Touching the Subject of Supremacy in Causes Ecclesiastical

QUESTION. Where the Supremacy of Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction lieth?

ANSWER.

1. IT is apparent out of Scripture, That Spiritual Censures, as well as Preaching and Sacraments, &c. are an Ordinance of God, instituted for the edification and falvation of the disciples and followers of Jesus Christ, Mat. 16.19. Joh. 20.23. 1 Cor. 5.3, 4, 5, 13. 2 Thess. 3.6, 14. 1 Tim. 1.19, 20.

2. It is apparent, That these Censures are formally to be administered only by Church. Officers, appointed thereto by Jesus Christ. As the Magistrate may not Preach, administer the Sacraments, &c. so may he not execute Spiritual Censures; the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven were not given to State but Church-Officers, Mat. 16.19. Joh. 20.23.

3. As none can Excommunicate, so none can Absolve formally, but the Officer that Excommunicateth; he only that binds can loose: So that in this respect the Supremacy of Power in Spiritual Causes may be said to lie in the Church-Officers, because none can formally undo what they have done.

4. But now we are to observe a true and useful distinction of a Church in regard of Circumstances. There 1. are private Churches, such are those who exercise their communion only in private or secretly, as it falls out in places where the Civil Authority doth not countenance, but oppose and persecute true Religion. Thus it was in the Apostles times, when the Emperors and chief Governors of States were heathenish; and thus it is now where the Civil Magistrate is heathenish or Antichristian, and would not allow, but seeks to exterminate true Religion. 2. There are public Churches, when those that profess true • Religion may and (with the leave, countenance and protection of the State) do exercise their Church-communion openly in places allowed, and with other encouragements indulged by the Magistrate.

5. Where men are forced to hold their communion in private, and so have only private Churches: There they practice Religion at their own peril, which they choose to do, to obey God rather then men, and there the Ecclesiastical Power is supreme in man •••• of Censure, there being no other Power to challenge anything about it, but what seeks not the regulating but the eradication of the true Church and Church-power. But public Churches may none set up in any State without the leave of the Magistrate, whose Office it is to protect, and so must have power to judge what Assemblies are good, and to be protected, and what not: for be ought to act in his place rationally, not brutishly, and in reference to these public Churches we must distinguish or observe,

6 That the Power about Church matters may be considered two ways; 1. Either primarily and formally, as it is considerable absolutely in itself; 〈◊〉 secondarily, as it is to be acted in a public Church, authorized and protected by the Civil Magistrate of the place or Nation where it is exercised: In the former sense the Church Officer is subordinace to none but to Jesus Christ; but in the latter sense there's a Supremacy in the Civil Magistrate, and to him the Church-Officer is Subordinate: For consider,

7. As it is the duty of the Civil Magistrate to ••• tect and countenance true Religion (it being the improvement of his Talent, and he is to serve God with all his might) so it is his Privilege, and indeed Duty too, to do it in an intelligent way, that is, by judging of that Religion which is held forth to be protected, whether it be the right or no: For his duty to protect Religion, engageth him not to protect any but the true Religion only, which he is first to discern, and then to countenance.

8. As some Religions are more grossly false, so some parts of a Religion, which for the general is good, may be corrupt or abused: In which case a Magistrate is to provide caution against corruption and abuse, as well as inhibit Religions grossly false. As now for that part of Christian Religion, Church-Censures, as the Civil Magistrate is to see, that Censures, as well as Word and Sacraments, be dispensed: so likewise is he to take care. That they be not abused beyond their intention, either to Spiritual prejudice, by too much rigor or connivance, or to serve the wills and humors of men in acting private spleen. He may therefore set certain Rules to be observed in the exercise of these Censures; or appoint certain persons to overfee the carriage of those Censures, or to receive the Appeals or Complaints of such as shall conceive themselves unjustly proceeded against: And those that will not accept the exercise of their Ministry with those cautions, he may choose whether he will afford them sufferance or protection in public. And for such Censures as are past in Ecclesiastical Judicatures, contrary to such prescribed Rules and Cautions, though he cannot make them Null or void, because he hath not any formal Ecclesiastical power to absolve or bind; yet he may require the revoking of them upon pain of forfeiting his countenance, or toleration in public manner, or places to execute Church functions: And not to obey either in revoking the sentence, or relinquishing the use of public Church-functions, is to affront Magistracy, and to be guilty of Faction or Sedition; and the reason is plain: As the Magistrate is to protect Religion, so only that which is good, and so far as it is good, and of that (so far as concerns the exercise of his own power) he is to be Judge: If he judge amiss, the fault is his to be answered to God; but we cannot hold what is in the Magistrates power to grant or deny, viZ. Exercise of our Religion in public against his leave, without usurpation on him, and faction against him.

9. There's a twofold obligation, 1. Mortal. 2. Legal, the one in foro dei, the other in foro humano. When the Church-Officer doth his Office aright, and yet observe not the cautions prescribed by the Magistrate: The Magistrate is bound to ratify, and not to seek to revoke what is done, morally, but not legally, in the court of Heven, but not in foro human; that is, the thing being good, there's a real internal bond upon him to ratify it, and he cannot neglect it without sin against God: But he is not formally or externally bound in reference to men, and therefore in that respect he is free to act, with or against; and the Church-Officer is bound to submit to the Magistrate, not the Magistrate to the Church-Officer.

10. There's a great deal of difference between those things which a Magistrate doth by way of usurpation, beyond the limits of his power, and those which he doth by corruption, abusing his power; that is, in things wherein he hath just power, if he did observe the rules set him of God: in things wherein he hath no power, his commands are Null; a Christian stands not obliged, but where he hath power, but doth abuse it, there a Christian is to submit himself by doing or suffering, and suffering either the loss of such privileges, as are in the Magistrates power to indulge or deny; or undergoing such pain as the Magistrate shall inflict.

11. The Church-Officer must in this be subject and subordinate to the Magistrate, or the Magistrate to the Church-Officers, or else there must be two supremacies acting in the same Kingdom. To make the Magistrate subordinate to the Church-officers, to confirm and act what they decree, is to usurp upon him and debase him; for though the Church be the more excellent society, or men be under a more excellent notion as Christians, and Church-Members, then as men and members of a Commonwealth; yet in the world that power which is worldly hath the preeminence, and the other being a stranger, needs the protection of this, and in that respect must yield precedency. Two distinct supremacies in one Kingdom, cannot be without clashing & confusion, & continual occasion of broils, as Marsilius Patavinus hath proved against the Papists, and God is the God of peace, not of confusion; and therefore in the aforesaid external respect, the Church is subordinate to the State, and the Church-Officer to the Magistrate.

12. Hence it will follow, that the Civil Magistrate where there is danger of abuse, may admit a Church Government, though Jure divino, with such cautions and Limitations, as may be needful to prevent the abuse of it, either to the Spiritual, or Civil grievance of the people, and may deny public liberty to those that refuse to submit to their cautions: Only (since the Magistrate, is responsible to God, though not to the Church; and its no small offense to interrupt the free lawful use of any Ordinance) great care must be had by the Magistrate, that his cautions hinder not any needful use, but only restrain 〈◊〉 abuse of Church-power; and therefore the ••• sure of this limiting Church-power, should not be taken from State-interest, but that which is Suprem • Lex, salus populi. And thus Presbytery may be so settled, that those scarcrows of inconveniences from the tyranny of it, fomented and blown up by the envious enemies of it, may c • nvincingly appear to be but scarcrows indeed; and Presbytery may without fear be cheerfully and with profit imbrac'd.