland, the bishop’s vicar-general, or official, or commissary, being oftentimes such a one as hath never entered into any holy orders, shall sit in his courts to use (I should have said abuse) the power of excommunication and absolution? And what though some silly presbyter be present in the court? Doth not the bishop’s substitute, being a layman, examine and judge the whole matter, decree, and give sentence what is to be done? Hath he not the presbyter’s tongue tied to his belt? And what doth the presbyter more but only pronounce the sentence according to that which he who sitteth judge in the court hath decreed and decerned? As touching the prelates themselves, I pray, by what warrant have they appropriated to themselves the whole external jurisdiction of binding and loosing, excommunicating and absolving? But that we may a little scan this their usurpation, and discover the iniquity thereof to the view of the princes, whose part it is to cause the same to be reformed, let us consider to whom Christ himself, who hath the key of David (Rev. iii. 7), who openeth and no man shutteth, and shutteth and no man openeth, hath committed this power of the keys to be used on earth. And, first, Let us distinguish betwixt the power itself, and the execution of it.

The power and authority of binding and loosing Christ hath delivered to the whole church, that is, to every particular church collectively taken. “The authority of excommunication pertaineth to the whole church,” saith Dr Fulk.(1066) Jus excommunicandi, saith Balduine,(1067) non est penes quamvis privatum, sive ex ordine sit ecclesiastico, sive politico, &c. Sed hoc jus pertiner ad totam ecclesiam. So say Zanchius (in 4 Praec., col. 756), Polanus (Synt., lib. 7, cap. 18), Pareus (in 1 Cor. v., De Excom.), Cartwright (on 1 Cor. v. 4), Perkins (on Jude 3): and, generally, all our sound writers. The Magdeburgians(1068) cite, for the same judgment, Augustine and Primatius. Gerhard(1069) citeth also some popish writers assenting hereunto. The reasons which we give for confirmation hereof are these:—

1. It pertaineth to the whole church, collectively taken, to deny her Christian communion to such wicked persons as add contumacy to their disobedience: therefore, it pertaineth to the whole church to excommunicate them. Again, it pertaineth to the whole church to admit and receive one into her communion and familiar fellowship: therefore, to the whole church it likewise pertaineth to cast one out of her communion. Sure, the sentence of excommunication is pronounced in vain, except the whole church cut off the person thus judged from all communion with her: and the sentence of absolution is to as little purpose pronounced, except the whole church admit one again to have communion with her. Shortly, the whole church hath the power of punishing a man, by denying her communion unto him: therefore, the whole church hath the power of judging that he ought to be so punished. The whole church hath the power of remitting this punishment again: therefore, the whole church hath the power of judging that it ought to be remitted.

2. The Apostle, in 1 Cor. v., showeth that the Israelites’ purging away of leaven out of their dwellings in the time of the passover, was a figure of excommunication, whereby disobedient and obstinate sinners, who are as leaven to infect other men, are to be avoided and thrust out of the church. Now, as the purging away of the leaven did not peculiarly belong unto any one, or some few, among the Israelites, but unto the whole congregation of Israel; so the Apostle, writing to the whole church of Corinth, even to as many as should take care to have the whole lump kept unleavened, saith to them all, “Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump? Purge out, therefore, the old leaven. Put away from among yourselves that wicked person,” 1 Cor. v. 6, 7, 13.

3. Christ hath delivered the power of binding and loosing to every particular church or congregation, collectively taken, which thus we demonstrate:—If our brother who trespasseth against us will neither be reclaimed by private admonition, nor yet by a rebuke given him before some more witnesses, then, saith Christ, “Tell it unto the church; but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican. Verily, I say unto you, whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven,” Matt. xviii. 17, 18: where he showeth, that, in the Christian church (which he was to plant by the ministry of the apostles), excommunication was to be used as the last remedy for curing of the most deadly and desperate evils; which excommunication he setteth forth by allusion unto the order and custom of the Jews in his time, among whom they who were cast out, and excommunicate from the synagogue, were accounted as heathens and publicans. And so when he saith, “Let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican,” he presupposeth that the church hath excommunicated him for his contumacy, which he hath added to his disobedience. For, as Pareus saith,(1070) “If by me, and thee, and every one, he is to be accounted for such a man, it must needs be that the judgment of the church be, by public declaration, made known to me, and thee, and every one. And this meaning is thoroughly drawn out of the following verse—‘For whatsoever ye shall bind on earth,’ &c.; therefore, the church ought first to bind him before he ought to be accounted by me or thee for one bound, that is, excommunicate.” Now, what meaneth Christ by the church, to which he giveth the power of binding and loosing? Not the church universal, sure; for I cannot tell the church universal (whether it be understood collective or representative) whensoever my brother trespasseth against me, and will not be reformed. He meaneth, therefore, the particular church, whereof, for the time, it shall happen one to be a member. “The power of the keys (saith Perkins(1071)) is given to all ministers, churches, and congregations.” Neither could there, otherwise, an ordinary, perpetual, and ready course be had, for the correcting of all public contumacy and scandal, by the means of ecclesiastical discipline. But it will be said, when he biddeth us tell that particular church whereof we are members, he meaneth not that we should tell the whole body of that church collective, but that we should tell the governors of the church, who are the church representative.

How, then, is this place alleged to prove that the whole church collective hath power and authority to bind and loose?

Ans. Christ meaneth, indeed, that we should tell those governors who represent the church; but whilst he calleth them by the name of the church, and sendeth us to them as to those who represent the church, he plainly insinuateth that they exercise the power of the keys (as in his name, so) in the name of the church, and that this power and authority pertaineth to the whole church, even as when one man representeth another man’s person, whatsoever power he exerciseth eo nomine, doth first of all agree to the man who is represented.

4. The Apostle, in his own proper person, writing to the whole church at Corinth, 1 Cor. v. 4, 5, will have them (being gathered together) to deliver that incestuous person to Satan; therefore, every particular church or congregation hath power to excommunicate such a contumacious sinner as that incestuous person was. It is the common answer of Papists, that albeit the Apostle commanded the act should be done in face of the church, yet the judgment and authority of giving sentence was in himself alone, and not in the church of Corinth, whereupon they would make it to follow, that the power of excommunication pertaineth to the bishop alone, and not the church. And the same answer doth Saravia return to Beza;(1072) but, howsoever, the Apostle saith, that he had already judged concerning the incestuous person, yet he did not hereby seclude the church of Corinth from the authority of excommunicating him. “It is to be observed (saith Calvin(1073)) that Paul, albeit he was an apostle, doth not for his own will excommunicate alone, but communicateth his council with the church, that the thing may be done by common authority. Himself, indeed, goeth before and showeth the way, but whilst he adjoineth to himself other partakers, he signifieth sufficiently that it is not the private power of one man.” Nay, let us farther observe with Junius,(1074) that the apostles hath a twofold power: one common to them with other presbyters, 1 Pet. v. 1; another, singular, proper, and extraordinary, which they had as apostles. By this singular power Paul saith, “What will ye? shall I come unto you with a rod?” 1 Cor. iv. 21; but by the common power it was that he said, “When ye are gathered together, and my spirit,” &c., 1 Cor. v. 4. By no other power than that which was common to him with the rest of the presbyters or bishops in Corinth did he judge the incestuous person to be excommunicated; and thus, as though he had been present in body among the other presbyters of that church, and assembled together with them in their ordinary council or consistory (in which fuerunt liberi apostoli, alii vero presbyteri ex vocatione propria, et necessitate officii(1075)), so he both pronounceth(1076) his own judgment, and likewise goeth before, by pronouncing that judgment which was to be in common by them pronounced. Furthermore, that the Apostle would not have that incestuous man to be excommunicate by his own authority alone, but by the authority of the church of Corinth, thus it appeareth:

1. The Apostle challengeth and condemneth the Corinthians, 1 Cor. v. 2, 6, 9, because they had not excommunicate him before his writing unto them, which he would never have done if that church had not had power and authority of excommunication.

2. Howbeit the Apostle gave his judgment, that he should be excommunicate, because he ought not to have been tolerated in the church, yet, for all that, he should not have been indeed excommunicate and thrust out of the church of Corinth, except the ministers and elders of that church had, in name of the whole body of the same, judicially cast him forth and delivered him to Satan, which plainly argueth that he should not have been excommunicate by the Apostle’s authority alone, but by the authority of the church of Corinth.

3. The Apostle only showeth that he should be excommunicate, but referreth the giving of sentence and judgment upon him to the Corinthians; for he saith not that the Corinthians, being gathered together, should declare or witness that such an one was delivered to Satan by Paul’s own power and authority, but that they themselves should deliver him to Satan, ver. 4, 5. And again, “Purge out, therefore, the old leaven; put away from among yourselves that wicked person,” ver. 7, 13. But, saith Saravia,(1077) partes apostoli in illa actione fuerunt authoritatis, ecclesiae vero Corinthiacae, obedientiae. Ans. That the action was done by the authority of the church of Corinth, it is manifest both from that which hath been said, and likewise if further we consider that the Apostle ascribeth to the Corinthians as much authority in this action as he assumeth to himself. For he saith of himself, that he had judged concerning him that had done this deed, ver. 3; and so he saith of them, “Do not ye judge them that are within?” ver. 12. Where he speaketh not of the judgment of private discretion (for so they might have judged them that were without also), but even of the external and authoritative judgment of ecclesiastical discipline. The Apostle, indeed, saith, 2 Cor. ii. 9, that he wrote to the Corinthians to excommunicate that person, that he might know them, whether they were obedient in all things; but this proveth not that the authority of the excommunication was not theirs; for their part in this action proceeded both from authority and from obedience: from authority, absolutely; from obedience in, in some respect. De jure they had no liberty nor power not to excommunicate him, but were bound to do that which Paul pointed out to be their duty, and in that respect he calleth them obedient; yet absolutely and de facto it was free to them (notwithstanding of Paul’s writing to them) either to excommunicate him or not to excommunicate him, and if they had not by their authority excommunicate him, he had not been at all excommunicate by any virtue of Paul’s adjudging of him.

4. When the Corinthians proceeded to excommunicate him, the Apostle calleth this a censure which was inflicted of many, ver. 6, which could not be said if he was to be excommunicate by the Apostle’s authority alone.

5. The Apostle, ver. 7, writeth again to the Corinthians, to forgive the incestuous man, to receive him into their communion, and to remit the punishment of his excommunication, because he was won to repentance. And he addeth, ver. 10, “To whom ye forgive anything, I forgive also.” Now, who can remit the punishment and save one from underlying the censure, except such as have the power and authority of judgment?

Hitherto we have proven that the power of binding and loosing pertaineth to every particular church collectively taken; but the execution and judicial exercising of this power pertaineth to that company and assembly of elders in every church which the Apostle, 1 Tim. iv. 14, calleth a presbytery. In Scotland we call it a session; in France it is called a consistory; in Germany and Belgia, according to the Scripture phrase, it is termed a presbytery. It is made up of the pastor or pastors of every congregation, together with those governing elders which labour there (not in doctrine, but) in discipline only, of which things we have spoken before.(1078) That unto this company or consistory of elders pertaineth the power of binding and loosing, it is averred by the best divines: Calvin (on Matt. viii. 17, 18, et Lib. Epist., col. 168, 169), Beza (Contra Saraviam de Divers. Minist. Grad.), Zanchius (in 4 Praec., col. 756), Junius (Animad. in Bell., cont. 5, lib. 1, cap. 14, nota 28), Polanus (Synt., lib. 7, cap. 18), Tilen (Synt., part 2, disp. 28), the Professors of Leyden (Syn. Pur. Theol., disp. 48), Gerhard (Loc. Theol., tom. 6, p. 137, 138), Balduine (de Cas. Cons., lib. 4, cap. 11, cas. 11), Pareus (in Matt, xviii. 17, 18; and in 1 Cor. v.), Cartwright (in Matt. xviii., sect. 7), Fennerus (Theol., lib. 7, cap. 7, p. 152, 153), Alstedius (Theol. Casuum, cap. 27), Danæus (Pol. Christ., lib. 6, p. 452, 464), Hemmingius (Enchirid., class. 3, cap. 11, p. 388), Martyr (in 1 Cor. v.), and sundry others. Bullinger recordeth(1079) that this was the manner of the particular churches in Helvetia, to choose unto themselves a certain senate of elders, or company of the best men in the church, which might, according to the canon of holy Scripture, exercise the discipline of excommunication, which form is well warranted by the Scriptures; for when Christ committeth the authority of binding and loosing unto the church, Matt. viii. 17, 18, however the power and authority itself pertain to any particular church collectively taken, as hath been said, yet the execution of the same is committed to the consistory or senate of elders which representeth that church, and which Paul calleth a presbytery. Zanchius saith that Chrysostom,(1080) Bullinger, and all good interpreters, understand the presbytery to be there meant by Christ when he saith, “Tell the church.” Chrysostom saith προίδροις καὶ προεστῶσι, that is, saith Junius,(1081) the ecclesiastical sanhedrim made up of pastors and elders. Thus Camero likewise expoundeth the place.(1082) Ecclesiæ nomine, saith he, videtur Christus significasse collegium presbyterorum qui ecelesiæ Christianæ erant præfuturi, cujus presbyterii mentio fit, 1 Tim. iv. Now if Christ hath committed the power of excommunication unto the church, what have bishops to say for themselves who appropriate this power unto themselves, each one in his diocese? For when we cannot give the name of the church unto a bishop,(1083) because he is but one man, and the church is a company of many men; nay, nor yet can we give the name of the church unto a company of bishops, for if they might be called the church, it should be for this respect alone, because they represent the church: but soli episcopi, &c., “Bishops alone (saith Gerhard(1084)), or they who teach, cannot represent the church, since hearers also pertain to the definition thereof, but the presbytery can represent the church, whereunto not only they pertain who labour in the word, but also elders or governors put in authority for expeding of ecclesiastical matters in name of the whole church:” we grant, then, that by the church, Christ meaneth that company of church governors whereby a certain particular church is represented;(1085) but forasmuch as the church consisteth of two integrant parts, viz., pastors and sheep, teachers and hearers, we therefore deny that the representative church whereof Christ speaketh, can be any other than that ecclesiastical consistory whereof we have spoken.

Moreover, albeit the Apostle wrote to the whole church of Corinth to deliver the incestuous man to Satan, because the matter could not be otherwise done, but only in the name and with the consent of that whole church; yet he never meant that the common promiscuous multitude should, by their suffrages and voices, examine and judge that cause. But, saith Calvin,(1086) “Because the multitude, unless it be governed by council, never doth anything moderately nor gravely, there was ordained in the ancient church (meaning the apostolic church) a presbytery; that is, a company of elders which, by the consent of all, had the first judgment and examination of things; from it the matter was carried to the people, but being already determined before.” Again, when the Apostle writeth to them in his second epistle that they should forgive him, because he hath repented, thus he reasoneth: “Sufficient to such a man is this censure which was inflicted of many,” 2 Cor. ii. 6. Which words, that we may the better understand, it is worthy of observation (which not Calvin only,(1087) but Saravia also noteth(1088)), that it appeareth from this place, he was not to excommunicate, but, by sharp rebukes, timeously win to repentance, whereby the Apostle showeth it to be needless, yea, most inconvenient, to proceed against him to the extremity of discipline. The word ἐπιτιμία, there used by the Apostle, signifieth rebuke, reprehension, or chiding, saith Dr Fulk;(1089) and so Scapula taketh it to be the same with ἐπιτίμησις and to signify another thing than ἐπιτίμιον or ἐπιτιμημα. Beza and Tremellius turn ἐπιπμία by increpatio; Ar. Montanus readeth objurgatio. This chiding or threatening of the man proceeded not from the whole church of Corinth, but only from many therein, as is plain from the text, and as Saravia also granteth.(1090) And who were the πλέιοιες, those many of whom the Apostle speaketh? Not such as, from Christian and brotherly charity, did privately chide and rebuke him, for the matter was not then depending in private rebukes, but by the Apostle’s direction it was brought to the church’s part and to public discipline, the scandal itself being so public and notoriously manifest; they were, therefore, such as had public office and authority to chide him. And who were those but the consistory of pastors and elders which represented the whole church, and were set in authority for judging and managing of things pertaining to ecclesiastical discipline? They (no doubt) being met together, called the man before them, and did most sharply rebuke him and chide with him, and threatened that they would not only debar him from the Lord’s table (which is called lesser excommunication, but more properly a step or degree tending next to excommunication), but also wholly cast him out of the church and deliver him to Satan. Whereupon the man being made to see the grievousness of his sin, and the terrible punishment which was to follow upon it, becometh most sorrowful, humble, and penitent. And this moved the Apostle to say, “Sufficient to such a man,” &c., as if he would say, What needeth him now to be excommunicate, and so to be corrected and put to shame by you all, when every one of you shall deny to him your Christian communion, as one wholly cast out of the church? Is it not enough that many among you, even your whole presbytery, hath put him to such public shame by their sharp reprehensions, and to so great fear by their dreadful threatenings? And since, through the blessing of God upon these means, he is already win to repentance, why would you have him yet more publicly corrected and rejected by all and every one.

And further, the Apostle addeth, that now they should not only forgive and comfort him, ver. 7, but also confirm (κυρῶσαι) their love towards him, ver. 8. Now κύροω signifieth to confirm or ratify by authority; and so Chemnitius,(1091) Bullinger,(1092) and Cartwright,(1093) expoundeth it in this place. It cometh from κῦρος, authority, whence cometh also κύριος, a lord, or one having authority. As, therefore, the presbytery, or company of pastors and elders, had, by their authority, established that he was to be excommunicate, and determined to proceed to the execution of extreme discipline against him, so now the Apostle would have them, by the same authority, to ratify and establish the remission of this punishment unto him, and to decree that the church should not deny her communion unto him. For this authority of binding and loosing, though it pertained to the whole church, in actu primo sive in esse, yet it pertained to the presbytery alone, in actu secundo sive in operara; and even as the act of speaking pertaineth to a man, as principium quod, but to the tongue alone, as principium quo; so albeit the power of the keys doth primarily and principally belong to the church, collectively taken, yet the actual execution of this power belongeth only to the presbytery which representeth the church, and unto which the church hath committed her authority to bind and loose. Wherefore, since the Apostle writeth to the whole church of Corinth to confirm, by their authority, their love to the penitent man; and since this authority, in the actual execution of it (which the Apostle craveth) did not agree to that whole church, collectively taken, we must needs understand his meaning to be, that their love towards that man, and their forgiving of him, should be ratified and confirmed by the authority of those church governors, qui ecclesiae nomen ad coetum repraesentant, totius nimirum presbyterii authoritate atque consensu.

Thus have we showed that the actual use of the keys, or the execution of the authority of binding and loosing, pertaineth to that ecclesiastical senate in every particular church, which the Apostle calleth a presbytery. For further illustration of the truth whereof, I add these four observations:—

1. We must distinguish(1094) a twofold power of the keys: the one is executed in doctrine; the other in discipline: the one concionalis; the other judicialis. Touching the former, we grant it is proper for pastors alone, whose office and vocation it is, by the preaching and publishing of God’s word, to shut the kingdom of heaven against impenitent and disobedient men, and to open it unto penitent sinners; to bind God’s heavy wrath upon the former, and (by application of the promises of mercy) to loose the latter from the sentence and fear of condemnation. When we ascribe the power of binding and loosing to that whole consistory, wherein governing elders are joined together with pastors, we mean only of the keys of external discipline, which are used in ecclesiastical courts and judicatories.

2. When we teach that the pastor or pastors of every particular church and congregation, with the elders of the same, being met together, have power to bind and loose, we understand this only of such places wherein a competent number of understanding and qualified men may be had to make up an eldership; otherwise let there be one eldership made up of two or three of the next adjacent parishes, according as was ordained by the Church of Scotland, in the 7th chapter of the Second Book of Discipline. Sine totius &c.: “Without the consent of some whole church (saith Zanchius(1095)) no man ought to be excommunicate. Yea, I add, if it be a small church, and not consisting of many learned and skilful men, excommunication ought not to be done, except the neighbour churches be asked counsel of.” And, as touching the pastor’s part, Calvin saith well, Nunquam, &c.:(1096) “I never thought it expedient the liberty of excommunicating should be permitted to every pastor.” The fear of great inconveniences, which he thought likely to follow upon such a custom, if once it were permitted, makes him confess, in that epistle, that he durst not advise Liserus to excommunicate any man without taking counsel of other pastors. Now, I much marvel what butt Dr Forbesse(1097) shot at when he entitleth one of his chapters De Potestate Excommunicandi, and then, in the body of the chapter, doth no more at all but only quote those two testimonies of Zanchius and Calvin; both of which do utterly condemn the usurpation of bishops who appropriate to themselves the power of excommunication, and ascribe this power to the consistory of pastors and elders in every particular church; and, in the forequoted places, do only (for preventing of abuses) set some bounds to the execution of their power; which bounds we also think good to be kept, viz., that if a church be so small that it hath not so many well-qualified men as may be sufficient to assist the pastor in the government thereof, then let one common eldership be made up out of it and some other neighbour churches: by which means it shall moreover come to pass (which is the other caution to be given), that not every pastor (no not with the elders of his congregation) shall be permitted to have full liberty of binding and loosing, but shall, in those matters, receive counsel and advice from other pastors. Howbeit, for this latter purpose, the church of Scotland hath profitably provided another remedy also, namely, that, in certain chief places, all the pastors in the adjacent bounds shall, at set and ordinary times, assemble themselves (which assemblies, in this nation, we call presbyteries), that so the churches may be governed communi presbyterorum consilio, as Jerome speaketh of the primitive times of the church.

3. Though the execution of the discipline of excommunication and absolution pertain to the consistory of the pastor and elders in every church, yet this discipline is to be by them executed in name of the whole church.(1098) Saravia is bold to affirm,(1099) that he who receiveth a sinner, or casteth him out of the church, doeth this in the name and authority of God alone. We have proven, by strong arguments, that the authority of excommunication pertaineth to the whole church; which, though he contradicteth, yet, in one place,(1100) forgetting himself, he acknowledges that the authority of the church of Corinth was to intervene in the excommunication of the incestuous man. Wherefore, as in the name of God, so in the name and authority of the whole church, must one be cast out or received.

4. To the right execution of this discipline the manifest consent of the whole church is also necessary:(1101) the truth whereof, beside that it appeareth from that which hath been said concerning the church’s authority, it is further confirmed, if we consider either the importance of the thing, or the good of the person. Touching the importance of the thing, Gravissima, &c.: “Most weighty matters in the church,” saith Gerhard,(1102) and the same saith Zanchius also,(1103) “ought not to be undertaken without the consent of the whole ecclesiastical body;” and, as Pope Leo writeth, “Such things as pertain unto all ought to be done with the consent of all. But what can be more weighty, and what doth more pertain to the body of the church, than to cut off some member from the body?” And, touching the good of the person, Augustine showeth(1104) that then only a sinner is both stricken with fear and healed with shame, when, seeing himself anathematised by the whole church, he cannot find a fellow multitude together wherewith he may rejoice in his sin and insult upon good men. And that otherwise, if the tares grow so rank that they cannot be pulled up, and if the same evil disease take hold of so very many that the consent of the church cannot be had to the excommunication of a wicked person, then good men must grieve and groan, and endure what they cannot help. Therefore that excommunication may fruitfully succeed, the consent of the people is necessary: Frustra enim ejicitur ex ecclesia, et consortio fidelium privatur, quem populus, abigere, et a quo abstinere recuset.(1105) Howbeit, even in such cases, when the consent of the church cannot be had to the execution of this discipline, faithful pastors and professors must, every one for his own part, take heed that he have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but even reprove them; yea, they ought, in. sensu negativo, excommunicate those who should be (but are not) excommunicate positively, which negative excommunication is not an ecclesiastical censure, but either a bare punishment, or a cautel and animadversion; and so saith the Archbishop of Spalato,(1106) not only one brother may refuse to communicate with another, but a people, also, may refuse to communicate with their pastor, which he confirmeth by certain examples. But the public censure of positive excommunication should not be inflicted without the church’s consent, for the reasons foresaid. Cyprian writeth to Cornelius, bishop of Rome, that he had much laboured with the people that peace might be given to them who had fallen; that is, that they might be again received into the communion of the church; which, if he might have done by himself, why did he labour and deal so much with the people in that business? And as they were not received into the church’s communion without the people’s consent, so neither were they without their consent excommunicate. Chrysostom showeth,(1107) concerning his time, that when one was to be excommunicate, the whole church was humbled in prayer to God for him; and, when he was again released, they did all kindly salute him, and wish him peace. Tertullian also writeth,(1108) that he who was to be excommunicate in the public assembly of the church, was, by the common consent of all, stricken with judgment, and that all the approven and well-liked elders had the precedence or direction of the rest of the church in these matters.

Now, from all this which hath been said of the power and authority to excommunicate and absolve, it is manifest how unjustly usurping prelates do arrogate and appropriate to themselves this power, which Christ hath committed to every particular church or congregation, and ordained to be execute by the ecclesiastical consistory within the same. Which episcopal usurpation, as it hath been showed to be most contrary to divine institution, so doth it also depart from the manner of the ancient church: for it may be seen, in Cyprian,(1109) that the authority of reconciling and receiving into the church such as had fallen, was not proper to the bishop, but, with him, common to his clergy and presbytery, and that jus communicationis was given them by the clergy as well as by the bishop. We have heard, out of Jerome,(1110) that a bishop did nothing which a presbyter did not also, except only that he gave rite or sign of ordination, that is, imposition of hands. Whereby we understand that as all other things, beside ordination, so the power of excommunication, among the rest, was alike common to bishops and presbyters. Whence it is, that the same Jerome, writing to Demetriades, calleth excommunication Episcoporum et Presbyterorum censura. And elsewhere, Alligat vel solvit Episcopus et Presbyter.(1111) Justinian (Novel. 123, cap. 11) saith, Omnibus autem Episcopis et Presbyteris interdicimus segregare aliquem a sacra communione, antequam causa monstretur, &c., certifying them, if they do otherwise, that he whom they excommunicate should be loosed from excommunication a majore sacerdota. Whence we see, that presbyters also were wont to excommunicate, and that this power was common to them with the bishops. The First Council of Carthage, can. 23, decreeth that a bishop hear no man’s cause without the presence of his clergy; and that otherwise his sentence shall be void, except it be confirmed by the presence of his clergy. The canon law itself hath some vestiges of the ancient order: it ordaineth,(1112) that when a bishop either excommunicateth or absolveth any man, twelve of the clergy be present, and concur with him. Dr Forbesse now also acknowledgeth,(1113) that it is not lawful for a bishop to exercise the power of public jurisdiction by himself, and without the presbytery; and, under this power of jurisdiction, whereof he speaketh,(1114) he comprehendeth the visitation of churches, ordination, suspension, and deposition of ministers, the excommunicating of contumacious persons, and the reconciling of them when they become penitent, the calling of the fellow-presbyters to a synod, the making of ecclesiastical canons, &c.; which power of jurisdiction, saith he,(1115) remaineth one and the same, whole and entire, both in the bishop, and in the presbytery: in him personally; in it collegially. His confession of the presbytery’s power and authority, we catch and lay hold on; but whereas he would have this power any way proper and personal to bishops, he is confuted by our former arguments.

And thus far have we demonstrated to princes, who be they to whom Christ hath committed the power of excommunication, that with them they may cause it to remain, and correct the usurpation of prelates, who bereave them of it. Let us next consider what princes may, or should do, after that the sentence of any man’s excommunication or reconciliation is given forth by them to whom the power of this discipline pertaineth. The Archbishop of Spalato is of opinion,(1116) that not only it is free to princes to communicate with excommunicate persons, but also, that if they shall happen to communicate with them, the church (for the reverence she oweth to princes) should straight absolve them, and that her sentence of excommunication should no longer have any strength. What! Shall the church draw and put up again the spiritual sword at the pleasure of princes? Or because princes will perhaps cast holy things to dogs, must others do so likewise? O prodigious licentiousness, and hellish misorder, worthy to be drowned in the lake of Lethe! But what, then, is the part of the prince, after that the church hath given judgment? Surely, whensoever need is, he ought, by the private judgment of Christian discretion, to try and examine whether this discipline be rightly executed or not. If he find the execution thereof to be unreprovable, and that yet the sinner goeth on in his contumacy, then, by his civil power,(1117) he ought further to punish him in his person or worldly estate, that he may either reform or repress such an one as hath not been terrified by the church’s censures. But if, after trial, he understand that the sentence given forth is unjust and erroneous, either through the ignorance or the malice of the ecclesiastical and regular judges, then he ought to interpone his authority, and cause a due proceeding; for, in such extraordinary cases of the failing of ecclesiastical persons, princes may do much in things spiritual, which, ordinarily, they cannot.

It remaineth to show who have the power of those censures and punishments which are proper to ecclesiastical persons. Where, first, we are to consider, that there are two sorts of faults which make ecclesiastical men worthy to be punished, viz., either such as violate sacred, or such as violate civil and human duties: the one is to be judged by ecclesiastical judges alone, and that according to the laws of God and the church; the other by civil judges alone, and that according to the civil and municipal laws of the commonwealth. This latter form, again, is twofold; for either the fault is such, that, though a man be condignly punished for it by the civil magistrate, yet he doth not, therefore, fall from his ecclesiastical office or dignity; of which sort experience showeth many; or else such as being punished according to their quality and demerit, a man, by necessary consequence, falleth from the ecclesiastical function and dignity which before he had: this was Abiathar’s case, and the case of so many as, being justly punished by proscription, incarceration, or banishment, are secundario et ex consequenti shut from their bearing office in the church. “If Abiathar had sinned in a sacred matter, the cognition thereof (saith Junius(1118)) had pertained to the priests; but because he sinned against the commonwealth and the king’s majesty, it was necessary to deal with him civilly, and not ecclesiastically. What! Are no ecclesiastical men in this time also thought to be lawfully judged by the civil magistrate, if, at any time, they be found guilty of appaired majesty?” As for the other sorts of faults, whereby (as we have said) sacred and ecclesiastical duties are violate, such as the teaching of false and heretical doctrine, neglecting of discipline, unbeseeming and scandalous conversation, &c. which things (if they be not mended) they who have the execution of ecclesiastical jurisdiction committed to them ought to punish by suspension, deposition, &c. Now, as when one is called to the work of the ministry, his fitness and qualification for that work should be tried and judged by the clergy of the adjacent bounds assembled in their classical presbytery, to whom it also appertaineth (after that he is by them tried and approved, and after that he is elected by the church where he is to serve) to send him out from them with power to exercise the office of a pastor; so when there is just cause of suspending and depriving him, it belongeth to the same presbytery to consider and judge hereof; and, according to his offence, to give judgment against him. For who should recal him but they that sent him? Or who should discharge him his ministerial function, except they who ordained him to exercise the same? And who may take the power from him but they who gave the power unto him? That ordination pertaineth to the whole presbytery, and not to the bishop alone, we have showed before, and now, by the same reason, we say suspension and deposition pertaineth to the presbytery also, and are not in the power of the bishop. And that, in the ancient church, as bishops gave not ordination, so neither did they suspend nor depose any man without the common counsel, advice, and concurrence of the presbytery, yea, and sometimes of a synod, it is clear from Cypr. (lib. 1, epist. 9; lib. 3, epist. 2, 10), Council Carthag. 3 (can. 8), Council Carthag. 4 (can. 22, 23), Council African. (can. 20), Council Hispan. 2 (can. 6), Justin. (Novel. 42, cap. 1), Jerome (Comment. ad Isa 3), Siricius (Epist ad Ambros. inter Ambr. Epist.) So, touching the suspension and deposition of ministers, the Assembly at Glasgow, anno 1610, ordained that the bishop should associate to himself the ministry of those bounds where the delinquent served, that is, the presbytery whereof he hath been a member, and, together with them, there take trial of the fact, and, upon just cause found, to deprive or suspend: which Act was ratified in the 12th parliament of king James, anno 1612. Nevertheless, if any man think the sentence of the bishop and the presbytery, given forth against him, to be unjust, he ought to have liberty of recourse to the synod, and there to be heard, according as it was decreed by the Fourth Council of Carthage, can. 66. But oftimes the matter is of such difficulty or importance that the bishop and the presbytery may not give out any peremptory sentence of suspension or deprivation till the matter be brought to the synod of the province,(1119) where, according to the ancient order, the matter is to be handled,(1120) not “by the censure of one bishop, but by the judgment of the whole clergy gathered together.”

Princes, therefore, may not suffer bishops to usurp the power of suspending and depriving at their pleasure, and whensoever they commit any such tyranny in smiting of their fellow-servants, it is the part of princes to cause these things to be redressed, and for this end graciously to receive the grievances of oppressed ministers. The Arians of old, being assembled in a council at Antioch, decreed, that if any ecclesiastical person should, without the advice and the letters of the bishops(1121) of the province, and chiefly of the metropolitan, go to the emperor to put up any grievance unto him, he should be cast out, not only from the holy communion, but from his proper dignity which he had in the church. Whereupon Osiander hath this observation:(1122) “This canon also was composed against holy Athanasius; for Athanasius being expelled by the Arians, had fled to the emperor Constantine the younger, and had from him obtained a return to his own church. Now this canon is very unjust, which forbids that a bishop, or any other minister of the church, being unjustly oppressed, flee to his godly civil magistrate; since it was lawful to the apostle Paul to appeal to the Roman emperor wicked Nero, as the Acts of the Apostles witness. But it may be seen in this place, that bishops were very soon seeking dominion, yea, tyranny over the church, and over their colleges.” Besides all this, there is yet another thing which ought to have a very principal consideration in the deposition of a minister, and that is, the consent of the church and congregation where he hath served. Let the magistrate know, saith Gerhard,(1123) “that as the vocation of ministers pertaineth to the whole church, so to the same also pertaineth the removing of ministers; therefore, as a minister ought not to be obtruded upon an unwilling church, so the hearers, being unwilling and striving against it, a fit minister ought not to be plucked away from them.” The deposing of a minister, whom the church loves and willingly hears, Balduine accounteth to be high sacrilege,(1124) and holdeth that, as the calling, so the dismissing of ministers pertaineth to the whole church; and so teacheth Junius.(1125) Shortly, as a man is rightly called to the ministerial office and dignity when he is elected by the church and ordained by the presbytery, so is he rightly deposed and put from the same when he is rejected by the church and discharged by the presbytery.

How there was brought forth in Scotland, anno 1610, a certain amphibian brood, sprung out of the stem of Neronian tyranny, and in manners like to his nearest kinsman, the Spanish Inquisition. It is armed with a transcendant power, and called by the dreadful name of the High Commission. Among other things, it arrogateth to itself the power of deposing ministers; but how unjustly, thus it appeareth:

1. If those commissioners have any power at all to depose ministers, they have it from the king, whose commissioners they are: but from him they have it not; therefore they have none at all. The proposition is most certain; for they sit not in that commission to judge in their own name, nor by their own authority, (quum nihil exerceat delegatus nomine proprio, as Panormitan saith,(1126)) but by virtue only of the commission and delegation which they have of the king. Yea, bishops themselves exercise not any jurisdiction in the High Commission as bishops, but only as the king’s commissioners, as Dr Downame acknowledgeth.(1127) The assumption is grounded upon this reason: The king hath not power to depose ministers; therefore he cannot give this power to others. For nemo potest plus juris transferre in alium quam sibi competere dignoscatur,(1128) the king may sometimes inflict such a civil punishment upon ministers, whereupon, secondarily and accidentally, will follow their falling away from their ecclesiastical office and function (in which sense it is said that Solomon deposed Abiathar, as we heard before), but to depose them directly and formally (which the High Commission usurped to do) he hath no power, and that because this deposition is an act of ecclesiastical jurisdiction; whereas the power of ecclesiastical jurisdiction doth no more agree to the king than the power of ecclesiastical order: his power is civil and temporal, not spiritual and ecclesiastical. Dr Field also confesseth,(1129) that none may judicially degrade, or put any one, lawfully admitted, from his degree and order, but the spiritual guides of the church alone.

2. The deposing of ministers pertaineth to classical presbyteries, or (if the matter be doubtful and difficult) to synods, as hath been showed. And who, then, can give the High Commission such authority as to take this power from them and assume it unto itself. These commissioners profess that they have authority to discharge other ecclesiastical judicatories within the kingdom from meddling with the judging of anything which they shall think impertinent for them, and which they shall think good to judge and decide by themselves in their commission: which, if it be so, then, when it pleaseth them, they may make other ecclesiastical judicatories to be altogether useless and of no effect in the church.

3. In this commission ecclesiastical and temporal men are joined together, and both armed with the same power; therefore it is not right nor regular, nor in any ways allowable. For even, as when a minister hath offended in a civil matter, his fault is to be judged by civil judges according to the civil laws, and by no other; so, when he offendeth in an ecclesiastical matter, his fault is to be judged only by ecclesiastical persons according to ecclesiastical laws; and, in such case, Justinian forbiddeth(1130) civil men to be joined with ecclesiastical men in judgment. They are ecclesiastical things or causes which are handled and examined by the High Commission in the process of deposing ministers; and a shame it is to ecclesiastical men, if they cannot, without the help and joining of temporal men, judge and decide things of this quality.

4. As in the matters to be judged, so in the censures and punishments to be inflicted, ecclesiastical and civil men have, in this commission, alike power and authority; for ecclesiastical men therein have power of fining, confining, warding, &c., common to them with the temporal men; and, again, the temporal men have power of excommunication, suspension, deprivation, &c., common to them with the ecclesiastical men. For they all sit there as the king’s commissioners, and eo nomine, they exercise this jurisdiction; which commission being alike discharged by them all, it is manifest that both temporal men take hold of the keys and ecclesiastical men take hold of the civil sword. And this monstrous confusion and mixture giveth sufficient demonstration that such a form of judgment is not from the God of order.

Of the abuses and irregularities of the High Commission we may not now speak at greater length, but are hasted to make forward.