It could not be for the glory of God, not only for that it is offensive to many of Christ's little ones, but likewise for that it ministereth occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme; to atheists, because by these naughty observances they see the commandments [pg 1-300] of God made of little or no effect, and many godly both persons and purposes despised and depressed, whereat they laugh in their sleeve and say, Aha! so would we have it; to Papists, because as by this our conformity they confirm themselves in sundry of their errors and superstitions, so perceiving us so little to abhor the pomp and bravery of their mother of harlots, that we care not to borrow from her some of her meretricious trinkets, they promise to themselves that in the end we shall take as great a draught of the cup of the wine of her fornications as they themselves.
Neither yet can our conforming unto the ceremonies pressed upon us be profitable for edifying, for we have given sufficient demonstration of manifold hurts and inconveniences ensuing thereon.
Nor, lastly, can we conform to them in faith; for as our consciences cannot find, so the word cannot afford, any warrant for them. Of all which things now I only make mention, because I have spoken of them enough otherwhere.
Sect. 23. The second distinction which may help our light in this question about the power of princes, is of times; for when the church and ministers thereof are corrupted and must be reformed, princes may do much more in making laws about things ecclesiastical than regularly they may, when ecclesiastical persons are both able and willing to do their duty, in rightly taking care of all things which ought to be provided for the good of the church, and conservation or purgation of religion. “For (saith Junuis[957]) both the church, when the joining of the magistrate faileth, may extraordinarily do something which ordinarily she cannot; and again, when the church faileth of her duty, the magistrate may extraordinarily procure that the church return to her duty; that is, in such a case extraordinarily happening, these (ecclesiastical persons) and those (magistrates) may extraordinarily do something which ordinarily they cannot. For this belongeth to common law and equity, that unto extraordinary evils, extraordinary remedies must also be applied.” We acknowledge that it belongeth to princes[958] “to reform things in the church, as often as the ecclesiastical persons shall, either through ignorance, disorder of the affection of covetousness, [pg 1-301] or ambition, defile the Lord's sanctuary.” At such extraordinary times, princes, by their coactive temporal power, ought to procure and cause a reformation of abuses, and the avoiding of misorders in the church, though with the discontent of the clergy, for which end and purpose they may not only enjoin and command the profession of that faith, and the practice of that religion which God's word appointeth, but also prescribe such an order and policy in the circumstances of divine worship as they in their judgment of Christian discretion, observing and following the rules of the word, shall judge and try to be convenient for the present time and case, and all this under the commination of such temporal losses, pains, or punishments as they shall deprehend to be reasonable. But at other ordinary times, when ecclesiastical persons are neither through ignorance unable, nor through malice and perverseness of affection unwilling, to put order to whatsoever requireth any mutation to be made in the church and service of God, in that case, without their advice and consent, princes may not make an innovation of any ecclesiastical rite, nor publish any ecclesiastical law.
Sect. 24. When Dr Field[959] speaketh of the power of princes to prescribe and make laws about things spiritual or ecclesiastical, he saith, That the prince may, with the advice and direction of his clergy, command things pertaining to God's worship and service, both for profession of faith, ministration of the sacraments, and conversation fitting to Christians in general, or men of ecclesiastical order in particular, under the pains of death, imprisonment, banishment, confiscation of goods, and the like; and by his princely power establish things formerly defined and decreed, against whatsoever error and contrary ill custom and observation. In all this the Doctor saith very right; but I demand, further, these two things: 1. What if the thing have not been decreed before? and what if the free assent of the clergy be not had for it? Would the Doctor have said that in such a case the prince hath not power by himself, and by his own sole authority, to enjoin it, and to establish a law concerning it? For example, that king James had not power by himself to impose the controverted ceremonies upon the church of Scotland at that time when [pg 1-302] as no free assent (much less the direction) of the clergy was had for them, so neither had they been formerly decreed, but laws and decrees were formerly made against them. If the Doctor would have answered affirmatively that he had this power, then why did he, in a scornful dissimulation, so circumscribe and limit the power of princes, by requiring a former decree, and the free assent of the clergy? If he would have answered negatively, that he had no such power, we should have rendered him thanks for his answer. 2. Whether may the clergy make any laws about things pertaining to the service of God which the prince may not as well by himself, and without them, constitute and authorise? If the affirmative part be granted unto us, we gladly take it. But we suppose Dr Field did, and our opposites yet do, hold the negative. Whereupon it followeth that the prince hath as much, yea, the very same power, of making laws in all ecclesiastical things which the clergy themselves have when they are convened in a lawful and free assembly, yet I guess from the Doctor's words that he would have replied, namely, that the difference is great betwixt the power of making laws about things ecclesiastical in the prince, and the same power in the clergy assembled together; for he describeth the making of a law to be the prescribing of something, under some pain or punishment, which he that so prescribeth hath power to inflict. Whereby he would make it appear that he yieldeth not unto princes the same power of spiritual jurisdiction, in making of ecclesiastical laws, which agreeth to the clergy; because, whereas a council of the clergy may frame canons about things which concern the worship of God, and prescribe them under the pain of excommunication, and other ecclesiastical censures, the ordinance of princes about such matters is only under the pain of some external or bodily punishment. But I answer, potestas διατακτικὴ is one thing, and potestas κειτικὴ is another thing. When the making of a law is joined either with the intention, or with the commination of a punishment, in case of transgression, this is but accidental and adventitious to the law, not naturally nor necessarily belonging to the essence of the same; for many laws there hath been, and may be, which prescribe not that which they contain under the same pain or punishment. Gratian distinguisheth three sorts of laws: Omnis, [pg 1-303] &c. “Every law (saith he[960]) either permits something; for example, let a valorous man seek a reward: or forbids; for example, let it be lawful to no man to seek the marriage of holy virgins: or punisheth; for example, he who committeth murder let him be capitally punished.” And in this third kind only there is something prescribed under a pain or punishment. It is likewise holden by schoolmen,[961] that it is a law which permitteth something indifferent, as well as it which commandeth some virtue, or forbiddeth some vice. When a prince doth statute and ordain, that whosoever, out of a generous and magnanimous spirit, will adventure to embark and hazard in a certain military exploit against a foreign enemy, whom he intendeth to subdue, shall be allowed to take for himself in propriety all the rich spoil which he can lay hold on,—there is nothing here prescribed under some pain or punishment, yet it is a law, and properly so termed. And might not the name of a law be given unto that edict of King Darius, whereby he decreed that all they in his dominions should fear the God of Daniel, forasmuch as he is the living and eternal God, who reigneth for ever, Dan. vi.; yet it prescribed nothing under some pain or punishment to be inflicted by him who so prescribed. Wherefore, though the prince publisheth ecclesiastical laws under other pains and punishments than the clergy doth, this showeth only that potestas κειτικὴ is not the same, but different, in the one and in the other; yet if it be granted that whatsoever ecclesiastical law a synod of the clergy hath power to make and publish, the prince hath power to make and publish without them, by his own sole authority, it followeth, that the power of the church to make laws which is called potestas διατακτικὴ, doth agree as much, as properly, and as directly to the prince, as to a whole synod of the church.
Sect. 25. Now, therefore, we firmly hold, 1. That the prince may not innovate any custom or rite of the church, nor publish any ecclesiastical law, without the free assent of the clergy, they being neither unable for, nor unwilling unto, their ecclesiastical functions and duties; yea, further, that so far as is possible, the consent of the whole church ought to be had whensoever any change is [pg 1-304] to be made of some order or custom in the church; for that which toucheth the whole church, and is to be used by the whole church, ab omnibus etiam merito curatur.[962] Therefore, when there is any change to be made in the rites of the church, merito fit hoc cum omnium ordinum ecclesiae consensu.[963] Neither was there ever a rightly reformed church which was helped and not hurt by such rites and customs as, to their grief and miscontentment, princes did impose upon them. Whence it was, that “they who were orthodox did ever withstand such a magistrate as would have, by his commandments, tied the church to that which was burdensome to their consciences.”[964] That such inconveniences may be shunned, it is fit, that, when any change is to be made in the policy of a church, not the clergy alone, but the elders also, and men of understanding among the laity, in a lawful assembly, freely give their voices and consent thereunto. Good reason have our writers to hold against Papists, that laymen ought to have place in councils wherein things which concern the whole church are to be deliberated upon. 2. Lest it be thought enough that princes devise, frame, and establish, ecclesiastical laws as them best liketh, and then, for more show of orderly proceeding, some secret and sinistrous way extort and procure the assent of the synod of the church; therefore we add, that it belongeth to the synod (the clergy having the chief place therein, to give direction and advice), not to receive and approve the definition of the prince in things which concern the worship of God, but itself to define and determine what orders and customs are fittest to be observed in such things, that thereafter the prince may approve and ratify the same, and press them upon his subjects by his regal coactive power. To me it is no less than a matter of admiration how Camero could so far forget himself as to say,[965] that in things pertaining unto religion, dirigere atque disponere penes magistratum est proprie, penes ecclesiasticos ministerium atque executio proprie, telling us further, that the directing and disposing of such things doth then only belong to ecclesiastical persons when the church suffereth persecution, or when [pg 1-305] the magistrate permitteth that the matter be judged by the church.
Our writers have said much of the power of the church to make laws, but this man (I perceive) will correct them all, and will not acknowledge that the church hath any power of making laws about things pertaining to religion (except by accident, because of persecution or permission), but only a power of executing what princes please to direct. More fully to deliver our mind, we say, that in the making of laws about things which concern the worship of God, the prince may do much per actus imperatos, but nothing per actus elicitos. For the more full explanation of which distinction, I liken the prince to the will of man; the ministers of the church to man's particular senses; a synod of the church to that internal sense which is called sensus communis; the fountain and original of all the external things and actions ecclesiastical, or such as concern the worship of God, to the objects and actions of the particular senses; and the power of making ecclesiastical laws to that power and virtue of the common sense, whereby it perceiveth, discerneth, and judgeth of the objects and actions of all the particular senses. Now as the will commandeth the common sense to discern and judge of the actions and objects of all the particular senses, thereafter commandeth the eye to see, and the ear to hear, the nose to smell, &c., yet it hath not power by itself to exercise or bring forth any of these actions, for the will can neither see nor yet judge of the object and action of sight, &c. So the prince may command a synod of the church to judge of ecclesiastical things and actions, and to define what order and form of policy is most convenient to be observed in things pertaining to divine worship, and thereafter he may command the particular ministers of the church to exercise the works of their ministry, and to apply themselves unto that form of church regiment and policy which the synod hath prescribed, yet he may not by himself define and direct such matters, nor make any laws thereanent.
Sect. 26. For proof of these things I add, 1. Politic government, versatur circa res terrenas et hominem externum (saith one of our writers[966]); magistratus (saith another[967]) instituti sunt à Deo rerum humanarum [pg 1-306] quae hominum societati necessariae sunt respectu, et ad carum curam; but they are ecclesiastical ministers who are “ordained for men in things pertaining to God,” Heb. v. 1, that is, in things which pertain unto God's worship. It belongeth not therefore to princes to govern and direct things of this nature, even as it belongeth not to pastors to govern and direct earthly things which are necessary for the external and civil society of men, I mean ordinarily and regularly, for of extraordinary cases we have spoken otherwise. But according to the common order and regular form we are ever to put this difference betwixt civil and ecclesiastical government, which one of our best learned divines hath excellently conceived after this manner:[968] Altera differentia, &c., “The other difference (saith he) taken from the matter and subject of the administrations. For we have put in our definition human things to be the subject of civil administration, but the subject of ecclesiastical administration we have taught to be things divine and sacred. Things divine and sacred we call both those which God commandeth for the sanctification of our mind and conscience as things necessary, and also those which the decency and order of the church requireth to be ordained and observed for the profitable and convenient use of the things which are necessary; for example, prayers, the administration of the word and sacraments, ecclesiastical censure, are things necessary, and essentially belonging to the communion of saints; but set days, set hours, set places, fasts, and if there be any such like, they belong to the decency and order of the church, without which the church cannot be well edified, nor any particular member thereof rightly fashioned and fitly set in the body. But human things we call such duties as touch the life, the body, goods, and good name, as they are expounded in the second table of the Decalogue, for these are the things in which the whole civil administration standeth. Behold how the very circumstances which pertain to ecclesiastical order and decency are exempted from the compass of civil government.”
2. “Natural reason (saith the Bishop of Salisbury) telleth,[969] that to judge of everything, and to instruct others, belongeth to [pg 1-307] them who before others take pains and study to the care and knowledge of the same, so physicians judge which meat is wholesome, which noisome. Lawyers declare what is just, what unjust, and in all arts and sciences, they who professedly place their labour and study in the polishing and practising of the same, both use and ought to direct the judgments of others.” Since therefore[970] the ministers of the church are those quibus ecclesiae cura incumbit vel maxime, since they do above and before the civil magistrate devote themselves to the care and knowledge of things pertaining to God and his worship, whereabout they profess to bestow their ordinary study and painful travail, were it not most repugnant to the law of natural reason to say that they ought not to direct, but be directed by, the magistrate in such matters?
3. The ministers of the church are appointed to be “watchmen in the city of God,” Mic. vii. 4, and “overseers of the flock,” Acts xx. 28; but when princes do, without the direction and definition of ministers, establish certain laws to be observed in things pertaining to religion, ministers are not then watchmen and overseers, because they have not the first sight, and so cannot give the first warning of the change which is to be made in the church. The watchmen are upon the walls, the prince is within the city. Shall the prince now view and consider the breaches and defects of the city better and sooner than the watchmen themselves? Or shall one, within the city, tell what should be righted and helped therein, before them who are upon the walls? Again, the prince is one of the flock, and is committed, among the rest, to the care, attendance, and guidance of the overseers; and, I pray, shall one of the sheep direct the overseers how to govern and lead the whole flock, or prescribe to them what orders and customs they shall observe for preventing or avoiding any hurt and inconvenience which may happen to the flock?