The Due Right of Presbyteries
2. Nor do we think that Princes may compel Pagans, who are under their dominions, to the faith, without foregoing information of their conscience, or that simply they may compel them to embrace the faith; except that here Princes have greater liberty, indirectly to force them, because they being now living (as we suppose) in a visible Church, they may infect the Church, and therefore here should be an indirect hindering of the exercise of their false religion, in so far as it is infectious to the Church of God, ne pars sincera trahatur: for to this by a certain proportion the power of excommunication given to the Church by Christ, may lead us, 1 Cor. 5. 6. and if we must live by Laws, and not by examples, Paul the fourth his suffering of the Jews Synagogues at Rome, and their ancient feasts, which faith Malderus) of themselves are not evil, is no law to us, yea but to Christians it is a falling from Christ, and his grace; nor is Rome who tolerateth Jewith religion, nor the edict of Honorius and Theodosius our warrant.
3. Nor can we believe, that no other sins, in opinion, concerning God, his nature, attributes, worship and Church-discipline, (except only such as are against those points, which are called fundamental, and the received principles of Christianity) should be censurable by the Church, or punishable by the Magistrate.
1. Because Jesus Christ, Mat. 18. ordaineth that every sin against our brother, or a Church, 1 Cor. 10. 31, 32. in which the delinquent shall continue, with obstinate refusal to hear the Church, should be censured with excommunication.
But there be divers opinions concerning God, his nature, attributes, worship and Church-discipline, which are not against points fundamental, which being professed are sins against our brother and the Churches. Ergo, many opinions not against points fundamental, if professed, are censurable by the Church, and punishable by the Magistrate. I prove the proposition, because Christ, Matth▪ 18. maketh no distinction and exception of any sin, but saith universally, v. 15. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , if thy brother trespass against thee, &c. and we can make no exception against an indefinite and Catholic statute, and ordinance of Jesus Christ. I prove the assumption: because there be many scandalous points of Arminianism, Pelagianism, of Poperic anent Church government, traditions, the power and • fficacie of grace, circumci • ion, forbidding of marriages, and of meats, which are doctrines of devils, coming from such, as have consciences burnt with an hot Iron, 1 Tim. 4. 1, 2, 3. many points of Anabaptism, Antinomianism, Socinianism, and of divers other sects are not points fundamental, because many (no doubt) are glorified, who lived and believed in Christ and died • gnorant of either opinions, either on the one side or the other, & yet being professed, preached and maintained, especially willfully and obstinately, do wonderfully scandalize our brethren and the Churches. Nor can I say that such as believe that marriage of Churchmen is unlawful, and defend it, as many holy and learned men in Popery did, and died in that error, if otherwise they believe in Christ, and the like I say of Chastising the body, and abstaining from such and such meats, which yet are doctrines of devils, and offensive to our brethren, 1 Tim. 4. 1, 2, 3. can be points fundamental, so as the holding of these must be inconsistent with saving faith. Some do yet maintain that circumcision is lawful, and yet believe all points fundamental; shall we say, that such are damned? and we read, Gal. 5. 2. Beh • ld I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing.
2. Opinions in points not fundamental, are either sins forbidden by God's Law, or they are not sins; the latter can by no reason be asserted, because God hath in his word determined all controversies not fundamental, as well as fundamental, therefore it is necessary, necessitate praecepti, by virtue of a divine precept, that • ee believe that to be true, what God saith in his Word, therefore the not believing of it must be a sin and a transgression of a Divine Law. 2. If it be no sin, it must be because the mind is under no Law of God, except in so far as the mind is ruled and led by the dominion of free-will; but this is Pelagianism and Arminianism, and Papists and Pelagians will needs examine the inclinations, powers, and motions of the soul, which go before the wills consent, or arise in us without the wills consent, from all subjection to a Law, that so original sin may be no sin, because (as P • • agius said) it is not voluntary, and concupiscence, when the will joineth no consent to it, is no sin; yea so the unbelief and ignorance of fundamental points, as they remain in the mind, shall be no sin. 3. If this be no sin, we are not to pray for illumination, to see either the truth on the one side, nor on the other; and what actions we do according to these opinions, in things not fundamental, we do them not with any certainty of faith, or any plerophorie, but blindly, or doubtingly, and so sinfully, which is expressly condemned, Rom. 14. 13. and is expressly against that full assurance of faith, that we are to have in those very actions, which in their own nature are indifferent, as is evident, Rom. 14. 14. I know and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus, that there is nothing unclean of it self, • . 5. Let everyone be fully persuaded in his own mind. 4. If they be not sins, then are none to be rebuked for these opinions, no more then they are to be excommunicated for them, and though any err in points not fundamental, they are not to be rebuked, yea nor to be convinced of them by the light of the word. (2.) If they be sins, then when they are publicly prosested, they must scandalize our brother, but there be no sins which scandalize our brother, but they are susceptible and in capacity to be committed with obstinacy; Every sin sub ration scandali, is the subject of Church-censure; Yea I • m. 16. 17. Everyone is to be avoided, who causeth divisions, and 〈◊〉 es contrary to the doctrine which the Church hath learned of the Apostles, and everyone who walketh disorderly, 2 Thess. 3. 11. and 〈◊〉 not the commandment of the Apostles, is to be excommunicated, 〈◊〉 he be ashamed, v. 14. but opinions contrary to the Apostles doctrine in non-fundamentals, are not fundamentals, and if they be professed, cause divisions and offenses contrary to the Apostolic doctrine, for many non-fundamentals are the Apostles doctrine.
3. What ever tendeth to the subversion of fundamentals, tend •••• 〈…〉 to the subversion of faith, and so doth much truly scandaliz • an • bring on damnation, that Christ hath ordained to be removed out of the Church by Church-censures: but erroneous opinions, in points not fundamental, and in superstructures, being professed and instilled in the ears and simple minds of others, tend to the subversion of fundamentals, as having connection, by just consequent, with fundamentals, and do scandalize and bring on doubtings about the foundation, and so bring damnation. Ergo, erroneous opinions, in points not fundamental, must be removed out of the Church by Church-censures. The proposition is clear, he that falleth in a public scandalous sin is to be delivered to Satan, both for his own sake, that he be not damned himself, but that 1 Cor. 5. 5. to the destruction of the flesh, the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord; and so also for others, because a little Leaven leaveneth the whole lump, v. 6. The assumption is proved by daily experience, for corruption in Discipline and Government in the Church of Rome, brought on corruption in Doctrine, and the same did we find in the Churches of Scotland and England.
4. Fundamentalls are no other thing, then that which the Apostle calleth, Heb. 6. 12. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the first principles of the oracles of God, and ch. 6. 1. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the Doctrine of the Principles of Christ, which are laid as foundations, as ib. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , not laying the foundation again, &c. Then non-fundamentals must be such superstructures as are not the first Principles of the Oracles of God, and are not the Doctrine of the Principles of Christ. But the Apostle will not have us to fluctuate and doubt as Skeptickes, in a Py • rhonian Vacillation and Uncertainty, in these, which he calleth the superstructures. 1. As is evident by his words: 11 Of whom we have many things to say, and hard to be uttered, but you are dull of hearing. 12. For when, for the time, ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again, which be the first Principles of the Oracles of God, and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong food. 13. For everyone that useth milk is unskillful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe. 14. But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use, have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. Chap. 6. 1. Therefore leaving the doctrine of the beginning of Christ, let us go on unto perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, &c. Whence it is more then evidently apparent to any intelligent mind.
1. That when he saith, they ought to be teachers of others, he cannot be thought to mean that they should teach fundamentals only to others, because he would have them to be capable of the food of such as are stronger, and have their senses exercised to discern good and ill, and will have them carried on to perction: now fundamentals are expressly the food of babes which b •• need of milk, c. 6. v. 12. and not the food of the stronger; if then they ought to teach superstructures, and non-fundamentals to others, they cannot teach and exhort privately, (for of such he speaketh) these things whereof they have no certainty of faith, and which they believe with a reserve, as ready to reject them tomorrow, upon second thoughts, for what we teach to others, those (as I conceive) we are obliged to speak, because we believe. Psal. 116. 10. 2 Cor. 4. 13. and those we are to persuade, because we know (not with a reserve, but with certainty of faith) the terror of the Lord, 2 Cor. 5. 11. If it be said, teachers now are not obliged to know all that they teach now to be divine truths, with such a certainty of faith, as Prophets and Apostles, who were led by an infallible Spirit: for our private exhorting, our public Sermons come not from a Spirit, as infallible as that Spirit which spake and wrote canonick Scripture, for we may err in exhorting, in Preaching, in writing, but the pen-men of canonick Scripture were infallible. I answer, the pen-men of Scripture when they did speak and write Scripture, were infallible. & de jure, & de facto, they could neither err actually, and by God's word they were obliged not to err, and in that they were freer from error, then we are, who now succeed them to preach and write; but what God hath revealed in his word, whether they be fundamentals or superstructures, doth oblige us to belief and certainty of faith, no less then it obliegeth the Penmen of Scripture; and our certainty of saving faith, is as infallible as the faith of the Prophets and Apostles, except with Papists we say no man can be assured that he is in the state of grace. If therefore we be obliged to believe all revealed superstructures, though not fundamental, as the Prophets and Apostles were, we sin scandalously (when obstinacy is added to ignorance) if we believe them with such a reserve as is contrary to faith, and because there is no ignorance of those who teach others, but it is capable of ob • tinacie, and consequently it is capable of Church censure, Matth. 18. 17. I grant the weak and unlearned, though ignorant of their Christian liberty, in that interim, and case when many things are indifferent, as the case was, Rom. 14. though they be instructed by Paul sufficiently, that nothing is unclean, and that they err in that, out of an erring consciences light, or rather darkness, they abstain from such and such meats as God's law hath now made lawful to both Jew and Gentile, yet are they not to be censured, nor troubled with thorny disputations, but if these weak ones, 1. persist in their error, and 2. teach it to others and mislead them, they knowing that they believe these errors with a reserve, are (as I conceive) false teachers, and censurable by the Church and State, and not weak, but obstinate.
2. We are not to be dull of hearing, but are to be fully instructed, und certainly persuaded so of superstructures, which are not the first principles of the Oracles of God, as that we are to teach others. Ergo, a Pyrrbonian fluctuation in these, is damnable. How then can it be a principle, next to God's word, most to be followed, not to make our present judgment and practice, in matters not fundamental, a binding Law to us for the future? 2. The Apostle ought not to rebuke them for being dull of hearing of those things, whereof either sides may be believed, in a necessary case of syncretisme and pacification, without any hazard of punishment or Church-censures; for what is a necessary principle, and to be holden and enacted, as the most sacred Law of all others, next unto the Word of God, the matter of that principle being unknown, and neither sides understood, received, or believed, cannot put on any the rebuke of dull hearing: For example, if the point of Presbyterial government of the Church, or of independencie of single congregations, be a point not to be received, with such certainty of faith and assurance, but we are to reject either, or both, when we shall receive new light, that they are false and contrary to the rule of holy Scripture; and again, if we are to reject the opinion contradicent to these former points of Presbyterial government and independent congregations, for there is by this opinion, the same reason of the contradicent, as of the formerly affirmed opinions; I see not how I may not be dull of hearing, yea how I may not simply be ignorant of both and not sin against God. 3. Those superstructures which are not fundamental, are the strong persons food, as the knowledge of principles fundamental is the food of babes, verse. 12, 13. Then I must be persuaded of the truth of them, else they cannot feed my soul with knowledge, because knowledge of Pyrrhonian fluctuation, which is conjectural, and may be no less false then true, and which I must so believe for truth, as possible the tide of a contrary light may carry me to believe the just contrary as truth, can never be the strong food of such as are skilled in the word of righteousness. 4. The knowledge of these superstructures or non-fundamentals belongeth to those who are of full age, and have their senses exercised to discern both good and ill, verse. 14. and which are carried on to perfection, c. 6. v. 1. having now left the fundamentals, as food to babes and unskilled, c. 5. v. 12. But I heartily crave to learn, what perfection doewe arrive unto? and what increase of fuller age, what experience of more spiritual knowledge, perfecting the spiritual senses, do I attain, to know certain truths, which to me may be no less rotten conclusions, and mere forgeries of men's brains, then divine truths? Hence if this Arminian liberty of prophesying, and this perpetual fluctuation of men always learning, and never coming to the knowledge of the truth; be contrary to growing in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, 2 Pet. 3. 18. and contrary to that which is called, 1 Cor. 1. 5. all knowledge, and to the abundance of knowledge, which in the last days, is to fill the earth, as the sea is filled with waters; so that when I have once over-sailed that point of the coast of the knowledge of fundamental articles, I am now in a Sea of four contrary winds, and four contrary tydes at once, and I know nothing for truth, but its contradicent may be, yea, and to me is as true, (I say) if this fluctuation of knowledge be contrary to growing in knowledge, it must be rejected as a Chimera, and the dream of men's heads.
5. Let us take one point not fundamental, to wit this, (Every congregation hath absolute power of Church government within it self, without subjection to Classes, Presbyteries, and Synods) You are so persuaded of the truth of this, that your present judgment and practice is no binding Law to you, for the morrow; but you leave room in your judgment to believe, tomorrow, the contradicent, when new light shall appear. Well then tomorrow, this non-fundamental, and this contradicent is now to you true, (No congregation hath absolute power of Church-government within it self, but hath its power in dependence upon, and with subjection unto Classes, Presbyteries, and Synods.) Well, tomorrow is come, and this you believe now to be God's truth, yet so, as your present judgment, and practice is no binding Law to you, for the second morrow, but you leave room for light, which shall appear the second morrow; well, in the second morrow, new light appeareth and convinceth you, that the contradicent is true, and you recur in a circle, to believe your first proposition again is true, to wit, the contradicent of your second days proposition, and now to you this is true, as it was once, (Every congregation hath absolute power of Church-government within it self, without subjection to classes, Presbyteries, and Synods:) Now, on the third morrow, a new light appearing, you are to believe the contradicent; and because all circular motions are in credit to be deemed eternal, and your mind is always obliged to stoop and fall down before new light, and the conscience is to render her self captive to every emergent truth: what can you here say but there is no end of fluctuations and doubtings? But you say, God's spirit, the revealer of all truth, doth not fluctuate, though I change, God Jebovah changeth not, he can reveal no contradictory truths, for one of them must be a lie, and he is the Lord who cannot lie.
Answ. Then I say, these non-fundamentals are in themselves and intrinsically certain, and if God reveal them in his Word, he must reveal them under the notion of things certain, and we are to believe them as certain truths, having intrinsical necessity in themselves from the authority of God the revealer, therefore I am not to believe them with a fluctuation of mind to casheere the truth of them, tomorrow, and the next, and the third morrow.
But you say, I do believe non-fundamentals as they are revealed, now they are not revealed to me in the word, in that measure and degree of clearness and evidence of light, that fundamental points of faith are revealed, therefore I may lawfully believe these non-fundamentals, which are less evidently revealed, with a reserve, that, upon the supposal, I see I had an error of judgment in taking them to be truths, whereas now I see them to be untruths, I do renounce them; but because fundamentals are clearly revealed, I am to believe them, without any reserve at all.
Answ. The degrees of revelation and proposals of truths to our minds, less or more, evident, or less evident, so they be revealed by God, in a sufficient measure of evidence, they free us from obligation of faith, in tanto, non in toto, as is clear, John 15. 22. If I had not come to them, they should not have had sin, the sin of unbelief, and in such a measure; yet if God reveal these non-fundamentals, though not so perspicuously as he revealeth fundamentals, we are obliged to know them and believe them with certainty of faith, and upon this formal reason, because Jehovah speaketh them in his word, no less then we are obliged to know and believe fundamentals: for our dullness and blindness of mind doth not license us to believe what God revealeth to us in his Word with an 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 and a fluctuation of mind, no more then the natural man is licenced to believe the fundamentals of the Gospel with doubting, because they come in under the capacity of his understanding, as foolishness, 1 Cor. 2. 14. But, say you, upon supposal that our darkened hearts do not see these non-fundamentals clearly, we are obliged to take their meaning and sense, with a reserve, and so to receive and entertain the truths of these non-fundamentals, as we leave room, upon supposal of our misapprehensions, to retract our judgment, and to believe the contrary of what we once believed, and this bindereth not but that we are simply and absolutely obliged to believe the non-fundamentals.
Answ, If we be simply and absolutely obliged to believe non-fundamentals, though they be not so clearly revealed to us as the fundamentals, as no doubt we are, then do we contrary to the moral obligation of a divine precept, and so sin in believing, with a doubting and hesitation, of that which God hath revealed in his word: and when we believe God's truth with a reserve to retract our judgment, when a clear light shall make naked to us our error, that revealed error, if revealed to be an error, by the Lord speaking in his word, doth clearly evince that God never revealed, nor meant to reveal in his Word, the former truth that was believed with a reserve, for God cannot reveal things contradictory, and out of the mouth of the Lord cometh no untruth: therefore God in these non-fundamentals revealeth to us but one thing to be believed, and that absolutely without all reserves, for God can no more shine with a new light, to delare the contradicent of what he hath once revealed as truth, then he candeny himself, or lie; which to assert were high blasphemy: and if the first truth of the non-fundamental do only appear truth to our understanding, and be no such thing, but in it self an untruth, then doth the God of truth reveal no such thing. 2. Upon supposal that we see not the truth of these non-fundamentals clearly, we are neither to believe with a reserve, nor to believe them absolutely, nor yet are we to suspend our belief, because I conceive all the three to be sinful, and we are never obliged to sin, but we are obliged to know and believe simply without all reserve, having laid away our dark and confused conscience, and are to know clearly and believe firmly that God speaketh this, not this in his Word; nor, because I do fluctuate about the truth of these non-fundamentals, am I obliged to follow in non-fundamentals the indictment of a fluctuating conscience, seeing holding the plenitude and plenary perfection of God's Word, the Lord hath no less manifested his will, in setting down superstructures and non-fundamentals, in his Word, then he hath revealed his mind to us in fundamentals.
But our Brethren prove that we may tolerate one another in diverse and contrary opinions about non-fundamentals, from Phil. 3. 15. Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in anything ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal this unto you. 16. Nevertheless, whereunto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing. Now there is nothing more opposite to this rule, then the practices of some, who will exclude and allow communion in nothing, where there is difference in anything. The labors of Davenant and others in this needful case of syncretisme and pacification in those times are very seasonable.
I answer, I distinguish three things that may be judged the object of syncretisme or mutual toleration. 1. Fundamentalia, fundamental points. 2. Supra & circa fundamentalia, things that are built on the foundation or superstructures, or things about the foundation, as many positive and historical things that cannot result by good consequence off, or from the foundation, as that there were eight souls in Noah's Ark, and some rituals of God's institution in the Sacrament of the Supper and Baptism, &c. 3. Praeter fundamentalia, things merely physical, not moral, having no influence in God's worship at all; as such a day for meeting of an Assembly of the Church, Wednesday rather then Thursday; a cloak when you pray in private, rather then a gown; these have, or contribute of themselves no moral influence to the action, as in what corner of your Chamber you pray in private, these are merely indifferent, and tolerance in these I would commend. It is true, there is a strict connection often betwixt the physical and the moral circumstances, so as the physical circumstance doth put on, by some necessity, a moral habitude and respect, and then the physical circumstance becometh moral, as in what corner of your Chamber you pray, it is merely physical and indifferent, but if that corner that you pray in, cast you obvious to the eyes of those who are walking in the streets, that they may see and hear your private prayers, then the place putteth on the moral respect of a savor of some Pharisaical ostentation, that you pray to be seen of men; and so the circumstance now is moral, and is to be regulated by the Word, whereas the circumstance that is merely physical is not, as it is such, in any capacity to receive scripturall regulation, nothing is required but a physical convenience for the action. Now for fundamental superstructures, for things about the foundation, in so far as they have warrant in the Word, to me they oblige to faith and practices, in so far as the Lord intimateth to us in his Word, either expressly, or by good consequence, that they are lawful. Now I may add to these, that there be some things adjacent, circumvenient, circumstantial to these fundamentals, superstructions, and others that I named, wherein mutual tolerance is commendable; Nor do we think any Church Reformation so perfect as that reformers have not left it in some capacity more or less of receiving increase and latitude of Reformation; but truly I do not see the consequence, that therefore in all points not fundamental the conscience must be of that compliable latitude of Kid-leather to take in, and let out, so as none of these superstructures or non-fundamentals are to be believed but with a reserve, that you take them today as God's truths, and are in capacity to believe their contradicents to be God's truth tomorrow.
And for the place, Phil. 3. 14. 15. The sense given by Zanchius pleaseth me. We that are reputed perfect, let us all think and mind this truth that I write, to contend for the price of the high-calling of God; and if any mind any other thing contrary to, or diverse from my doctrine, God in his own time shall reveal it to him. Zanchius saith, Deus id quoque revelabit suo tempore, nempe an falsum sit vel verum. God shall reveal it to him in his own time, whether it be true or false: to which part I do not subscribe; that God shall reveal to any other minded then Paul, whether his doctrine be true or false, for that may infer a possibility that Paul taught in this point, or in the matter of ceremonies, something false: but the meaning is, God shall make him know by the revelation of truth, that what I have taught is true; and he addeth as Zanchius, Estius, Cornelius à Lapide, S • lmeron, yea our own Calvin, Marlorat, and others, upon this condition, that they walk with us in peace and concord, according to the 〈◊〉 the Gospel: and that these words are a condition, I believe, because Christ saith, John 7. 17. If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself. But I see nothing here that reacheth the conclusion that we deny; it will bear this indeed, if any man be otherwise minded, and think that Paul hath not delivered sound doctrine, either concerning our pressing forward toward the prize of the high calling of God in Jesus Christ, or concerning ceremonies; that is, if any man believe untruths contrary to Paul's doctrine, let him believe these untruths, leaving room to God's light, to bow down under truths feet, when God shall reveal that Paul's doctrine is true, and that his thoughts diverse from Paul's doctrine was misapprehensions and errors; but there is nothing here, that if any believe true non-fundamentals, he is to believe them with a reserve, that if God, with a new light, shall appear, to discover these truths to be untruths, he shall change his mind. Now the supposition is vain, and as unpossible, as to say, God can contradict and belie his own truth, nor is there any word of toleration of Sects in the text. Yea, but (say they) Paul professeth to walk according to the rule to which they 〈◊〉 all attained, with those who are contrary minded. Ergo, we are to tolerate and to keep peaceable communion with those who are contrary minded in opinions, and disagree from us.
Answ. Mark, I pray you, that Paul doth not say he will walk with them, and keep communion with them simply; but only, 1. while God shall reveal their error, and by his light make them see that Paul's doctrine is true. 2. So in other things, they be of one mind with Paul, as perfect men should be: and so I think Paul doth indeed condemn separation and breach of love for diversity of opinions in some things; and we doubt not, but if the servant of the Lord should with gentleness instruct malicious opposers of the truth, and wait on them to see, if God, peradventure, will give them repentance, to the acknowledgment of the truth, 2 Tim. 2. 24, 25. far rather should Paul walk with those that are perfect according to the same rule, though they be of another mind; but it followeth not that those who are of another mind from Paul, should, 1 obstinately continue in that mind, after that God hath by writings and dispute convinced them of their error. 2. It followeth not that their ob • tinate continuance in their error should always be tolerated, and never censured, especially if it be such an error as causeth divisions and offenses, Rom. 16. 17. for then such should be avoided, saith Paul, in that same place. 3. It followeth not that we are to believe no superstructures or non-fundamentals, but with a reserve: it is observable that Paul speaketh here of those who believe errors and doctrines contrary to Paul's doctrine; Now consider then the force of the argument, those who believe errors contrary to Paul's doctrine, have no certainty of faith, that what they believe is true, and therefore must believe with a reserve, leaving room to new light; therefore those who believe any true superstructures and any non-fundamentals, have also no certainty of faith, but must believe with a reserve, that when light shall appear, they shall believe the contradicent of what they now believe, there is no force in this connection. It is just like the question betwixt us and the Papists, whether a man can be certain with any divine and infallible certainty that he is in the state of grace and salvation. Papists say hypocrites believe that they are in the state of grace, and yet they have no certainty thereof, Ergo, (say they) the regenerate believing that they are in the state of grace, can have no certainty. This is a very ill consequence, for a sleeping man is not certain whether he be dreaming or waking. Ergo, a waking man knoweth not whether he be waking, or not. So a distracted man hath no certainty that he is as wise as seven men who can render a reason; therefore a man sober in his wits knoweth not that he is in his sober wits: these be poor and loose consequences. It is true, when we believe some alterable circumstances of some things rather about, then in doctrine and discipline, which are disputable, and to us both sides have great probability, we have not certainty of faith, and possible here in our opinions learned and holy men; yea and whole Churches may look beside their book, and be deceived; and these we take not to be the subject of a sworn confession of faith, and here we grant a [non liquet] on both sides, and do allow some grain weights of reserve to persons and Churches, to retract in those things: but hence it is badly concluded that we believe these non-fundamentals of discipline, for which we have certainty of evidence from God's Word, with a reserve, and with a looseness of assent and credulity to believe the contrary tomorrow; for so the same argument should militate against the certainty of faith in some fundamentals: for a person, yea any particular Church may err in denying the resurrection of the dead, as some did in the Church of Corinth; and Christ's Disciples, though true believers, doubted of his rising from the dead, John 20. 9. Peter and the disciples doubted of Christ dying for the loosed world, Mat. 16. 21, 22. Luke 24. 25, 26. and because any true believer may fall in that temptation and weakness, as to deny all the articles of faith, taken divisively, for they may deny this or this article fundamental, (though I do not think a regenerated person can deny the whole system and body of fundamentals collectively) it shall follow by this argument that regenerated persons and particular Churches are to believe some fundamentals with a reserve, and keeping room for light to believe the contrary, and so if this argument be good, we have no certainty of faith in believing any one fundamental article its alone. Nor can Nathan or Samuel have certainty of faith in believing their own prophecies flowing from the immediate inspiration of the Spirit; but they are to believe them with a capacity to receive the faith of the contradicent prophecies, because Nathan had no certainty of faith in commanding David to build the Temple; and Samuel had as little certainty in pronouncing Elijah to be the Lord's annointed.
Another doubt against this is, That if any, out of weakness and mere tenderness of conscience, deny some superstructures, which are indeed scripturall truths, they are not to be counted heretics, because out of weakness, not out of obstinacy they err, nor to be censured with excommunication or censures of Church or Magistrate, and therefore in these we are to believe truths, with a reserve, and to tolerate the contrary minded, if they agree with us in fundamentals.
Answ. That this may be answered, 1. The object of these opinions would be distinguished. 2. The persons, weak or strong. 3. The manner of refusing instruction, or of admitting light, of mere weakness, or of obstinacy. For the first, if the matter be faultless or light, as eating meats or not eating meats, in time when they are merely indifferent, and the person weak and scarce capable of disputation, he is to be tolerated, and not received into knotty and thorny disputations, about things indifferent: for so Paul Rom. 14. is to be understood, when he will not have the weak taken in 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 : so Michael strove with the Angel disputing, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 : if the matter concern an institution of Christ, and our necessary practice in a Church, and the party be not weak. It is a question what maketh obstinacy, and what tenderness and weakness, Turrecremata saith, he who is ready to yield to light, is not obstinate, Scotus, gross ignorance, Cano saith, affected ignorance maketh obstinacy, Malderus saith that gross ignorance may leave a man ready to yield to the information of the Church, Alphonsus a Castro saith better, he is obstinate who 1. defendeth an opinion against the Scripture, or, saith he, (which is his error) against the definition of a general Council, or of the Pope. 2. Who being admonished doth not amend. 3. Who seeketh not resolution from the learned, with a purpose to render himself truths captive. 4. Who sweareth that he shall adhere to the end, to that opinion. By the light and knowledge of the holder of the opinion, it may be collected whether he seeketh truth, and is ready to yield himself and his understanding thereunto: and except the point be fundamental, it can hardly be judged heresy: if the point may be holden without any scandal, or breach of peace, much tolerance is required where error seemeth to be a temptation to holy men, but final tolerance, and unlimited, where the party is of great knowledge, and hath sway in the minds of many, to prevail to draw others after him, is harder.
Object. But he that serveth God in these is acceptable to God, Rom. 14. 18. and if a man judge some doctrine to be error, though it be no error, yet to him that so judgeth it is error; if he suffer death for that he judgeth truth, he suffereth for righteousness, being truth in his judgment, and therefore liberty of conscience is to be given to all sects; Christ would not forbid a man that preached in his name, to preach, though he did not follow him, Mark. 9. 38. Luk. 9. 50. The best way to hinder Sects is to re • ute them by the Scriptures, and not to set decrees of Synods to others, because that is done already by Christ and his Apostles; for God's judgment shall still be on you, while you establish Christ's Jubilee, and freedom of consciences, Luke 4. 18.
Answ. Let none think that these be the words of our brethren, but of a certain Anabaptist, and of Arminians and Socinians who object the same; for Paul, Rom. 14. 18. he that serveth God, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , is to be understood (as the context teacheth us) that is, that they relate the words going before, v. 17. he who serveth God in righteousness, in peace, in joy of the holy Ghost, the meaning is not that he is acceptable who serveth God in following the inditement of his light and conscience, because it is his conscience, for then some should please God in sinning against God. But it is a point worthy our consideration, what tie and obligation an erroneous conscience layeth on men: hence with correction these considerations.
1. The true cause why an erring conscience obliegeth to abstinence from the fact in the case of error and misrepresentation of conscience, is, 1. Because conscience is the nearest divine principle of our moral actions, and standeth in the room of God, and therefore he who doth anything against the very erroneous ditement of conscience, is hence convinced to have a perverse will to sin against the majesty of God, because he who should believe usury to be theft, (though we should suppose with Calvin and other great Divines usury to be in some cases lawful) should yet take usury, hath a the • teous will in that, and doth steal. 2. Because the obliging Law of God is not applied to our actions at all, but by the intervening actual use of our conscience; see Pirerius.
2. Consideration In the question, whether an erroneous conscience doth oblige a man, or no. It is taken for a thing out of controversy, yea that this is no question at all, Whether or no doth an erroneous conscience so bind, that we can do nothing against the standing indictment of an erring conscience: for the Scripture is clear in this, Rom. 14. 14. I know and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus, that there is nothing (of meat-kind now under the Gospel) unclean (or unlawful to eat) of it self, but to him that esteemeth anything to be unclean, (in the light of his il-informed and erroneous conscience) to him (so thinking) it is unclean, that is, to this man now under the actual darkness and error of an ill-informed conscience it is not lawful to eat, but he must abstain from eating, not simply from eating, but from eating, •• li modo: So all who have commented on the place, Calvin, Beza, Par • us, Rollocus, &c. and of the Fathers, all who either commented on, or handled the text occasionally, as Theodoret, Chrysostom, Basilius, Augustine, Cyprian, Ambrose, Origen, Anselm, all the Popish writers, Lyra, Hugo Cardinalis, Aquinas, Toletus, Pirerius, Estius, Cornelius a Lapide, &c. yea Adrianus, Vasquez, Pezantius, say it is manifestly against the Scripture, and heretical to say, it is no sin to do contrary to the commandment or prohibition of an erring conscience.
3. Hence the conscience carrieth to the agent from God a twofold obligation most considerable here; 1. one from the action it self to be done, or not done; and this cometh wholly from the obliging Law of God, and not from the conscience: there is another obligation that consisteth not in the action, and cometh not from the action, but in the manner of doing, and this obligation cometh from conscience it self, and that is that we do nothing, in such a manner, that is against the light or inditement of our conscience: for this is an imbred Rose & Flower of divinifie and majesty that groweth kindly out of conscience according to that high place of some sort of royalty, that it hath to be something of God, a little breast-God, a little Deputy and Judge not to be contemned; so when a proconsull bringeth to me a forged commandment from my Sovereign and Prince, I may receive it with non-obedience, if I know it to be a forgery, but I am not to despise and put any note of disgrace upon the proconsull, because he is in respect of his office the deputy of my Sovereign, though in this particular mandat, he doth prevaricate, and not represent the sovereign power and Prince, whose deputy other ways he is, by virtue of his office; so is this the deputed royalty of conscience, that it standing to me, bic & nunc, as representing a message from God, though it represent it falsely, that I can do nothing in the contrary, that deputry and message standing actually in vigor.
4. I desire that these two obligations of conscience be carefully kept in mind; hence I say, that conscience carrying the former obligation of God's Law, from which formally the action hath its lawfulness, and in an eccentrick and irregular discrepance from which, it hath its unlawfulness, it doth not oblige me to the action, because it is conscience simply; for when it offereth an action to me as lawful, which in very deed, and a parte rei, in it self is unlawful, I am not obliged to that unlawful action: for as God hath given to no ruler made of clay, any royal power to be a tyrant and to destroy, where as his office is as a father to save and govern; so hath not God given to conscience any power to oblige me to sins; yea and conscience remaineth conscience, when it representeth forged and illegal mandates under the notion of things good, even when men love to go to hell by reason, yet in that false representation conscience is not God's deputy; therefore though if a man judge some doctrines to be errors, though they be in themselves truths, to him that so judgeth they are errors, yet are these truths not to be rejected simpliciter and absolutely, by him who judgeth so, ony they are to be rejected 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , in some respect as they come in under the notion and garments of errors; & also, if any suffer death for an error which in conscience he conceiveth to be truth, that error is to him truth. Distinguo: it is to him truth, that is; he conceiveth and dreameth that it is truth; that is most true: but to him it is truth, that is, it ought to be believed by him as truth, and practiced as lawful; that is most false: for it ought to be rejected both in point of belief, and in point of practice, and the erroneous opinion thereof should be rejected, and therefore if he receive it as truth, and profess it, and die for it, he dieth not for righteousness sake, but he dieth for error, and for the dreams of his own head, and so is not blessed as one who dveth for righteousness; for this vain reason saith, 1. that it is no sin for the mind to believe a lie, to be a divine truth: and it is righteousness upon the belief, whereby I believe a lie to be a truth, to suffer for a lie under the notion of a truth. Both these are false: the former is false, for the mind is under God's obliging Law to conceive aright of all divine truths, as all the faculties of the soul are under a Law.
2. The latter is false, for to believe lies as divine truths, and suffer for them, because the erring conscience saith they are divine truths, is not righteousness, but sinful credulity, and blind zeal. 1. Because we are not to believe what our conscience dictateth as truth, under this formal reduplication, because our conscience thus doth dictate, and saith it is truth, but because God's spirit saith to our conscience, it is a divine truth; not because our own spirit and our own dreaming and mis • ed conscience saith so. This is the controversy betwixt us and Papists, anent the authority of God's Word, but with a little change, for our conscience or the testimony of our conscience as such, is no more the formal object of our faith, and the formal medium and reason why with a divine faith I believe a divine truth to be a divine truth, then the testimony of the Church or the Pope is the formal reason of my faith; so An • baptists make a Pope and an infallible spirit of their own conscience: but the whole formal obligation tying me to receive this, and this point as a divine truth, is because God hath revealed it in his Word; the consciences representing of it is but a necessary condition of my believing, but not the formal object of my believing: the conscience is the cause why I believe it, tali modo, after a rational way, and by the evidence of practical reason, but it is not the formal cause why I believe it simpliciter; for Papists, Arians, Macedonians, and the most detestable Heretics have consciences representing to them fundamental truths, as lies and untruths, and have died for these lies, did they suffer for righteousness for that? and yet to their judgment that which they suffered for was truth. All the legal obligation is here from God's Law, not from our conscience. Arminians, Socinians, Anabaptists imagine that our conscience is the nearest rule of our actions, which is most false; our present judgment is never a binding Law to us for the time to come, no not when we believe fundamentals; God's Word, because it is God's Word, is a binding Law only; our judgment is regula regulata, and not regula regulans, to be led, and not a leading or binding Law to us; for conscience, because conscience, is no more a Pope to us, then the dictates of the Bishop of Rome speaking out of his chair, can captivate the conscience of any man; and Malderus holdeth that our opinion is a Law, according to Ambrose, and he correcteth himself, and saith our opinion or conscience (non tam legem esse, quam legis quaddam praeconium, promulgationem, insinuationem) is not so much the Law of God, as the promulgation of God's Law: but he addeth, (which maketh the business as bad) and saith, promulgatio legis recte dicitur obligare; but the truth is, the promulgation of the Law doth not oblige, for who can say that the Law hath an obliging power from the Herald his act of proclaiming, reading or declaring the Law? the promulgation of the Law is an approximation of it to the understanding of the people, but the Law of man hath its obliging power from the honesty of the matter of the Law, and it hath its obligation to punishment not from the Herald, but from the authority of the Law-giver. And our conscience doth only promulgate God's oblie • ing Law, but it layeth not on us the obliging power, except we speak of an obliging power in the manner of receiving and believing the Law of God, that is, (as I said) that we receive not as a truth what God proposeth as an untruth, or that we receive not as a lie, what God proposeth as spoken by himself, for that is to receive truths against the light of our conscience. And when Ambrose calleth our opinion an obliging Law, he speaketh (as Augustine often doth) of the Law of nature, which is that habitual opinion natural that we have of right and wrong, or of the • awe written in our heart. I would not here distinguish betwixt (recta ratio) right reason, and (vera ratio) true reason, for some make right reason the nearest rule of our actions, so as the action is lawful, it our conscience persuade to it, though the action swa • ve and decline from God's Law, For to me reason is never right which is not true and agreeable to God's Law. It is objected, if one shall believe it is lawful to kill a protestant King, because it is good service in God, to kill a heretic; (as there be good store of consciences of this metal amongst the nation of Jesui • es) if he kill him not be sinneth against God, because be sinneth against the light of his conscience by the sinful omitting of good service to God, and if be kill him 〈◊〉 sinneth also in committing murder, both against the sixth Commandment, and also against the fist, which commandeth to honor Kings▪ out of which it must follow that either an erring conscience, because it is conscience, obliegeth us to do that, which because we do it, in obedience to an erring consceence, now leaveth off to be sin to the actor under this condition of conscience; or then that there may be such a perplexity wherein a man by way of contradiction, whether he do such • n all, or do it not, is necessitated by God's providence to sin, which absurdity shall make God the author of sin.
Answ. There is no necessity by way of contradiction, that a man thus perplexed must sin, whether he do or not do such anaction: for I give easily a third case different from both, for such a perplexed Jesuit is neither obliged to kill the Prince, nor yet to abstain from killing in such a perplexed manner; but he is obliged not to kill the Lord's anointed, tali modo: he is obliged to abstinence, but not to abstinence tali modo, such a way, for he is obliged to lay aside his erroneous and heretical conscience, and so to abstain from killing with a well informed conscience: for no man is brought under a lawful perplexity to sin, but men may bring themselves under sinful perplexities of conscience, which is not to be fathered upon the holy Lord, who hateth sin with a perfect hatred.
I answer to the places, Mark. 9. 30. and Luk. 9. they be manifestly corrupted, for the man who cast out devils in Christ's name, and followed not Christ, was not a man who followed the light of an erroneous conscience, who thought it service to God to cast out devils in Christ's name, and not to follow Christ; for he was not obliged to follow Christ as the Disciples followed him, except he had had the same command to follow Christ that the Apostles had, which we read not of; nay it is most like if it had been the error of his conscience not to follow Christ, then should Christ have rebuked it, but Christ did not rebuke it in the man, but directly insinuateth, v. 40. that the man was with Christ, and a spiritual follower of Christ, though he did not in such a bodily way follow Christ, as did Judas and the eleven; and it was the fault of the Disciples to tie all the duties of a Disciple, casting out devils in Christ's name, to a bodily following of Christ, which was their pride.
3. It is a good way, to refute sects, and erroneous opinions by Scriptures, and so is it a good way to convince an incestuous man of the heinousness of his sin by Scriptures, and to convince Hymenaeus and Alexander of their blasphemous opinions by Scripture, for Scripture layeth open the vildnesse of sins and here • es: but it doth not follow, therefore it is not also a good way to deliver incestuous persons, and blasphemets to Satan, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord, and that they may learn not to blaspheme, 1 Cor. 5. 5. 1 Tim. 1. 5. Preaching of the Word is one mean to bear down sects and erroneous opinions, but it taketh not away, but establisheth Church-discipline as another mean, and the one is subordinate to the other: if Matth. 18. an offending brother can be convinced and brought to repentance by the power of the Word (as all rebukes must be from the Word) it is good, but if he remain obstinate in his offense, Christ will have the man excommunicated, and esteemed a Heatben and a Public • n.
4. It is a vain thing to say that God hath refuted all here •• s in the Word, and therefore there is no need of Synods to refute them, and to make determinations on the contrary, for it was certain that the Word of God had refuted the necessity of circum • ision and of observing Moses his Law, as Peter, James, Paul, Act. 15. do strongly prove from the Word of God and the word of God condemned the eating of things strang ••• , and of things sacrificed to Idols in the case of scandal; therefore none of sound judgment will infer that the determination of a Synod, such as is Act. 15. 22. is not necessary; yea because the books of Moses condemned the Sadducees in their Epicurith opinion of denying the resurrection of the dead, I hope it is not for that superfluous for Christ out of Moses his writings to determine and prove, Matth. 22. that the dead must • i • c again; you may by as good reason say, nothing should be determined in preaching, nor in writings, because all these are already determined in the Word, by the Lord, his Prophets and Apostles: this shall close evert all ministry, (as S • inians do) especially now after the cannon of the Scripture is closed, for they use the same very arguments against the necessity of a ministry, because now the Gospel is fully revealed, there is no necessity of a sent ministry, as was in the Apostles time: so teach Andr. Raddeccius, Smalcius, and the Arminians.
And lastly, it is a vild abusing of Scripture to say that the accept th • e year of the Lord, of which Christ speaketh, Luk. 4. 18, 1 • . is that Jubilee year of liberty of conscience to all sects of Papists, Arminians, Socinians, Anabaptists, &c. 1. Because a liberty of heretical and blasphemous opinions of God, his nature, worship, and Word, cannot be the acceptable year of the Lord which Christ as Mediator came to proclaim, Esa. 61 2. 5. for that is license, not liberty; Christ's acceptable year, Fsiy 61. is the spiritual Jubilee of remission of sins, and eternal redemption proffered in the Gospel, and really bestowed upon the meek, the broken hearted, the captives, the prisoners, the mourn • s in Zi • n, and those whom Christ is sent to comfort, and to clothe with the garments of praise; but he is not sent to comfort Macedonians, Sabellians, papists, Socinians, &c. because they are Sectaries, and do adhere to their rotten and false grounds of divinity; for then liberty of conscience should have been a mercy purchased by Christ's death, and Arius should obtain by Christ's death a power to be an Arian, and to deny the divinity of Jesus Christ. 2. In the Hebrew 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ultio, a revenging, is an allusion to 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 naeham, consolatus est, for this year was to the believers Nechama, or consolation, and to unbelievers Nekama, a revenge or a vengeance, which cannot sort with sectaries. 3. The acceptable year is as Paul expoundeth it, 2 Cor. 6. 2. the acceptable time of the Gospel, and the day of salvation, and as Hugo Cardinalis expoundeth it well, the time of the fullness of grace under the Gospel, and that which is called, Isaiah 49. 8. the day of salvation, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ratson, the day of good will; and so Beda, Toletus, Cyrillus, and the Jesuit Salmeron and Glossa Ordinaria expoundeth it faith and salvation, Procopius the day of the Lord's incarnation, as Hieronymus expoundeth the day of vengeance opposit thereunto, to be the day of damnation; and Lyra the year of Christ's suffering, in which Christ is pleased with mankind.
Quest. III. Whether the Jesuited Lysimachus Nicanor, and the Author of the Survey of Discipline, doth with good reason impute •• the Church-Government of the reformed Churches, the eversion of the 〈◊〉 Magistrates power • n matters ecclesiastical?
There came to the light of day, a night-piece of darkness, Anno 1640. A Pamphlet by one Lysimachus Nicanor, acting the person of a • esuite, but better resembling • is nature, against our blessed Reformation, imputing to us Treason to Kings, as the Popish author of the Survey had led the poor man: both of these, as Jesuits, do rail against Calvin, Beza, and the Geneva-discipline, as Becanus, Suarez, Uasquez, Bellarmine, Gre • serus, and other their Doctors and teachers do lead them. That I may add to what I have said before, I desire the reader to eye and consider these distinctions.
1. Pareus teacheth that there is a double Church-power, one internal and proper, as to preach, hind, and loose, to administrate the Sacraments, &c. This is not in the Prince: and there is another improper and external, which is exercised about Church-matters, and Church-officers: and this distinction is grounded upon that saying of Constantine the Emperor to the Bishops, as Eusebius relateth it.
2. An external power about matters ecclesiastic is three-fold.
1. A power of order and jurisdiction about the external, or rather in the external acts of the Church, which are visible and incurreth in the 〈…〉 , as to preach, baptize, and these, (as saith that learned and worthy preacher at Middleburgh, Guliel. Apollonii) do properly pertain to the spiritual and proper Church-government, and without controversy do not belong to the Prince.
2. A power external about Church-matters, which is objective, in respect of the object, sacred or ecclesiastic, but improperly, and by a 〈◊〉 enely ecclesiastic, and essentially and in it self politick, such as we hold to be the Magistrates power in causing Church-men do their duty in preaching sound doctrine, and administrating the Sacraments, • cording to Christ's institution, and punishing heretics and false teachers.
3. Some have devised a mixed power ecclesiastic, (as Henric. Salcobrigiensis) whereby the Prince is the head of the Church, and hath a nomotheticke, and legislative power, in things ecclesiastical: and this is not only objective in respect of the object ecclesiastical, but also subjective in respect of the subject, ecclesiastical, in respect that the Prince by virtue of his civil office, as a King may ordain Prelates, and make Laws in Church-matters.
Distinction. 3. There is a twofold power in a King, one in a King as a King, this is alike in all, and ordinary, regal, coactive; whether the King be a Heathen, a Turk, or a sound believing Christian. There is another power in a King, as such a King, either a King and a Prophet also, or as a Prophetical King: and this extraordinary power was in Solomon and David, to write Canonicke Scripture, and to prophecy, and is not properly a Kingly power: or there is in a King as such a King, even as a Christian believing King, another power ordinary indeed, but it is not a new regal power, but potestas executiva, a power or a gracious hability to execute the Kingly power that he had before as a King; so Christianity addeth no new Kingly power to a King, but only addeth a Christian power to use, enlarge, and dilate the Kingly power, that he had before.
Distinction 4. The Magistrate as a Magistrate is a political head and ruler of the Common-wealth, but as a Christian he is a member of the Church.
5. The Kings power as King in things ecclesiastic, is not servi • e and merely executive, as the Churches servant, to put their decrees in execution, but it is regal, princely and supreme.
6. The object of the Kings power is not simply a peaceable life, and external peace of human societies, but also honesty and godliness, but to be procured by a civil, political, regal and coactive way, by the Sword of the secular arm, as the object of the Church power is honesty and godliness to be procured by a ministerial, ecclesiastical, and spiritual power, without any forcing of men by external power.
7. The end of Kingly power, de jure, by God's right and divine Law, exintentione Dei approbativâ, is godliness, but the end of Kingly power according to its essence, and de facto, is a quiet life, though it attain not Godliness, as it doth not attain that end, nor can it attain it, amongst Pagans, and yet there is a Kingly power in its essence, whole and entire amongst Pagans, where there is no godliness, or Christian Religion.
8. There is in Heathen Kings a regal and Kingly power to establish Christian Religion and add regal sanctions to Christian Synods, though there neither is, nor can be, during the state of Heathen Paganism, any Christian Religion there; this power is essentially and actu primo, regal, yet as concerning execution, it is virtual only.
9. There is a difference betwixt a royal command under the pain of 〈◊〉 punishment, with a royal power to punish the contraveners 〈◊〉 ecclesiastic, and a nomotbeticke power to make Church Laws; 〈…〉 hath the former power, but not the latter.
10. If the royal power be of that transcendent and eminent greatness, as to make Laws in all things, belonging to Church 〈◊〉 , and so as Cameron must be heard, saying, that the • ing is the supreme ruler, and Church-men be as servants, and instruments under him, and do all in the external government of the Church by virtue of the Kings supreme authority, the King is not much honored by this; for they must say that the King in the Physician giveth dregs to the sick, in the Plow-man laboreth the earth, in the fashioner seweth and s • a • eth garments, whereas Pareus who without reason also giveth to the Prince a nomothetick power in Church-matte • s, doth except some things that the Prince cannot do, sometimes for want of right and law, other sometimes for want of knowledge, sometimes because it is against the dignity of his Majesty, as in sordid and base arts.
11. The power of governing the Church of the Jews, though it was ordinarily in the Priesthood, the Sons of Aaron, whose • ippes did preserve, ex officio, knowledge, Mal. 2. yet as the Prophets were raised up by God, extraordinarily to teach, they 〈◊〉 by that same extraordinary power did govern, and therefore though the Kings of Israel were not Priests, yet without doubt some of them were Prophets, and as Prophets they did prophecy, and as Prophets determine many things of Government, by that same extraordinary power by which some of them, to wit David, and Solomon, did prophecy, and pen Ca • ni • k Scripture.
12. There is one consideration of abuses and heresies manifestly re 〈◊〉 to God's word, and another of those things that are ordinar • 〈◊◊〉 . In the former there is no need of the Churches ministerial power of condemning them, and therefore Hezekiah, Jos • as, Asa, •• osaphat, did manifestly by the light of nature, and God's word 〈◊〉 abuses, and Idolatry in God's worship without the Churches 〈◊〉 , seeing the Church representative was guilty of these cor 〈◊〉 us themselves; but in the latter, seeing the Kings place is to come 〈◊〉 and compel by external force and bodily punishments, and it is the Churches part to teach, inserme, bind, and loose, therefore the King can make no Church Canons.
Hence our first conclusion. The Christian Magistrate as a Christian is a member of the Church, but as a Magistrate he is not formally a member or part of the Church.
1. Because he is neither a Pastor, Doctor, Elder, nor Deacon, as is clear to any, for these offices were complete in the Church without the Magistrate, Ephes. 1. 11. else Christ ascending to heaven should have given Kings, for the edifying of his body; Neither is he as a Magistrate a part of the company of believers. 1. Because then all Magistrates as Magistrates should be professors of the faith, which is known to be false. 2. Because the Magistrate, as such, is the head of an external politick civil society, not of Christ's body.
2. The Magistrate as a Magistrate wanteth such things as essentially constituteth a member of the Church, as a Magistrate only he hath neither baptism, profession, nor faith, because then heathen Magistrates should not be Magistrates, the contrary whereof the Word of God saith, Jeremiah in God's name commanded to obey the King of Babylon, and Paul commanded to pray for Kings and heathen Magistrates, 1 Tim. 2. 1. Hence let us have leave to deny these, (He who is the Churches nurs-father, is the Churches father, and a part of the family.) 2. (Whose office it is to cause all in the visible Church to profess the truth, obey God, and keep his Commandments, he is a member of the Church.) 3. (He who is a keeper and preserver of Law and Gospel by his office, he is by his office a member of the Church.) For the first: he is a father metaphorically, and doth by an external coactive power, and by the sword nourish the Church, and therefore is not the Church, nor a part of the Church, ex officio, by his office, as the nurs-father is not the child, nor a part of the child, whereof he is nurse-father; and this, and both the other two are to be denied, because the Magistrate doth neither nurse the Church, nor cause the Church do their duty, nor descend the Law and Gospel by any power that is intrinsically Church-power, but by the sword, and coactive power, which in no sort belongeth to Christ's kingdom as a part thereof, either as it is internal, and invisible, or external or visible, which is not of this world, Joh. 1 • . 36.
3. By no word of God can Salcobrigiensis, and Weemes prove, that the Magistrate as the Magistrate is a mixed persen, and his power a mixed power, partly civil, partly ecclesiastic, for •• the ruler cometh in amongst the ordinary Church-officers, • m. 12. Ephes. 4. 11. 1 Tim. 2. 2. which the Word of God doth •• ver insinuate, and he should no less watch for souls, as •• e who is to give an account to God, then other Church-officers, Heb. 13. 17. for the Magistrates office may be performed by himself alone, he himself alone may use the sword in all things, which he doth as a Magistrate, as is clear, Rom. 13. 1. and 1 Pet. 2. 13. 14 the King judging his alone, and the Kings deputy sent by him judging his alone is to be obeyed, but no Church power, mixed or pure, and unmixed is committed to any one man, but to many, as to the Church, Matth. 18. 17. 1 Cer. 5. 2. 3 4. 2 Cor. 2. 6
4. The Magistrate as the Magistrate hath a civil dominion ever the body, goods and lives of men. 2. And hath the sword to compel men to do their duties. 3. And compelleth to external obedience, and leadeth men on to godliness and to eternal life, by external pomp, force and the terrors of bodily and external punishment, and his warfare is carnal, a • the Scripture doth prove; but the Church, and members of the Church as they are such, have no majoritie of dominion, 1 Pet. 5. 3, 4. Luke 22. 24. 25. over the body, and goods, and blood of men. 2. They have not the sword, nor power of the sword, Joh. 18. 36. John 8. 11. Luke 12. 13. 14. 2 Cor. 10. 4. 3. The Church as the Church dealeth by the word of admonisting, teaching, rebuking, excommunicating, praying and requesting, as the Scripture cleareth: therefore the power of the Church and the power of the magistrate must dister in spece and nature.
5. If the Magistrate be a chief member of the Church, as a Magistrate with mixed power to make Church-Laws, then is the Church not perfect in its being, and operations, to obtain the end convenient to the Church as the Church, so long as it wanteth the Magistrate, because it should be made defective, and not able to exercise all its operations for the edification of Christ's body, and gathering of the Saints, Ephes. 4. 11. without this principal member, especially seeing the Magistrate is alleged to be a member, or integral part of the Church, such as the head or eyes, otherwise without this, or that professor, a Church may be perfect, as an army may be perfect, without this or that common Soldier, but wanting a Leader it should not be perfect. But so it is that the Church is and was perfect in its being, and operations, without the civil Magistrate; the Church of Corinth where the Magistrate was a heathen, and a Pagan, 1 Cor. 6. 1, 2, 3. is yet a Church sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be Saints, 1 Cor. 1. 2 graced, v. 4. enriched by Christ in all utterance and knowledge, v. 5. coming behind in no gift, v. 7. with power of excommunication which attaineth its proper end, the saving of the spirit in the day of the Lord Jesus, 1 Cor. 5. 4. A perfect body of Christ, 1 Cor. 12. able to edify the whole body, 1 Cor. 14. 12. 25, 26, 27. having power of the seals of the Covenant, 1 Cor. 11. 20, 21, 22, 23. So was there a perfect Church-Synod without the civil Magistrate, Act. 1. Act. 6. Act. 15. and all for the saving of the redeemed Church is laid upon the Eldership of Ephesus, Act. 20. 28, 29, 30, 31. without the Magistrate.
6. If the King be a mixed person endued with Church power to make canons, and because anointed with holy oil, capable of jurisdiction ecclesiastical, as some say, then as he is a King by birth, so is he also borne with an ecclesiastical power to exercise spiritual jurisdiction: but Paul saith, all ecclesiastical power that he had, was given of God, not borne with him; he was made, not borne a Minister, Col. 2. 25. the power to edify was given him, 2 Cor. 10. 8.
2. Conclusion. We cannot by the Word of God acknowledge that difference, betwixt the Magistrate, and the Christian Magistrate, that the Magistrate as a Magistrate hath a kingly power to rule over men as men, and the Christian Magistrate hath a Christian kingly power to rule over men as they are Christians. Because by one and the same kingly power the King ruleth over men as men, and men as Christian men, commanding by the sword and kingly power that Pastors preach sound doctrine, administrate the Sacraments aright, that all the Church profess Christ, and abstain from blasphemy, and Idolatry. He is the minister of God for good, Rom. 13. Ergo, he is the Minister of God for all good, for a Christian good, and is a King compelling to a Christian good: Also though the King were not a Christian magistrate, yet hath he a Kingly power to command men as Christians, and it is by accident, that he cannot in that state actually command Christian duties, and service to Christ, because he will not, and cannot command these duties remaining ignorant of Christ, even as a King ignorant of necessary civil duties cannot command them, not because he wanteth kingly power to command these civil things, for undeniably he is a Judge in all civil things, but because he hath not knowledge of them. 3. Christianity maketh him not a King over Christians as Christians, for then he could not be their King, and were not a King over Christians, so long as he wanteth Christianity, which is false, for the Christians acknowledged heathen Emperors as their Kings; the people of God were to obey Nebuchadnezzar, Darius, Cyrus, and other beathen Kings. Paul will have obedience and subjection due to every power, Rom. 13. 1, 2. 1 Tim. 2. 1, 2, 3. 1 Pet. 2. 7. 18. 4. It maketh way to the popish dethroning of Kings when they turn heretics, and leave off to be members of the Christian Church, which we abhor. 5. A King is parens patriae, the father of the Commonwealth. Now Christianity addeth no new fatherly power to a father over his children, for a heathen father is as essentially a father, as a Christian Father, and a heathen commander in war, a heathen husband, a heathen master, a heathen doctor or teacher, are all as essentially commanders, husbands, &c. in relation to their soul diers, wives, servants, and scholars, as are the Christian commander, the Christian husband, the Christian master, and Christian Doctor, in relation to Christian soldiers, Christian wives, &c. and no man can say that Christianity giveth a new husbandright to the husband, once a heathen, over his wife, that he had not before.
3. Conclusion. The King is not debarred as King from the inspection, oversight, and care of ecclesiastical affairs, but the end of the Kingly power, is not only external peace, but also godliness, 1 Tim. 2. 2. And in the intrinsical end of magistracy as magistracy, is not only natural happiness, and a quiet of life; as Spalat • , and after him that learned author Apollonius saith, but also godliness that we may lead a quiet and a peaceable life, in all godliness and b • nes • ie; Ergo, in all that may conduce to life eternal, he is a King by office, but in a coactive and regal way.
2. The ruler is (Rom. 13. 4) The minister of God to thee for good, v. 3. Do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the Ruler: then look how far good and well doing, which is praiseworthy extendeth, as far doth the intrinsical end of magistracy reach; but this good, and well-doing which the magistrate as the magistrate procureth, is not only a natural happiness, and the quiet life of a civil society, but also the good and well doing of Christians as Christians, to wit, public praying, praising, preaching, hearing of the word, religious administration and receiving of the Sacraments, all which the King as King is to procure; for what ever good external Pastors as Pastors do procure, that same also, but in a civil and coactive way, is the King as the King to procure, and therefore his end as King is godliness, and eternal life, but he is busied about this end, after a far other and more carnal way then the pastor, the weapons of whose warfare are not carnal. 3. That the Kings end intrinsical, as King, is more then external and natural peace, is clear, because ill doing against which he as the Minister of God, is to execute vengeance, and wrath, Rom. 13. 3, 4. is not only that which is contrary to external quietness of the commonwealth, and the natural happiness of civil societies, but also that which is contrary to the happiness supernatural of the Church as believers in the way to life eternal, for he is to take vengeance upon blasphemy, idolatry, professed unbelief, neglect of religious administration of the seals, and the eating and drinking damnation at the Lord's Table, which are ills not formally contrary to external quietness, but which are directly scandals, and moral ills hindering men as members of the Church in their journey to life eternal; for though men should never fall o • sin against the external quietness of the natural happiness of the members of a commonwealth, yet the magistrate as the magistrate is to execute vengeance upon all external ill-doing, as blasphemy, adoring of idols. 4. The magistrate as the magistrate, in the zeal of God, is to set himself against sins, as dishonorable to God, and his glory, seeing the judgment that he executeth, is not man's, but the Lord's, 2 Chron. 1 • . 6. and he is a little God in the room of God, yea God •• tteth judging in, and through him, Psal. 82. v. 1. and therefore his end is not only to punish sins, as they trouble the external peace of the commonwealth, but all external sins, that may wound the honor of God, and against which the magistrate, as he is such, is to be armed and clothed with zeal. 5. Those who with Split teach that life eternal is not the end of the magistrate, as a magistrate, but only the extrinsical end of the magistrate, or the end of the person who is the magistrate, must foully err; so it is not, in their meaning, the end of the office or kingly art to maintain religion and pi • tie, but this is the end of the person clothed with the office, and so they deny that God hath destined the kingly office to help men as Christians to heaven, and to promove Christ's kingdom mediatory, and they must be forced to say, God hath ordained magistracy to help men as men, or as they have a life common to them with the beasts, and not to help them as Christian men, to •• ie from the wrath to come, and obtain life eternal, which certainly is against the honor of magistracy, which of its own nature is destined for the promoving of religion, else the magistrate as the magistrate is not a nurs-father in the Church, nor to bring his glory to the new Jerusalem, nor to kiss the Son, nor to exalt the throne of Jesus Christ, contrary to the Word of God. 6. Yea they were only to promove the Church as a society of men, and to set up the throne of justice for the second table of the Law, and not a throne for piety, and for the first table of the Law, which is observed by Augustine, who will have Kings to serve the Lord, not only •• men, but also as Kings, in such sort which none can do, who are not Kings, and that •• only in civil • ffaires, but also in matters concerning divine religion: which passage, as Bellarmine corrupteth it on the one hand, making the King a Governor of men according to their bodies, and his old father the Antichrist a governou • of men according to their souls, so doth that virulent libeller Lysimachus Nicanor, with no reason infer that the King is head of the Church, and hath a Nomothetick power to impose the service book, and book of Canons upon the Church of Scotland. But because the King as King is to promove religion, therefore saith Junius) Minos, Ly • urgus, Charondas, Zeleu • us, and Numa obli • ged men to their Laws by some color of religion. 7. Nor do I think what is said against this by some learned men of great weight; see Guliel. Apollonius, Spalatensis, Tilenus, Daneus, Bu • anus, Professor. Leidens. Some say the magistrates power and the ecclesiastic power differ in the objects, the Magistrates powers (say they) object is things earthly, and the external man; the power of the Church is things spiritual, and the inner man.
I answer, these two powers differ in the objects no question, I mean in the formal objects, not in the material, for the magistrate as a magistrate is a nurs-father, and keeper, and avenger of both Tables of the Law, and hath a coactive power about hearing the word, administration of the Sacraments, Idolatry, blasphemy, and the right serving of God in Jesus Christ, and these things are not res terrenae, earthly things, or things of this life, but spiritual things. Yea the affairs of Jehovah and the Kings matters, 2 Chron. 19. 11. saith Ames, are not so different, non it a disparata sunt, as that the care and knowledge of the things of God, belongeth not to the King, sed it a distinguuntur, ut in modo procurandi, rex politice suas partes agat, & sacerdos ecclesiastice suas; the objects of the magistrates power, and of the Churches power may be materially and are one & the same, but the King worketh in a coactive and kingly way, and the Church in an ecclesiastic and spiritual way.
For do not both the King as King, and the Church as the Church, command and forbid one and the same thing? doth not the King command the right worship of God, and forbid Idolatry, and the Blasphemy of God? and doth not the Church in their Synodical Canons command and forbid one and these some things? yea certainly, but the King doth command and forbid by a kingly and coactive power, under the pain of bo •• lv punishment, as incarceration, exile, proscription, or death, according to the quality of the fact. And the Church commandeth also the right worship of God, and forbiddeth Blasphemy and Idolatry, but by a spiritual and ecclesiastic power, and under the pain of spiritual and ecclesiastical censures, as open rebuke, suspension, and excommunication; and they differ not so in their ends, as some teach, so as the end of the Church powes should be the communion of Saints, and the edifying of the body of the Church, which I grant is true, and the end of the Ruler should be only preservation of peace, and the external tranquility of the Common-wealth: yea (I say from the Word of God) that external peace is too narrow an end, and it doth belong to the second Table, the Kings end as Nurse-father and his a like care is to preserve the first Table, and as a Nurse-father, to see that the children's milk be good and wholesome, though the milk come not from his own breasts; and so his power hath a kingly relation to all the Word of God, and not to external peace and natural happiness only. And the King as the King, his end is edification and spiritual good of souls also, but always by a kingly power, and in a coactive way, by the sword, whereas the Church, are in their care of edifying souls, to use no such carnal weapons in their warfare, 2 Cor. 10. 4. For which cause that learned P. Martyr, and 〈◊〉 Parker, and also the Professors of Leyden say that Ministers deal with consciences of men, Quoniam Spiritus Sanctus (inquit Martyr) vim suam adjungit cum praedicationibus orthodoxis, the holy Spirit conjoineth the power and influence of grace with sound preaching; and the Magistrate doth only exercise external discipline. And Parker reasoning against Whitgift and 〈◊〉 , proveth well that the Church visible, though external, yet is Christ's spiritual Kingdom, and that Church discipline is a part of Christ's spiritual Kingdom, and that the external government of Christ by discipline, is spiritual every way, according to the efficient, 1 Cor. 12. 1. according to the end, spiritual • dification, Ephes. 4. 12. according to the matter, the Word and Sacraments, 2 Cor. 10. 3, 4. according to the form of working, by the evidence of the Spirit, 2 Cor. 2. 4. 13. And this is the cause (I conceive) why great Divines have said the object of the Magistrates power as a Magistrate is the external man, and earthly things, because he doth not in such a spiritual way of working, take care of the two Tables of the Law, as the Pastor doth; and yet the spiritual good and edification of the Church in the right preaching of the Word, the Sacraments, and pure discipline is his end. It is true, whether the blasphemer profess repentance, or not, the Magistrate is to punish, yea and to take his life, if he in seducing of many, have prevailed, but yet his end is edification, even in taking away the life; for he is to put away evil, that all Israel may fear, and do so no more: but this edification is procured by the sword, and by a coactive power, and so the Church power and the kingly power differ in their formal objects, and their formal ends. But Split speaketh ignorantly of Kings. Who saith, as the internal and proper end of the Art of painting, the Art of sailing, &c. is not life eternal, but only to paint well, according to the precepts of Art, and to bring men safe to their harborie, though the persons who are painters and sailers may direct works of their Art to life eternal: so (saith he) the end of the kingly Art is not life eternal, but only the external peace of the Common▪wealth; hence inferreth he, that there is no subordinatim betwixt the power of the Magistrate, and the power of the Church, but that they are both so immediate under God, as the Church cannot in a Church way regulate the King, as a King, but only as he is a Christian man; the Church may rebuke the King, while as he abuseth his kingly power to the destruction of souls, and that the Church power, as such, is not subordinate to the kingly power, only the King may correct with the sword the Pastors, not as Churchmen and Pas • ors, but as men who are his subjects. But, 1. whereas it is certain the King in respect of politick power is the immediate Vicegerent of God, and above any subject in his Dominions, so doth the Bishop, make the Shoe-maker, the Painter, the master-fashioner immediate unto God and censurable by none, as they are Artificers, even as the King is censurable by none as King, and so the King is dishonored, who by office is the Lord's annointed, and a little God on earth, Psal. 82. v. 1. (2) The intrinsical end of kingly power is no more the advancing of godliness, and the promoving of the Kings daughter towards life eternal, by the sincere milk of the Word, as the Lord's Vicegerent, and Nurse-Father of the Church, then the Painter as a Painter, or a Seaman as a Seaman is to advance godliness: for this man's intrinsical and is only a safe harbor and shore to temporal lives, not the harbor of salvation to souls; and his end is only a fair Image of Art in Paper or Clay, not the Image of the second Adam; and by this the King as King is interdicted of any Church business, or care of souls to be fed by the Word or Sacraments, to keep them clean; if he look to any of these, as an end, that is not the eye or intention of the King as King, but of the King as a godly Christian, (saith Split:) hence to care for the spiritual good of the Church, and the promoving of the Gospel is as accidental, as to say, an excellent Painter, such as Ap • ies, intendeth in his painting life eternal: so the King, by this, looketh to the Law of God, to Religion and the eternal happiness of the Church, by guess, by accident, and as King, hath neither chair nor room in Christian Synods, nor a seat in the Church. 3. If the meaning be, that the King as King, that is rightly exercisng the office of a King, is subordinate to no Church power, that is, he cannot be justly and deservedly rebuked by Pastors, that is most true, but nothing to any purpose; for so the Pastor as a Pastor, Jeremiah as he doth truly and in the name of the Lord exercise the prophetical office, cannot be deservedly censured, nor punished either by the Church-synodrie, or the King and Princes of the Land: but thus way all members of the Church, an I any one single believer, doing his duty, should be as immediate, and independent, and highest next on earth to Christ as the King, and his three Estates of the Honorable Parliament are in civil matters, and as an Occumenick Council, or in our brethren's meaning, independent Congregation, which is against reason. But if the meaning be, the acts of a King as aberring from justice, not as a King, but as a frail man, may be censured and rebuked deservedly by Pastors in a Church way; this way also, the Pastor as a Pastor is not subject to the Church, but only as a frail man, and so nothing is said to the purpose in this more then the in the former. But if the meaning be thirdly, that which only maketh good sense, that the acts of the King abstracted from good or bad, or as kingly, or not moral, nor acts of justice or injustice, more then the acts of Painting, of sailing, of making of Shooes, and thus the King is not subject to the Church power, nor is his intrinsical end as King, justice, and godliness and preservation of Religion, the man speaketh non-sense, and wonders; for the King as a King is a moral agent, and not infallible in his Laws or administration. Ergo, as a King he is under the Scepter of the King of Saints in discipline, and in the keys of the Kingdom of God, and so the kingly office is subordinate to the power of Christ in his Ministers and Church discipline, and by that same reason, the power and offices of Ministers as they are moral agents and obnoxious to sin, to false doctrine, blasphemy, idolatry, idleness and sleepiness in feeding the flock, are under the coactive power of the supreme Governor; and he doth as King use the sword against them: hence it is clear that both the kingly power is subordinate to Church-power, and that the subordination is mutual, that also the Church-power is subordinate to the kingly power, and that both also in their kind are supreme; the kingly power is the highest and most supreme, and under no higher coactive power: I mean the kingly as kingly conjoined with the collateral power of Parliaments, where the Realm is so governed, and the Church-power is the highest in the kind of Ecclesiastical power. Joan. Major saith well, that they are not subordinate, that is, not one of them is above another, that I grant, but that which he and Split saith, neutri in alteram est imperium, that neither of the two hath a commandment over another, that we deny, yet are they powers in office and nature different, for they differ in their objects. 2. Use and end. 3. And their manner of specific operations, and the Kings power is not ecclesiastic.
Others say that there was a perfect civil policy, having no need of the Church power, anent the perfect civil government amongst the Heathen, and in Christian Common-wealths, the civil power of it self and of its own nature can do nothing, for the attaining of eternal happiness, except we would go to the tents of Pelagians, whither Papists do lead us, while as they teach that the natural end of civil power, of its own nature and intrinsically is ordained to eternal happiness. But the civil power of it self doth confer nothing, whereby the spiritual power of the Church hath intrinsically, and properly, and formally its dignity, power, strength, and proper virtue; and doth produce its own proper effect and end, because, as saith Split, the civil Magistrates end is of another republike different from the Church, he is head of the Common-wealth, and civil body: see Apollonius.
But I answer, there is a Policy civil without the Ecclesiastical Policy, and the King is essentially a King, though neither he be a Christian himself, nor his subjects Christians; and to the essence of a King, and to the essence of a civil government, Christianity and a Church-power is not required, yet hath the King as King essentially a right and civil coactive power to promove Christian Religion, and the edification of Christ's body, though he be a Heathen; the want of Christianity doth not take away his kingly right, only it bindeth up and restraineth the exercise thereof; but though he be a King essentially, and actu primo, while he wanteth Christianity, and so is a perfect Magistrate, quoad esse, and the State that he ruleth over, a perfect civil body, quoad esse, in respect of essence and being, yet is he not a perfect Magistrate, quoad 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 operari, neither he nor his civil State and body are perfect in operations. And it followeth not that the King as King can doc nothing about the obtaining of life eternal, for as a King he hath a perfect right, and kingly power to do, and being a Christian he actually exerciseth that power, as a Nurse-father of the Church, to see that the Kings daughter be fed with wholesome milk, to see that the first and second Table be kept, and that men serve Christ, and have the seals of the Covenant in purity, under the pain of suffering the weight of his royal sword; and I wonder that this should be called nothing for the obtaining of eternal happiness, seeing it is a way to eternal happiness to be thus fed under a Christian King as a King. But (say they) it is Pelagianism that the Kings power compelling the Nurses to let out their breasts to the Kings daughter, that she may suck the sincere milk of the Word, should be a mean of eternal happiness. I answer, and it is also Pelagianism to say, that the planting of Paul, and watering of Apollos, and the ministerial power and pains of Ministers, without the grace of God, can produce or effectuate supernatural happiness, and it is false that the kingly power of itself doth confer nothing whereby the spiritual and ecclesiastical power hath intrinsically and formally dignity, and power, and its proper effect; for it is true, the kingly power maketh not the ecclesiastical power, but it setteth it on work, in a coactive way, for the edifying of Christ's body, and doth causatively edify. Lastly, whereas it is said the King as King is over the civil body and the Common-wealth, which is a body different in nature from the Christian body or Church; I say, that is false, for the King as King ruleth over men, as men, and also as Christian men, causing them to keep both the Tables of Law. But 3. (say they) the office of a King is not a mean sanctified of God for a supernatural good, because it is amongst the Gentiles. I answer, this is no consequence, for that office of it self is sanctified and ordained of God, for keeping of both Tables of the Law, and that it worketh not this, in its own kind, is not from the nature of the kingly office, but from the sinful disposition of the Gentiles; so the Word is the savor of death to some, through their default. Ergo, it is not a mean sanctified for that end; it followeth not. But 4. the office of the King of it self and its own power doth not govern or subdue the inward man, for immediately and of its own power it cannot bind the conscience, but only by the intervening mediation of the Word of God. Ergo, of it self it intendeth not to produce a supernatural and eternal good. Answ. Nor can the office of a Minister of it self, and in its own power, produce a supernatural good, but only by the authority of the Word, Esa. 8. 20. Jer. 23. v. 22. Tit. 1. 9. 10. is it therefore no office sanctified for a supernatural end? But 5. they reason, a supernatural good, and life eternal, are effects flowing from the mediatory office of Christ, bestowed upon the Church: but the kingly power floweth not from the Mediator Christ, but from God as Creator, who bestoweth lawful Kings and Magistrates upon many Nations, who know nothing of a Savior.
I answer, When I consider the point more exactly, I see not how Kings, who reign by the wisdom of God Jesus Christ, Prov. 8. 14. 15. have not their kingly power from Christ, who hath all power given to him in Heaven and in Earth, Matth. 28. 18. for they are Nurse-fathers of the Church as Kings, Esa. 49. 15. they are to kiss the Son, and exalt his Throne, as Kings, Psal. 2. 11. they bring presents and kingly gifts to Christ as Kings, Psal. 72. v. 10. 11. and they serve Christ not only as men, but also as Kings, as Augustine saith: therefore are they ordained, as means, by Christ the Mediator, to promote his kingly Throne. Some of our Divines will have the kingly power to come from God as Creator, in respect God giveth Kings, who are his Vicegerents, to those who are not redeemed, and to Nations who never heard of Christ; and others hold that the kingly power floweth from Christ-Mediator, in respect he accomplisheth his purposes of saving of his redeemed people, by Kings authority, and by the influence of their kingly government, procureth a feeding ministry and by their princely tutory, the edification of his body the Church, which possibly both aim at truth. See the groundless carping at Cartwright, Calvin, Beza, and others, by that sharp toothed envier of truth the Author of the Survey of holy discipline: of this hereafter more.
4. Conclusion. The King as King hath not a nomothetick, or legislative power to make Laws in matters ecclesiastic, in a constitute Church, nor hath he a definitive sentence, as a Judge.
1. All power of teaching publicly the Church or the Churches of Christ, is given to those who are sent and called of God for that effect: but Magistrates as Magistrates are not sent nor called of God to the public teaching of the Church. Ergo. The proposition is clear from the like, Rom. 10. 14. How shall they preach, except they be sent? Ergo, how shall they publicly and synodically teach, except they be sent? Heb. 5. 4. No man taketh this honor upon him, but he that is called of God, as was Aaron, &c. Ergo, if none be a Priest to offer a Sacrifice without God's calling, neither can he exercise the other part of the Priesthood, to teach synodically, & to give out ( 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ) decrees, Acts 16. 4. that obligeth the Churches ecclesiastically, but he who is called.
2. Who so hath nomothetick power to define and make Laws in matters ecclesiastic, have only a ministerial power to expone Christ's will in his Testament, under pain of Church-censures, and hath no coactive power of the sword to command these Laws enacted, and to enjoin them on the Churches. But only Church-men, who are formally members of the Church, as Pastors, Doctors, Elders, and others sent by the Church have this ministerial power; without the coactive power of the sword, and what ever the Magistrate as the Magistrate, commandeth, he commandeth it, in things ecclesiastic necessary and expedient, under bodily punishment; I add this, because threatening of bodily punishment, is not essential to Laws in general, because some Laws are seconded only with rewards, as the Judge offereth by law a reward to any, who shall bring unto him the head of a Boar, or of some notorious robber. Ergo, &c. The proposition is clear; the learned Junius giveth to the Magistrate with our Divines, an interpretation of Scripture, as a Judge; which concerneth his own practice, they are interpreters, pro communi vocationis modo, in a Christian way, as private men, but they have no power of ecclesiastic interpretation. 2. Gul. Apollonius saith, the Prince as a Christian, hath an office to exhort the Svnod, by word or Epistle, as Constantius did the Fathers of the Nicene Council; and his Legates exhorted the Council of Chalcedon, ut Deo rationem reddituri. See Ruffinus and the acts of the Council of Chalcedon. 3. The Magistrate hath a power judicial, as a Magistrate, in so far as his own practice is concerned, to expone the things defined, but this expotition he useth, non instruendo synodice, non docendo ecclesiastice, sed docendo seu potius mandando cum certa relatione ad paenam à brachio seculari insligendam contemptoribus, not in an ecclesiastical way teaching and instructing synodically, but teaching or rather commanding with a certain relation to civil punishment, to be inflicted upon the contemners; as he teacheth, what is just, or unjust in his civil Laws, not directly to inform the mind, but to correct bad manners, and this maketh the object of kingly power about Churches matters, and the object of ecclesiastical power, formal objects different.
3. Those who have a nomothetick power to define in Synods, are sent by the Church to Synods with authoritative commission and power for that effect, representing the Church which sent them, as all who are sent with any ambassage do represent those who sent them. But Magistrates as Magistrates, are not sent to represent those who sent them with authoritation commission of the Church. Ergo, they have no such power •• d • ine in Synods. I prove the proposition from the Apostles practice: Paul and Barnabas were sent as chosen men by the Church 〈◊〉 Antioch, Acts 15. 2. 3. Acts 15. 6. the Apostles and Elders came from the Church to consider of this matter, Acts 21. 18. Acts 22. 17. 〈◊〉 2 Cor. 8 17, 18. if the Apostle with the Church sent Titus 〈◊〉 Brother, whose praise is in the Gospel, as chosen of the Churches, to travel with us, v. 19, in gathering the charity of the Saints, for the poor at Jerusalem, then by the like, those who are sent to declare the minds of the Churches, are also clothed with the authority of the Churches, who sent them; but Magistrates a • such, are not sent, but are there with the sword of Common-wealth, and not with the mind of the Church, as Magistrates, except they be also Christians.
4. The Apostolic Synods, is to us a perfect pattern of Synods. but persons defining in them are Apostles and Elders, Acts 16. 4. Acts 15. 6. the Church, Matth. 18. 18. defineth, and 1 Cor. 5. 4. those who are convened in the name of the Lord • esus, and the Apostles pastoral spirit, those who are over us in the Lord, and watch for our souls, 1 Thes. 5. 14. Heb. 13. 17. but in these Synods there are no Magistrates, yea there was at C • rinth a Heathen Magistrate, 1 Cor. 6. 1. and in the Apostolic Church a persecutor, Acts 22. 1, 2, 3. &c. And the Magistrate as the Magistrate, is not a member of the Church, and is neither Pastor, Elder, nor Doctor, nor a professor of the Gospel, except he be more then a Magistrate.
5. No Ecclesiastical power, or acts formally Ecclesiastical, are competent to one who is not an Ecclesiastical person, or not a member of the Church, but a civil person; but a power to define in Synods, and the exercise of acts Ecclesiastical and matters Ecclesiastical, are due to Ecclesiastical persons, and to the Church. Ergo, they are not competent to the civil Judge. The proposition is evident by differences betwixt Ecclesiastical persons and civil Magistrates, which might be more accurately set down by others, then by me. But they differ, 1. that the Churches power is spiritual, the Magistrates causatively, effectively or objectively spiritual, but not intrinsically and formally spiritual, because he may command by the power of the sword spiritual acts of preaching, administrating the Sacraments purely, of defining necessary truths in Synods, and forbid the contrary, but he cannot formally himself exercise these acts. 2. The Church-men are members of the Church, the Magistrate as such is a politick Father and Tutor of the Church, but not formally, as he is such a member of the Church. 3. The power of the Magistrate is carnal, and corporal, and coactive upon the bodies; for which cause, Tylenus, Daneus and others say, the external man is the object of his power, the power of the Church is spiritual, not carnal, not coactive, not bounded upon the body; the Church hath neither power of heading or hanging, but only they may use the sword of the Spirit, exhortations, rebukes, censures, excommunication. 4. Edification to be procured by the Word and Sacraments and Church-censures, is the end of Church-power, but edification to be procured by the sword, is the end of the civil Magistrate. 5. The Magistrate judgeth not what is true and false to be believed simply, as teaching, instructing, and informing the conscience, but only what is true and false to be believed or professed in relation to his sword and bodily punishment, or civil rewards. 6. The Magistrates judgment is kingly, supreme, peremptory, and highest on earth, from which we are to provoke in no sort, except in appealing to God; the Churches judgment is ministerial, conditional, limited by the Word of God. 7. The Magistrates power is over all, Heathen and Christian, over men as men, and over men as Christians, and agreeth to Heathen and Christian Magistrates alike; the Church power agreeth only to members of the Church, and is only over members of the Church as they are such. 8. What ever causes the Magistrate handleth, as hurtful to the Common-wealth, and contrary to the Law of God, in a political and civil way, these same the Churches handleth as they promote edification; or if they be sins, the Church cognosceth of them, sub ratique scandali, as they are Church scandals. 9. The civil power is above the Church-men as they are Church-men, and members of a Christian Common-wealth, and the Church power is above the Magistrate as he is a member of the Church and to be edified to salvation, or censured for scandals, Matth. 18. 17. 2 This. 15. 13. 1 Tim. 5. 20. and therefore there is both a mutual subordination betwixt the honors, and also because both are highest and most supreme in their • ind, they are also coordinate, and two parallel supreme powers on earth: as the Church hath no politick power at all, so hath the Church no politick power above the King, but he is the only supreme power on earth immediate under God; so the King hath no power formally and intrinsically ecclesiastical over either the Church, or any member of the Church, but the Churches power is supreme under Christ the King and head of the Church. 10. The Churches power may be without the Magistrate, and is complete both in being and operation, as Acts 1. 1. and Acts 15. 1, 2. 1 Cor. 5. 1, 2, 3, 4. without it, yet it is helped much by the Magistrates power, which is cumulative, to ad help to the Church, and not privative, to take away any right or privilege from the Church, for then the Church should be in worse case and greater bondage, under a Christian King, then if there were no King to defend the Church at all, if the Kings power were privative; and it is true the Churches own power is cumulative, & not privative, because the Church hath no power to take nothing from it self; but the King is to add his royal •• ield to the Bride of Christ, out of zeal to the honor of the Bridegroom, for a politick promoving of godliness, which the Church as such wanteth. But the kingly power though it may be, and is, in Heathen Nations perfect in its being without the Church power, yet is it not perfect in its operations, as is said. 11. The Church power is to go before, and to define, prescribe and teach first, and the civil power to add a civil sanction thereunto, as an accumulative and auxiliary supplement. 12. The Magistrate hath no power properly to define controversies, yet hath he the power of the judgment and discretion, and also may with a coactive power cognosce in a politick way of Church matters in reference to the use of the sword, but the Church as the Church hath a ministerial power 〈◊〉 , to define controversies according to the Word of God. 13. Everyone helpeth another to obtain their own ends, but hey cannot be contrary one to another formally, yet do these differences prove, that the Magistrate, as such, cannot detine in a Synod, what is truly to be believed and practiced by members of the Church, what not. And also godly Princes have refused this. Hosius Cordubensis writeth to Constantius the Arian Emperor, which words Athanasius commendeth. Desine, design, quaeso, & memineris te mortalem esse, reformida di • m judi • ii, neque te immisecas eco'esiasticis, nec nobis in hoc genere praecipe, se • e • potius a nobis disce: tibi autem d • us imperiun • commisit, nobis autem quae sunt ecclesiae, concredidit.
Ambrosius epist. 14. ut alii. 33. ad Marcellinam sororem, dicit, se Valentiniano dicere, Nolite gravare, imperator, ut • u • es te in e t, quae divina sunt, imperiale jus habere, noli te extollere, sed si vis divinitus imperare, esto &c. subditus—ad imperatorem palatia pertinent, ad sacerdotem ecclesia; publicorum tibi maenium jus ancessum est, non sacrorum.
Augustine. Epist. 48. & 162. Neque ausus est Christianus imperator, sic eorum (Donaristarum) tumultuosas et fallaces querelas suscipere, ut de judicio Episcoporum, qui Romae sederent, ipse judicaret 16. iis ipse (imperator) cessit ut de illa causa, post Fpiseopos, ipse judicaret, a sanctis antistitibus postea veniam petitucus.
Chrysost. hom. 4. & 5. de verbis Esa. Qumquam admirandus videtur thronus regius, tamen rerum terrenarum administrationem sortitus est, nee praeter potestatem hanc, praetere • quicquam autoritatis habet.
Leontius Tripolis Lydiae Episcopus, cum Constantius in eonventu Episcoporum multa praescriberet, Mirror (inquit) qui fiat, ut aliis curandis destinatus, alia tractes, qui cum rei militari et reipublicae praesis, Episcopis ea praescribas, quae ad solos pertinent Episcopos.
Constantine Magnus in concilio Niceno (ut ait Ruffinus hist. l. • . addit. Eusebio cap. 2.) re • usavit ferre ju licium inter Episcopos. D • us (inquit) vos constituit sacerdotes, & nobis a d • o d • ti isiis judices, & conveniens non est, ut homo judicet deos.
S • zomenus hist. l. 6. c. 7. Mibi (inquit Ualentinianus senior) qui sum in sort plebis, fas non est talia negotia & ecclesiastica, • erserutari; sacerdotes, quorum ista curae funt, inter seipsos, quocunque voluerint loco, conveniant. Theodosius Junius epist. ad Fphesinum Synodum. Deputatus est Candidianus magnificus Comes strenu • rum domesticorum transire usque ad sanctissimam Synodum testram, ac in nullo quidem, quae facienda sunt, de piis dogmatibus qu • stiones • ommunicare: illicitum namque est, eum qui non sit ex ord •• • anctorum Episcoporum, ecclesiasticis immisceri tractatibus. Gregorius Mag. l. 5. Epist. 25. Notum est piissimos dominos dicip • inam diligere, ordines servare, canones venerari, & in causis sa 〈◊〉 • ese non immiseere.
Distin. 96. C. satis evidenter, illicitum est imperatorihus ecchsiasti • s • immiscere tractatibus.
Constantius would not take on him to judge the Arian cause, but convened a Council, and commanded them to judge according to the word: So saith Eusebius de vita Constant. l. 3. c. 10. ad Theodor. l. 5. c. 9. Neither can it be said that Constantine judged with the Synod as Emperor, as some affirm, for though it be true, yet he judged not in the Synod as Emperor, but as Episcoporum conservus as he nameth himself, and as Eusebius saith, de vita Constant. l. 3. c. 16. ipse tanquam unus e vestro numero, non recusabam. Now Constantine as Emperor was not a fellow-servant with Pastors or one of the number, but above them, as the anointed of the Lord; but he judgeth with them, as one of their number, as a Christian having one faith, one baptism, one Lord, with them; and so as a member of the Church, and so saith he in that same place, Literarum divinitus inspiratarum testimonio res in quaestionem adductas dissolvamus. And let this be our first distinction.
Emperors of old defined in Synods, as Christian members of the Church, not as Emperors, for as Emperors they be political heads of the men of the Church. Gerardus Tom. 6. de Magist. polit. n. 175. pag. 586, 587. who giveth also a nomotheticke power to Magistrates in matters ecclesiastical, furnisheth us with an argument here, because the Magistrate is a principal member of the Church, and all the members of the Church are to judge and try the spirits, and to try all things, now this proveth well as a member of the Church, and so as a Christian he may judge, and that in a mere ecclesiastic way, as Pastors and Elders doth, as private Christians may do, being called thereunto by the Church, though the ground be weak, for the Kingly power maketh not New, Tiberius and other Emperors, members of the Church, only grace, faith, and communion with Christ, maketh Kings members of the invisible Church, and baptism and profession of the faith, and not any earthly Prerogative of Scepter, or Crown, maketh them members of the visible Church.
Our second distinction from Fathers, is, that Emperors have a Kingly power political to confirm, and add their civil sanction to Church constitutions, but they have no power formally ecclesiastic to define and make Church-laws. So Augustine: as a man the King serveth the Lord, vivendo fideliter, by living the life of a sound believer, and as a King he serveth the Lord, by adding the convenient vigor of a civil sanction to just Laws—as the King of Nineveh did, by compelling the men of Nineveh to pacify God. And when Gaudentius the Donatist objected that the Emperor could not take course with the Schism made in the Church by their separation, because God hath laid upon Prophets, not upon Kings, the Preaching of the word: Augustine answereth, not that Kings may either preach, or define controversies in the Church, but that, sinco Donatists separate from the Church, it should be the care of Kings to see, that none rebel against the Church of Christ. Hence I reason thus, no Synods ecclesiastical can meddle with the blood and temporal lives of men, nor can they forbid the belief and profession of heresies and erroneous doctrine, or scandals against pure discipline under the pain of bodily punishment, as banishment, imprisonment, heading or hanging. But Emperors and Kings, either in a Synod or out of a Synod, may lawfully forbid such things, and that by a Kingly power, therefore if Emperors in Synods make any Laws of this kind, they are not Synodical, nor ecclesiastical Laws, nor do they make such Laws, jointly with the Church-Synod, as some teach, nor by any ecclesiastic power, for coactive power, and ecclesiastical power, cannot be joined together as one power, to make one and the same ecclesiastical laws. Let any judge then if the ancient Laws of some Emperors were any other things, but civil and politick sanctions of Church-constitutions. And judge of this Law, which some call the ecclesiastical determination of Heraclius the Emperor by the consent of Pope John, he ordained that there is n • • there one nor two operations in Christ. Heraclius a Monothelite commanded this under the pain of civil punishment, as is certain. But had Pope John as collateral Judge with the Emperor in this, that same coactive power that the Emperor had? I think none can say it. So three Emperors commanded all people to hold the doctrine of the Trinity, and that those who hold not this be heretics. This is but a civil sanction of a Church Law. So Martianus commandeth that the decrees of the Council of Chalcedon be established, and that no man dispute or call in question these decrees. This is clearly the Emperors civil ratification of Church-laws: and Justinianus forbiddeth any public service to be in the Church by laicks only, in the absence of the Clergy, and commandeth the Bishops not to muttter in to themselves, but to speak in the administration of the Sacraments with a clear and distinct voice. If Emperors did proceed any further, as some say that Theodosius deposed the Nestorian Bishops, though indeed he only commanded them to be deposed, their deeds are not Laws, a facto ad jus non valet consequentia. Papists here are in two extremities. For 1. they will not have Princes to meddle with Church-affairs, whereas by office they are Nursfathers in the Church. Charles the fifth is rebuked by Paul the third, because he convened councils for composing of dissensions in the Church, and he compareth him to Uzzah, who touched the Ark without warrant, as we may see Wolsius. 2. Stapleton, Bellarmine, and Papists will have them to be brutish Servants, to execute whatsoever the Pope and Councils shall decree, good or bad, without examination also; as Suarez, the Council of Paris, their Law saith, and Innocentius the first, and Gregory the seventh do teach: Making Kings in their judgment slaves to the Pope and 'his determinations, and to have no light but from their virtual Church, as the Moon hath all her light from the Sun.
Our third distinction is, that the Magistrate as Magistrate, and a preserver of public peace, may do something, when a Schism and dissention is among the Church-men in a Synod. 1. In this case he may punish perturbers of peace, as Augustine answereth Gaudentius the Donatist, and the separaters from the Church, in which case the Magistrate indirectly condemneth one of the parties, which the Church hath condemned: but there be many other cases of dissention in this case; therefore when the Magistrate findeth the Synod divided in two parties equally; or three, i • the corrupt part prevail; or four, in the case of the Churches aberration in one particular fact: or five, if there be an universal apostasy of the whole representative Church: or six, an universal defection of both the representative and essential Church: all these being too casual and of too frequent occurrence, one and the same answer cannot be given, and here be sundry subalterne distinctions considerable.
Hence our fifth Conclusion: when there is an equal rupture in the body, nothing extraordinary would be attempted, if ordinary ways can be had: if Saul the ordinary Magistrate had at God's Commandment killed Hagag, Samuel the Prophet should not have drawn his Sword, and therefore in this case the Magistrate would first seek help from other Churches, as that learned Apollonius saith. But if that cannot be conveniently had, as in a national Church it may fall out, then the Magistrate as a preserver of peace and truth, may command the sincerer part to convene in a Synod, and do their duty, as the good Kings of the people of God did: 2 Chron. 15. Asa gathered together a people who entered in Covenant to seek the Lord God with all their heart, and laid an obligation of punishment to death on the rest, v. 12, 13. and Jehoshaphat, 2 Chron. 23. 4. he laid charge on Hilkiah the High Priest, and the Priests of the second order, whom he knew to be better affected to the work, to bring out the Vessels made for Baal; which proveth that the King should put the sincerest to do that, which in common belongeth to the whole, in which case of the erring of the most part of the Church, the Prince indirectly condemneth the erring part of the Synod, because it is his place to forbid and to punish with the sword, the transgressors of God's Law. But because his power is accumulative, not privative, under that pretence he hath not power to hinder the sincerer part to meet and determine according to the Word of God.
6. Conclusion. In the case of the prevailing of the corrupt part of the Church, or in the fourth case of the aberration of the Church in one particular, the King hath a regal power to punish the Canonists, if they shall decree in their Synod Popery, and heretical doctrine, and so give to the Bride of Christ noisome and deadly milk; the Prince as nursefather may punish the Canonists. 1. Because he is a keeper of both Tables of the Law, and hath a royal power to inflict bodily punishment upon all sins, even committed, in foro exteriore ecclesiae, as the King may punish false teachers. 2. Because the Magistrates power is auxiliary & accumulative, as a tutor and nur • efather, who hath law to help the Pupil, and to add to the inheriritance, but hath no Law nor power to take away any part of the inheritance from the Pupil; Ergo, as a nursefather, he is to help the Church of Christ, against the wicked Canons of the representative Church. If any object, then the King as King hath power to rescind and annul the ecclesiastical Canons; the contrary whereof that learned author of Altare Damascenum doth prove.
I answer, that learned and worthy author proveth that the Prince cannot annul the Church-Canons, and that the council of Trent thought shame that the Pope should absolve any condemned by the Church-Canons; and certainly the same power that maketh Canons should dissolve them; but the Kings power cannot make Church-Canons, for it is a part of the ministerial calling to make Canons, and therefore he cannot annul and dissolve Canons: but some greater Kingly power is due to the King in the case of the Churches aberring, then in the case of the Churches right administration; and as our Divines do justly give to the Prince an extraordinary Kingly power in the case of universal apostasy of the Church, as Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah, Josiah, and other worthy reformers in the Church of the • ewes, did warrantably use their Kingly power, when the Church-men were corrupted and negligent in their duty; so in a particular case of a particular error of the Synod, the King as King, may use his Kingly power in this fact, that is, secundum quid extraordinary, for the King is obliged as King to add his accumulative power of a civil sanction to all just and n • cessary Church constitutions, and it the Canon or Church constitution be wicked and popish, he is obliged to deny his civil sanction, and not that only, (for he that is not with Christ is against him) but he is to employ his kingly power against such Canons, and so is to deliver the Church of God in that, and in denying his accumulative power to unjust Canons, he addeth his kingly power accumulative to the true Church, in saving them from these unjust Canons.
2. Also it may be objected, If the King by a regal and coactive power may annul and rescind unjust Canons, he may by this coactive power make Canons, for it is that same power to make and unmake Canons.
I answer, if he may annul unjust Canons, that is, liberate his subjects from civil punishment to be inflicted for refusing obedience to such Canons, and for bid the practice of wicked Church constitutions under the pain of the sword; It will not follow, that therefore he may make Canons, but only that he may add his civil sanction to just Canons. 2. Neither can the King properly annul the Canon, but only deny to add his civil authority for the execution of such Canons.
But thirdly, it is objected, that the King bath a judgment that such Canons are wicked and superstition; the Church-men's judgment at the assembly of Glasgow, Edenbrough, an. 1638, 1639. is that such Canons are lawful, edificative, and necessary, then is the King obliged as King to deny his royal sanction, and who shall be Judge in the matter?
If you say the Word of God, it satisfieth not, because both the King, and the Synod, alledgeth the Word of God, as norm • judicandi, a rule of judging, but the rule of judging is not formally the Judge, but we uske who shall be the visible ministerial and vocal Judge under Christ, speaking in his own Testament, for the King is a Politick and civil Judge, and the Church an Ecclesiastical Judge.
I answer, this same is the question betwixt us and Papists anent the Judge of controversies, whether the Judge be a Synod or the Scriptures; and we answer by a distinction, the Scripture is norm i judicandi. 2. Christ, the peremptory and infallible Judge speaking in his own Word. 3. A Synod lawfully convened, is a limited, ministerial, and bounded visible Judge, and to be believed in so far as they follow Christ the peremptory and supreme Judge speaking in his own Word. But we deny that there is on earth any peremptory and in fallible visible Judge. But to come yet nearer; if the King have sworn to that same religion which the Church doth profess, and so acknowledge and profess the reformed religion of that Church, he must then acknowledge the lawful officers of that Church to be his ordinary teachers, and the lawful ministers of the Church, and that they are both in a Synod, and out of the Synod, to preach, and to be ministerial definers of things contraverted, and that they shall first determine in an ecclesiastical way according to God's Word, and he as King is to command them to determine according to God's Word, under the pain of civil punishment, and the Kings civil and coactive way of judging is posterior and ratificator • e of the right and oxthodox ecclesiastical determination, and Junius saith that the Magistrates judging politick, presupposeth the Church judging ecclesiastical, going before; and Calvin and Ames are clear that in this case the Church is to cognosce of he own ecclesiastical affairs. Ambrose writeth to the Emperor Valentinian, that none should judge of this cause which is ecclesiastical as one said, but a Church-man, qui nec munere sit impar, ne • jure dissimilis. Gelasius the Pope inveigheth against Anastasius the Emperor, because he confounded these two, civil and ecclesiastical causes. But if the Emperor or King profess not the religion of the land, and repute it false, and if the religion be indeed heretical, then the Church is not constitute, and the case extraordinary; but the truth is, neither the Kings judgment, as a certain rule to the representative Church, nor the representative Churches judgment a rule to the King, but the Word of God the infallible rule to both. Judgment may crook, truth cannot bow, it standeth still immovable like God the father of truth; but in this case if both err, ex cellently saith Junius, the Magistrate erring the Church may do something extraordinarily, and t • e Church erring the Magistrate may do something also in an extraordinary way, as common equity and mutual law requireth that friends with mutual tongues bicke the wounds of friends. Also fourthly, some say, they who make the King the head of the Church, acknowledge that the King doth not judge, except the matter be first defined in the Scriptures, and in the general councils, yet they give a primacy spiritual in matters ecclesiastical to the King, and therefore if the King as King may forbid the inacting of wicked Canons, he determineth them to be wicked, before the Synod have passed their judgment of them.
I answer, that learned Calderwood saith indeed, the pretended Lord's of high Commission have an act for them under Queen Elizabeth for this effect, but it is made for the fashion, for all errors and heresies are condemned in Scripture, but not only should there be a virtual and tacit determination of matters ecclesiastic, which is undeniably in Scripture, and may be in general councils also, but also a formal Synodical determination in particular must go before the Princes determination in a constitute Church. The Prince may before the Synods determination exhort to the determination of what he conceiveth is God's will in his Word, but he cannot judicially and by a Kingly power determine in an orderly way, what is to be defined in a Synod, except he infringe the Churches liberties, and judicially prelimit under the pain of civil punishments, the free voices of the members of the Synod, which is indeed, an abuse of the authority of a nurs-father.
But fifthly, it may be objected that he may, in a thing that is manifestly evident by the Word of God to be necessary truth, command by the power of the sword, that the Synod decree that, or this particular, so clear in the Word, the contrary whereof being Synodically determined, he may punish by the sword, and so he may judicially predetermine some things before the S • nod pass their Synodical act thereon, and if he may predetermine judicially one thing, he may predetermine all things.
I answer: what the King may judicially determine and pun •• h with the sword, that he cannot judicially predetermine and command in any order that he pleaseth, but in a constitute Church, whereof he is a member and to be taught, he is to determine judicially in an orderly way, as a nurs-father.
But sixthly, it may be objected, that if the King have a judicial power by the sword to annul unjust acts, then hath he a power to 〈◊〉 them, though he abuse that power in making them, as unjust, and then hath he a power to interpret Church acts, and to defend them; 〈…〉 Law saith, it is not same power to make Laws, and to d • •• nd them, and interpret them: see Pareus.
I answer, the proposition is not universally necessary, except only in civil matters, in the which, as the Prince who is absolute hath supreme authority to defend, and interpret civil laws, so hath he power to make them; for if the Magistrate hath a supreme judicial power to interpret Church-Laws, he is a minister of the Gospel in that case, and may by that same reason administer the Sacraments, so the argument is a just begging of the question. 2. Though the King have power in case of the Church aberration (which is somewhat extraordinary) it followeth not therefore, in ordinary, he hath a nomothetick power to make Church-Laws.
Also seventhly, it may be objected, if the King in case of the Churches aberration, may by the sword rescind Church-Laws, then may he make a Law to rescind them: but those who a • firm that the King hath a sort of primacy and headship over the Church, say not that the King hath any power formally ecclesiastical to make Laws, as Ministers in a Synod do, but only that he hath a power to command any form of external worship, under the pain of bodily punishment, they say not that the King may preach, administrate the Sacraments, or excommunicate or inflict any Church-censures.
I answer, the transcendent power of Princesand their commissioners is not well known, for the authors (saith Calderwood) agree not among themselves; but it is true in words, the author est Tortura torti, the Bishop of Eli denieth in words (if you have strong faith to believe him) all spiritual headship over the Church, to the King, and Burbillus also. But Henric. Salcobrigiensis calleth the King primatem ecclesiae Anglicanae, the Primate of the Church of England and • ges oleo sacro uncti, capaces sunt jurisdictionis spiritualis, because they are anointed with holy oil, therefore are they capable of spiritual jurisdiction; also may (saith he creat propria autoritate, by his own authority, create Bishops and d • prive them. See what Calderwood hath said, and excerped out of the writings of these men; the King as King, 1. convocateth Synods; 2. defineth ecclesiastical canons; 3. giveth to them the power of an ecclesiastical Law; 4. executeth Church Canons; 5. appointeth commissioners, who in the Kings authority and name, may try heresies and errors in doctrine, punish nonconformitie to Popish ceremonies, may confine, imprison, banish Ministers; 6. descerne excommunication and all Church censures, and use both the swords; 7. relax from the power and censures of all ecclesiastic Laws, give dispensations, annul the censures of the Church, upon causes known to them, give dispensations against Canons, unite or separate Parish Churches, or diocesan Churches; and by a mixed power partly coactive and civil, partly of jurisdiction and spiritual, the King may do in foro externo, in the external court of Church discipline, all and every act of discipline, except he cannot preach, baptize, or excommunicate.
And whereas Cartwright saith, when a lawful Minister shall agree upon an unlawful thing, the Prince ought to stay it; and if Church ministers show themselves obstinate, and will not be advised by the Prince, they prove themselves to be an unlawful Ministry, and such as the Prince is to punish with the sword. O but, saith he the author of the Survey, how shall the Prince help the matter? shall be compel them to convene in a Synod, and retract their mind? but they will not do this. 2. By what authority shall the Prince do this? even by extraordinary authority, even by the same right that David did eat of the Shew-bread, if by ordinary authority the Prince would do it, yet do you resist that authority also.
Answ. Though the Prince had not external force to compel Church-men to decree in their Synods things equal, holy, ju • , and necessary, yet it followeth not that the King as King hath not God's right, and lawful power to command and enjoin them to do their duty; force and Law differ much, as moral and physical power differ much. 2. If they decree things good, lawful and necessary, the Prince hath a power given him of God to ratify, confirm, and approve these by his civil sanction, but he hath no power ordinary to infringe, or evert what they have decreed. 3. And if the Church be altogether uncorrigible and apostate, then we say as followeth.
7. Conclution. When the representative Church is universally apostatical, then may the Prince use the help of the Church essential of found believers, for a reformation, and if they also be apostatick, (which cannot be, except the Lord utterly have removed his candlestick) we see not what he can do, but hear witness against them, but if there be any secret seeker of God, in whose persons the essence of a true Church is conserved. The King by a royal power, and the Law of charity is obliged to reform the land, as the godly Kings, with a blessed success have hitherto done, Asa, J • siah, Jehoshaphat, 〈◊〉 , in which case the power of reformation, and of performing many acts, of due belonging to the Church officers, are warrantably performed by the King as in a diseased body, in an extraordinary manner power recurreth from the members to the •••• tick head and Christian Prince, who both, as a King, 〈◊〉 •• , in an authoritative way is obliged to do more then ord ••• y, and as a Christian member of the Church, in a charitative and common way, is to care for the whole body.
8. Conclusion. The influence of the Princes regal power in making constitutions is neither solitary, as if the Prince his 〈…〉 could do it; nor is it 2. collateral, as if the Prince and Church with joint concurrence of divers powers did it; nor is 3. as some flatterers have said, so eminently spiritual as the consultation and counsel of Pastors, for light only hath influence in Churches Canons, but the Princes power hath only the power to design, so as the Canon hath from the Prince the power of a Law in respect of us. The Kings influence in Church Canons (as we think) is as a Christian antecedent, to exhort that the Lord Jesus be served; 2. concomitant, as a member of the Church to give a joint suffrage with the Synod; 3. consequent, as a King to add his regal sanction to that which is decreed by the Church according to God's Word, or otherwise to punish what is done amiss.
Now that the Prince as a solitary cause, his alone defineth Church matters and without the Church, and that by his ordinary Kingly power, wanteth all warrant of the Word of God. 2. The King might have given out that constitution, Act. 15. It seemeth good to the holy Ghost, and to us, which in reason is due to the ministerial function, for these are called Act. 16. 4. the decrees of the Apostles and Elders, not the decrees of the King or Emperor, either by Law or fact. 3. Christ ascending to heaven gave officers requisite for the gathering of his Church, and the edification of the body of Christ, but amongst these in no place we find the King. 4. If this be true, heathen Kings have right to make Church-Canons, though they be not able, and be not members of the Christian Church, and so without, and not to be judged by the Church, nor in any case censured, Matth. 18. 17. 1. Cor. 5. 11. and this directly is a King Pope, who giveth Laws by a Kingly power to the Church, and yet cannot be judged by the Church. Burhillus and Thomson acknowledge that a Heathen King is primat and head of the Church; and must he not then have power aciu primo, to make Laws, and to feed the flock by external government? But Lancel. Andreas, Biship of Eli Tortura torti saith that a heathen King hath a temporal Kingly power, without any relation to a Church power, and when he is made of a Heathen King a Christian King, be acquireth a new power. But the question is, if this new power be a new kingly power, or if it be a power Christian to use rightly his former kingly power; if the first be true; then 1. as learned Voetius and good reason saith, he was not a King before he was a Christian, for the essence of the Kingly power standeth in an indivisible point, and the essence of things admit not of degrees. 2. Then should he be crowned over again, and called of God to be a Christian King, and so he was not a King before, which is against Scripture; for Nebuc • adnezzar was to be obeyed, and prayed for as King by the people of God, at Jeremiah's express commandment. 3. So a pagan husband becoming a Christian should by that same reason acquire a new husband-right over his wife; contrary to the 1 Cor. 7. 13, 14, 15. the Captains, or Masters, who of heathens become Christians, should obtain a new right and power over their Soldiers and Servants, and they should come under a new oath and promise to their Captains and Masters. 4. If the heathen King have only temporal Kingly power, he had no power as King to take care that God were worshipped according to the dictates of the Law of nature, and Law of nations, & had power to punish, perjury, Sodomy, parricid, as sins against the Law of nature, and the heathen King should not by office and Kingly obligation be obliged to be a keeper and a defender of the tables of the Law of nature, which is against all sense. But if the power which a heathen King becoming a Christian King acquireth, be only a Christian power to use for Christ the Kingly power that he had while he was a heathen King, then a heathen King, jure regali, by a regal right is the head of the Church, though he be a Woolfe and a Leopard set over the redeemed flock of Christ; yea though he be the great Turk, he is a Pastor called of God & the Church, though for his moralls, he be a Woolfe and a hireling, yet by office and Law, he is a feeder of the flock. Talis est aliquis, qualem ius offi • ii requirit. And certainly it is impossible that a heathen King can be a member of the true Church, he wanting both faith and profession, which do essentially constitute a Church-membership: if it be said he is ex officio, by his office a member, that is nothing else but he ought to be a member of the Church, so all mankind are members of the Church, for they are obliged to obey Christ, and submit to him upon the supposal of the revealed Gospel, and the heathen King is no otherwise a member by the obligation regal that layeth upon him as King; yea when the Gospel is preached, and the heathen King converted to the faith, he is not a member of the Christian Church, as a King, but as a converted professor, and so Christianity maketh him not a Kingly head of the Church, but what essentially constituteth him a King, that also constituteth him a Christian King; Christianity is an accidental thing undoubtedly to the office of a King.
2. They do no less err, who make the King and the Church officers collateral Judges in Church matters, so as with joint and co • quall influence they should be Canon makers. 1. Because perfect Synods are and have been in the Apostolic Church without any influence collateral of Christian Magistrates, as being against their will and mind, who were Rulers of the people, as Acts 1. 14, 15. Acts 2. 46, 47. Acts 4. 1, 2. Acts 6. 1, 2, 3, 4. Acts 15. 6, 7, 8. &c. 2. What the Church decreeth in the name of Christ, standeth valid and ratified in Heaven and Earth, Matth. 18. 17, 18. Joh. 20. 21, 22. whether the Magistrate assent to it or not, so that he hath not a negative voice in it by any ecclesiastic power, for Christ saith not, What ye bind on earth, in my name, shall be bound in Heaven, except the Magistrate deny, as a collateral Judge, his suffrage; Now if he be a collateral Judge by divine institution, no Church act should be valid in Christ's Court without him, as excommunication not in the name of Christ, or performed by those who are not the Church, but only in civil offices, is not excommunication; also what ever the Magistrate doth, as the Magistrate, he doth it by the power of the sword. Ergo, if he take vengeance on the ill doer, as his office is, Rom. 13. 3. 4. his acts are ratified in Heaven, though the Church as collateral Judges say not Amen thereunto. 3. The coactive power of the King, and the Ecclesiastical power of the Church, differ as carnal and spiritual, spiritual and not spiritual, of this world, and not of this world, and are not mixed by the Word oft, as Joh. 18. 36. 2 Cor. 10. 3, 4. 2 Tim. 2. 4. and therefore it in one and the same Church constitution, the King and the Church be joint and coequal Judges and joint definers, the constitution must both be enjoined under the pain of bodily punishment, which the Church, whose weapons are not carnal, cannot command, and under the pain of Church censures, as suspension, rebukes, and excommunication the King must command. Now the Canon should neither be an Ecclesiastical, nor yet a civil Canon, but mixed, for the Canon makers enjoineth with powers and pains which are not due unto them, nor in their power. Now to make a Law (saith Feild) is to prescribe • • awe under the pain, which the Law-maker hath power to inflict: but neither hath the Church the power of the sword, 2 Cor. 10. 3, 4. Joh. 18. 36. nor hath the King, by God's • awe, the power of excommunication. See Calderwood. And one and the same Law should be backed both by a carnal and worldly power, and not by a worldly and carnal power. 3. The King as King must have a mixed power, half kingly, ••• half ecclesiastic, and by the same reason, the Church must have a mixed power, partly Ecclesiastical and partly civil, and this were to confound the two kingdoms, the kingdom of this world, and the spiritual kingdom of Christ, which is not of this world, Joh. 18. 36. condemned by Anselm • , and Hilarius, and Bernard, and Augustine. Put if they say, that everyone hath their influence partialitate causae, non eff • cii, according to the nature of causes, then is not one and the same Church constitution from both King and Church. See Apollonius. But the Kings Canon is civil, the Churches Ecclesiastical, and everyone of them without another, perfect in their one kind. See what the learned Gerson, Bucer, and Ames saith, further to add light to this point.
Those who maintain a third, that the Church Canons hath all the power of being Church Laws from the King, and all Ecclesiastical and obliging authority from him, and that they have only some help of consulting power from the Church, are grosser Divines. See Joan. Weemes, for so the King is the only Canon maker, and the Church-men giveth advice only, as the Kings Proclamation speaketh, having taken 〈◊〉 counsel of our Clergy, we command such a worship, & • . and so the Canon runneth, it seemeth good to the holy Ghost and the King as the Canon speaketh, Acts 15. 2. the King is made an Ecclesiastical and ministerial Pr • acher to expone publicly the Scriptures to the Church of God, for all lawful Church Canons are but Ecclesiastical expositions of God's Word, and so the Emperors and Christian Kings are the only lawful Canon makers and definers in Ecumenic Councils, and Bishops, and Pastors, and Doctors have all a mere power of advising and counseling, which certainly all Christians on earth sound in the faith, except women, have. O whither are all the tomes of the Councils Ecumenic, national, and provincial, evanished unto? 3. Kings justly by this are made Popes, and more then Popes, for Kings only have a definitive voice in councils, whereas Papists give a definitive voice to all the lawful members of the council, no less then to the Pope. Weemes hath a distinction to save the Kings invading the Church-men's place, while as he giveth to Pastors a ministerial interpretation of Scripture in the Pulpit, and to the King a decretive and imperial power of interpreting Scripture in the Senate. But 1. there is no exposition of the word at all imperial, but only ministerial by the Word of God, except that imperial interpretation, that the Pope usurpeth over the consciences of men, and this is as Bancroft said, that the King had all the honors, dignities and preheminencies of the Pope, as Calderwood observeth, and yet Edward the sixth, and Edward the eighth would neither of them take so much on them. What difference betwixt a Sermon made by the King in the Senate, and the Pastor in the Pulpit? It is that same word of God preached; only the Kings is imperial, and so must be in his own as King, the Pastors ministerial, in the name of Christ; the distance is too great. The administration of the Sacraments may be imperial due to the King also, as a pastoral administration is due to the Pastors 4. In the government of Church there is nothing set down of the King, but of Pastors, to feed the flock, Act. 20. 28, 29. to edify the body of Christ, Ephes. 4. 11. to rule the house of God, 1 Tim. 3. 2, 3, 4. 16. to feed the sheep and Lambs of Christ, John 21. 14, 15, 16. and always this is given to Pastors and Elders. I know that Kings are nurs-fathers, to feed, edify, and watch over the Church, causatively, by causing others so to do; but this will not content the formalists, except the King command and prescribe the external worship of God.
Tooker, Bancroft, Whitegift, La • celot Andreas, Salcobrigiensis have a main distinction here: That Pastors and Elders rule the Church, as it is an invisible body, by the preaching of the word and administration of the Sa • raments, and of this government the foresaid places speak: but as the Church is a politick visible body, the government thereof is committed to the King. Bancroft said all the external government of the Church is earthly, and W • i • e • gift and Bancroft two gross Divines made for the court, say t • e external government of the Church, because external, is •• spi •• tuall, and not a thing belonging to Christ's external kingdom, ( • aith Bil •• n:) but this is, 1 false, 2. Popish, 3. Anabaptistical, 4. • yrannicall.
False, 1. Because external and vocal preaching, and a visible administration of the Sacrament in such an orderly way, as Christ hath instituted, is an external ruling of Church members according to the • awe of Christ as King, an external ordaining of the worship, is an external ordering of the worshippers according to the acts of worship thus ordered, as sense teacheth us: but the external ordaining of the worship, to preach, this, not this, to celebrate in both kinds, by prayer and the words of institution, and not in one kind only, is an external ordering of God's worship: therefore as Kings cannot administrate the Sacraments, nor preach, so neither can they have the external government of the Church in their • ands. 2. The feeding of the flock by Pastors set over the Church by the holy Ghost, Act. 20. 28. includeth the censuring by discipline, even the grievous Wolves entering in, not sparing the flock, but drawing disciples after them, verse. 29, 30, 31. and therefore Pastors as Pastors are to watch, and to try those who say they are Apostles 〈◊〉 not, but do lie, R • vel. 2. 2. by discipline; so this external • e • ding is external governing committed to Pastors, whereas inward governing is indeed proper to Christ the head of the Church. 3. What? do not the Epistles to Timothy contain commandment dements about external government to be kept invi •• able by Timothy, not as a King I hope, but as a Pastor, even 〈◊〉 the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, 1 Tim. 6. 14. and this taketh away that poor shif • , that the external government of the Church, as Tookerus saith, was in the Apostles hands, so long as persecuting Magistrates were over the Church. but now, when the Magistrates are Christians, the case is changed, but the government of all su •• as Timothy is, must be visible, external, and obvious to men, as 1 Tim. 2. 1, 2, 3, 4. 3. 1, 2, 3, 4. • . 16. 1 Tim 5. 9. 1 Tim. 5. 19, 20, 21, 22. 2 Tim. 2. 1, 2, 3, 4. 2 Tim. 3 5. all which must be kept until the coming of Christ, 1 Tim. 5. 21. 1 Tim. 6. 13. 2 Tim. 4. 1, 2. 4. If external government were in the Kings power, then were it his part to rebuke publicly, to excommunicate, and to lay on hands upon the Timothies of the Church; all which are denied by the formalists, and are undoubtedly the Churches part, as the Church, Matth. 18. 17, 18. 1 Tim. 5. 19, 20, 21, 22, 1 Tim. 3. 14. 1 Tim. 1. 20. 1 Cor. 5. 2, 3, 4, 5. 5. Parker proveth well that the keys are Christ as Kings ruling in word and discipline.
2. This is popish, for so doth the Papists teach, as Stapleton and Becanus, that the Pope, quo ad externum infiuxum, according to external influence of visible government is head of the Church, and Christ according to the internal influence of the spirit is the head of the invisible body of Christ, and here the King is installed in that external government, out of which our Divines by Scriptures have extruded the Pope, which is a notable dishonor done to Kings; and as Parkerus observeth. Joan. Raynoldus answereth that, from two offices of the head, which is to give life and influence of motion to the members, and also to guide and moderate the actions external of the body, we cannot make two heads; and because the King hath some civil government about the Church, we cannot make two heads over the Church, Christ one, and the King another under him.
3. This is Anabaptistical; for because the visible government of the Church is external, we are not to cut off all necessity of the ministry to feed and rule with ecclesiastical authority, and because the Prince is gifted and a Christian, to give all to him, for a calling there must be from God, for the King to govern the Church of Christ by Laws, and prescribing external worship therein, for Christ hath left, Ephes. 4. 1 Cor. 12. 1 Tim. 3. men to be feeders and governors of his Church by office, whose it is to be answerable for souls, Heb. 13. 18.
4. It is tyrannical, because it putteth power into the Magistrates hand, to take from the Church, that inbred and in • rinsecall power of external and visible government over her self and members, which all civil incorporations by instinct of nature have, and the Magistrate, as such, not being a member of the Church hath a headship, even being a heathen Magistrate, over the redeemed body of Christ. 2. By this reason, the Lord Jesus as King hath no Pastors in his name to use the •• ves of his kingdom, by binding and loosing; for discipline being an external thing (say they) is not a part of Christ's kingly power, but the King as Christ's civil vicar hath this power: but I say all acts of Christ as he is efficacious by the Gospel to gain souls, are acts of Christ as powerful by the Scepter of his Word, and those who are his instruments to exercise these acts are subordined to him as King of the Church, but Church-men by an external ecclesiastical power delivering to Satan, and externally and visibly casting out of the Church, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord, are instruments subordined to Christ, who is efficacious to save spirits by excommunication, and to gain souls by rebukes. Gregorius Magnus saith, those to whom Christ hath given the Keys of his kingdom, by these he judgeth, and why is this word the word of his kingdom? the Scepter of his kingdom? the sword that cometh out of his mouth, by which he governeth his subjects, and subdueth nations, so called? but because Christ's kingly power is with those, whom he hath made dispensators of his Word.
9. Conclusion. Nor hath the King power of ordaining Pastors, or depriving them, or of excommunication. 1. All these are acts of spiritual and ecclesiastical power, 1 Tim. 3. 14. 1 Tim. 5. 22. Act. 6. 6. Act. 13. 3. Act. 14. 23. Tit. 1. 5, 6. and flow from the power of the keys, given by Christ to his Apostles and their successors, Matth. 28. 18, 19, 20. Mark. 16. 14, 15, 16. Joh. 20. 21, 22, 23. Hence I argue, to whom Christ hath given out his power, as King of the Church, Matth. 28. 18, 19. power of the keys, Matth. 18. 18. Matth. 16. 19. and a commandment to lay hands, and ordain qualified men, for the ministry, and those who by the holy Ghosts direction practiced that power by ordaining of Elders, these only have right to ordain Elders, and their successors after them: but Apostles and their successors only are those to whom Christ gave that power, and who exercised that power, as the places prove.
2. Ordination and election both in the primitive Church of the Apostles was done by the Church, and consent of the multitude, Act. 1. Act. 6. 2, 3, 4. 5, 6, &c. but the civil Magistrate is neither the Church, nor the multitude.
3. Ordination is an act formally of an ecclesiastical power, but the Magistrate as the Magistrate, hath no ecclesiastical power; Ergo, he cannot exercise an act of ecclesiastical power.
4. If ordination were an act of Kingly power, due to the King as King; then 1. The Apostles and Elders usurped in the Apostolic Church the office and throne of the King, and that behooved to be in them an extraordinary and temporary power, but we never find rules tying to the end of the world, given to Timothies and Elders of the Church anent the regulating of extraordinary and temporary power, that were against the wisdom of God to command Timothy to commit the Word to faithful men, who are able to teach others, as 2 Tim. 2. 2. and to set down the qualification of Pastors, Elders, Doctors, and Deacons to Timothy, as a Church man, with a charge to keep such commandments unviolable to Christ's second appearing; if Timothy and his successors in the holy ministry were to be denuded of that power, by the incoming of Christian Magistrates. 2. The King by the laying on of his hands, should appoint Elders in every city, and the spirits of the Prophets should be subject to the King, not to the Prophets, as the word saith, 1 Cor. 14. 32.
5. Those who have a Church power to ordain and deprive Pastors, must by office try the doctrine, and be able to 〈…〉 sayers, and to find out the Foxes in their heretical ways, and to rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith: but this by office is required of Pastors, and not of the King, as is evident, 1 Tim. 3. 2. 2 Tim. 2. 2 • . Tit. 1. 9, 10, 11. It is not enough to say, it is sufficient that the King try the abilities of such as are to be ordained, and the bontgates of heretical spirits to be deprived, by Pastors and Church men, their counsel and ministry, and upon their testimony the King is to ordain, and make, or exauthorate, and unmake Pastors; because 1. so were the King a servant by office, to that which Church men shall by office determine, which they condemn in our doctrine, which we hold in a right and sound meaning. 2. He who by office is to admit to an office, and deprive from an office, must also by office, be obliged to be such as can try what the office requireth of due to be performed by the officer; nor is it enough which some say, that the ignorance of the King in civil things taketh not away his legal power to judge in civil things, and by that same reason, his ignorance in Church matters taketh not away his power to judge in ecclesiastical matters, for I do not reason from gifts and knowledge that is in the King simply, but from gifts which • x • fficio, by virtue of his Kingly office is required in him. It is •• ue as King he is obliged to read continually in the book of the Law of God▪ Deut. 17. and to know what is truth, what here • ie, in so fa • re as he commandeth that Pastors preach sound doctrine, and that as a Judge he is to punish heresy. Some say he is to have the knowledge of private discretion, as a Christian, that he punish not blindly. I think he is to know judicially as a King, 1. Because he hath a regal and judicial knowledge of civil things, even of the major proposition and not of the assumption and fact only. Ergo, seeing he is by that same kingly power to judge of treason, against the Crown & the civil State, by which he is to judge of heresy, & to punish heresy, it would seem as King he is to cognosce in both, by a kingly power, both what is Law, and what is fact. 2. Because the judgment of private discretion, common to all Christians, is due to the King as a Christian, not as a King: but the cognition that the King is to take of heresy and blasphemy, whether it be heresy or blasphemy, that the Church ••• • eth heresy and blasphemy, is due to the King as King, because he is a civil Judge therein, and if the Church should call Christ's doctrine blasphemy, Caesar and his deputy Pontius Pilate, as Judges civil, are to judge it truth. Neither would I •• i ••• lie here contend; for whether the Kings knowledge of herese in the major proposition be judicial, or the knowledge of discretion only, as some say, we agree in this against Papist • , that the King is not a blind servant to the Church, to punish what the Church calleth heresy, without any examination or trial▪ but though the Kings knowledge of heresy in the proposition and in Law, be judicial and kingly, yet because he is to cognosce only in so far as he is to compel and punish with the sword, not by instructing and teaching. It would not hence follow that he is to make Church constitutions as King, but only that he may punish those who maketh wicked constitutions, because the Canon maker is a ministerial teacher, the King as King may command that he teach truth, and he may punish heretical teaching, but as King he is not a teacher, either in Synod or Senate, in Pulpit or on the Throne; now if the King by office ordain Pastors, and deprive them, by office he is to know who are able to teach others, a • d must be able also to stop the mouths of the adversaries, and to rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith, and this is required in Titus, Ch. 1. 5 9, 10, 11, 12, 13. as a Pastor, and as an ordainer of other Pastors; therefore that which is required of a Pastor by his office, must also be required to be in the King by his office.
6. It is admirable that they give to Kings power to deprive ministers, but with these distinctions. 1. He may not discharge them to preach and administer the Sacraments, but to preach and administer the Sacraments in his kingdom, or dominions, because the King hath a dominion of places. 2. He may discharge the exercise of the ministry; but he cannot take away the power of order given by the Church. 3. He may deprive (say some) by a coactive and civil degradation, because the supreme magistrate may confer all honors in the Christian common-wealth, Ergo, he may take them away again, but he cannot deprive by a canonical and ecclesiastical degradation. 4. He may caus • tively deprive, that is, compel the Church to deprive one whom he judgeth to be an heretic, and if the Church refuse, he may then in case of the Churches erring, and negligence, as King deprive himself.
But I answer, the King as King hath dominion civil of places and times, as places and times, but not of places as sacred in use, and of times as sacred and religious: for his power in Church matters being accumulative, not privative, he cannot take away a house dedicated to God's service, no more then he can take away maintenance allotted by public authority, upon Hospitals, Schools, Doctors and Pastors. God hath here a sort of propriety of houses and goods as men have. Places as sacred abused are subject to regal power, he may inhibit conventions of heretics. 2. The Apostles might preach in the Temple, though civil authority forbid them. 3. Kings are as much Lord's of places as sacred and public, as they have a dominion of civil places, in respect the King may be coactive power hinder that false and heretical doctrine be preached, either in public, or private places, for this he ought to do as a preserver of both tables and a bear of the Sword for the good of Religion; and if they may command pure doctrine to be preached, and sound discipline to be exercised, they may command the same to be done in public places.
The second distinction is not to purpose. 1. To discharge the exercise of a ministry (saith Calderwood) is a degree of suspension, and suspension is an ecclesiastical degree to the censures of excommunication, and therefore the King may as well excommunicate, and remit and retain sins, (which undoubtedly agreeth to the Apostles,) as he can suspend. 2. As for taking away the power of order, it is a doubt to formalists, if the Church can do that at all, seeing they hold Sacraments administered by ministers justly deprived to be valid; Ergo, they must acknowledge an indelible character in Pastors, which neither King nor Church can take away. If then the King deprive from the exercise, he must simpliciter deprive, by their grounds it is weak that they say, the King may deprive from the exercise of a ministry within his own dominions; for (saith Calderwood they all know well that the King hath not power to deprive men from the exercise of the holy ministry, in ether foreign Kingdoms. For the third way of deprivation, it hath a double meaning also. 1. If the meaning be, that as the King by a regal and coactive power may take away all honors, either civil or ecclesiastical, as he giveth all honors, then this way of depriving Ministers cannot be given to the King, for the King may give and take away civil honors, for reasonable causes, according to the Laws. But in ecclesiastical honors there be three things. 1. The appointing of the honor of the office to be an Ambassador of Christ. 2. To give the true foundation and real ground of a Church honor, that is, gifts and gracious abilities for the calling, neither of these two do come either from King or Church, or from mortal men, but only from Jesus Christ, who ascending on high gave gifts unto men, and appointeth both office, and giveth grace for to discharge the office. Yea since moral philosophy maketh honor to be premium 〈◊〉 , a reward of virtue; the King doth not give that which is the soundation of honor civil, for civil virtue is a grace of God but in Church honor there is a third, to wit, a de ••• nation of a qualified man, for the sacred office of the ministry, and an ordination by the imposition of hands used in the Apostolic Church, Act. 6. 6. Act. 13. 3. Act. 14 23. 1 Tim. 4 14. 1 Tim. 5.22 Whether imposition of hands be essential to ordination, or not, I dispute not, it is apostolick by practice, yet there is something ecclesiastical, as praying of Pastors, and an ecclesiastical designation of men, or the committing of the Gospel to faithful men, who are able to teach others, 2 Tim. 2. 2. 1 Tim. 5. 22. No Scripture can warrant that the King ordain Pastors by public praving, by laying on of hands, or ecclesiastical blessing, or by such an ordination, as is given to Timothy, and the Elders of the Church, Acts 13. 3. Acts 14. 23. Tit. 1. 5,6. 7,8 9. 1 Tim. 4. 14. 1 Tim. 5. 22. 2 Tim. 2. 2. If any say the King hath a public and regal power in ordaining of Ministers, and so in d • priving them, or a mixed power, partly regal, partly ecclesiastical, as he is a mixed person, and the Church hath their way of purely and unmixed ecclesiastical calling or ordaining of Ministers, or the Church and the Magistrate both doth elect and choose the man, yet so that he is not elected without the consent of the King or Magistrate in the Kings room.
I answer, many things are here to be replied. 1. That the King who may be borne an heir to an earthly Kingdom, is also borne and by nature a mixed person, and half a Minister of the Gospel, is against God's word; ministers in whole, or in part, are made so of God, not so borne by nature: in Aaron • Priestha • d men by birth came to a sacred office, but that is done away now in Christ. 2. With as good reason may the King preach and administer the Sacraments, as a mixed person, as he may ordain, by ecclesiastical blessing, imposition of hands, ecclesiastical designation any person to the Ministry, that same auth nity of Christ which said to Timoth, Lay hands suddenly 〈◊〉 man, said also to him, 2 Tim. 2. 15. Study to be approved unto 〈◊〉 , a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, dividing the word right; that is, both ordaining of Ministers, and pastoral preaching of the Word, or pastoral acts flowing from an ecclesiastical power. How then can the one be given to the King by virtue of that same mixed power? especially seeing baptizing it directly called 1 C • r. 1. 17. a less principal work of the ministry then preaching. It it be said, as ordination is performed by the King, is not an ecclesiastical action, but civil, or mixed, partly civil, partly ecclesiastical.
I answer: by that reason, if the King should preach and administrate the Sacraments, these actions should not be called ecclesiastical actions, and Uzzah's touching the Ark, should not be called an action by office incumbent to the Levites only; and it might be said, the person being civil, the actions are civil. And Uzziah's burning of incense upon the Altar of incense, was not a Priestly act, but an act of a mixed power, he was partly a King, and partly a Priest, who did perform the action, but he was a Priest by sinful usurpation in that action, as we know. 2. This answer is a begging also of the question.
2. Whereas it is said that the Church ordainech Pastors, and the King also, but divers ways: the one by a regal power, the other by me el • siasticall power.
I answer: this is spoken to make the people, ad saciendum populum, for ejusdem potestatis est, (saith the Law) constituere & desti •• ere, it is the same power to ordain and to destroy. The high-Commission by the Kings authority doth deprive Ministers, without so much as the knowledge of the Church. If then the King as King may deprive ministers without the notice of the Church, then may the King as King also ordain Pastors without the notice of the Church. For the action of the instruments as such, is more principally the actions of the principal cause. 3 Election of a Pastor is far different from ordination of a Pastor: the whole multitude as Christians have voices in the election of a Pastor, and so hath the King or his Magistrate, as a part and member of the Church, but this giveth no negative voice to the Magistrate in election, but ordination is not done by all the multitude, it is a work of authority done only by the Church-officers. 4. The coactive and civil degradation, must have also correspondent thereunto a coactive and civil ordination of Pastors. Now I ask what is a coactive ordination. If it be the Kings royal and civil authority, commanding that the Church officers ordain Pastors at Christ's commandment; This we deny not, they fight with a shadow or a night ghost; not against us, who contend for this. But if they mean a coactive degradation by the Sword, in banishing, imprisoning, yea and for just causes, punishing Ministers to death with the Sword, this indirect deprivation we do not deny. But so the King depriveth a man from being a Minister, when he is beheaded, or hanged, or banished for civil crimes, no other ways, but as he depriveth a man from being a Fashioner, a Sai •• r, a Plower, a Soldier, or a Father to his own barns, a husband to his own wife, for when the man is beheaded or hanged, by the sword of the Magistrate, he is d • prived from being a fashioner, a sailer, a father, a husband: and Solomen did not other way deprive Abiathar from the Priest-hood, then indirectly by consining him for treason at Anathoth, so as he could not exercise the Priests office at Jerusalem. So after Junius, Calderwood, Gul. Apollonius, Sibrandus, yea Muketus, a man for the times, denieth that the Prince can take away that ecclesiastical power that the Church hath given. And so acknowledgeth Wedelius the same. That reasonless liar Lysimach Nicanor in this▪ and in other things, hath no reason to say, we borrow Jesuits doctrine to answer this argument, for the Jesuit Becanus is not • nacquainted with Jesuits doctrine against the power of Kings, yet he answereth that Solomen as King had no power over Abiathar for treason, or any other crime, and therefore following Bellarmine and Gretserus saith, that Solomon did this by an extraordinary prophetical instinct, yet Abulensis a great textuall Papist, and B • naventura a learned Schoolman saith this p • oveth that the King is above the Priest, and that Priests in the Old Testament were not eximed from the civil Judges sword and power: this is very doubtsome to Suarez who • aith, that it was a temp • rall civil punishment of exi • e, and that ••• siti • n from the exercise of the Priests office followed upon the other. But we need not this answer, for Solomon's sentence containeth in t • rminis, a mere civil punishment; and these words 1 King. 27. S. Solomon thrust out Abiathar from being Priest to the Lord, seem not to be words of the Kings sentence of banishment, but are relative to the fulfilling of the Lord's word, and a consequent of divine justice relative to the prophesy against Eli's house. Though verily I see no inconvenience to say that Solomon did indeed deprive him from the Priest-hood by an extraordinary instinct of the Spirit, as he was led of God to build the Temple. 1. Because the text saith, so Solomon thrust out Abiathar from being Priest to the Lord, and ver. 35. and Zadok the Priest did the King put in the room of Abiathar, which is a direct deprivation from the Priest-hood: but I contend not here.
But that the King causatively may deprive, that is, command the Church to cast out heretics, and to commit the Gospel to faithful men, who are able to teach others, 2 Tim. 2. 2. we confess: as for the power of convocating of Synods, some think that the King may convocate Synods as men, but as Church men they have power, if the Magistrate be averse, to convocate themselves, see Junius who insinuateth this distin • tion. But certainly though the Kingly dignity be thought merely civil, yet let this be thought on; it may be thought that the Kings power is divine three ways. 1. Effectually, and so we think that the Kingly power is an Ordinance of God lawful, jure divin • ; many Papists say the contrary, but we think with God's word, it is of divine institution, as is clear, Psal. 2. 11. Prov. 8. 14. 15. Rom. 13. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Matth. 22. 21. 1 P • t. 2. 17, 18. Eccles. 9. 20. Prov. 25. 2. Prov. 20. 2.
2 The Kings power may be thought divine, formally, and so as divine is opposed to civil, it is a human ordinance, and not formally divine or ecclesiastical, nor subjectively.
3. It may be thought divine and ecclesiastic, objectively and finaliter. The end intrinsical being a spiritual good, and so the King hath power to convene Synods not only as they are men, and his Subjects, but also as they be such subjects and Christian men, and members of Synods; as the King may command the minister of the Gospel both as a man, yea and as a Preacher in the Pulpit, to preach • ound doctrine and to give wholesome and good milk to the Church, and this is formally an act of a nurie-father, such as the King is by his Kingly office: and this way also doth the King send members to the Synod, and moderate, and preside in Synods, actu imp • rato▪ n • n elicito: actu objective ecclesiastico; non intrinsece, non formaliter, non subjective eccles • astico. The King ruleth by the Sword, and commandeth the Synods to meet, ordereth politically and civilly the members and meeting, and as King cooperateth, but by a civil and regal influence, with the Synod, for the same very end that the Synod intendeth, to wit, the establishing of truth, unity, and the edification of Christ's-body. But this power of the Kings to convene Synods, is positive, not negative, auxiliary and by addition, not by way of impedition or privation. For the Church of her self, hath from Christ her head and Lord, power of convening without the King, beside his knowledge or against his will, if he be averse, as is clear Matth. 18. 17, 18. if they be convened in his name he is with them; not upon condition that the Prince give them power. And