It remaineth to show who have the power of those censures and punishments which are proper to ecclesiastical persons. Where, first, we are to consider, that there are two sorts of faults which make ecclesiastical men worthy to be punished, viz., either such as [pg 1-364] violate sacred, or such as violate civil and human duties: the one is to be judged by ecclesiastical judges alone, and that according to the laws of God and the church; the other by civil judges alone, and that according to the civil and municipal laws of the commonwealth. This latter form, again, is twofold; for either the fault is such, that, though a man be condignly punished for it by the civil magistrate, yet he doth not, therefore, fall from his ecclesiastical office or dignity; of which sort experience showeth many; or else such as being punished according to their quality and demerit, a man, by necessary consequence, falleth from the ecclesiastical function and dignity which before he had: this was Abiathar's case, and the case of so many as, being justly punished by proscription, incarceration, or banishment, are secundario et ex consequenti shut from their bearing office in the church. “If Abiathar had sinned in a sacred matter, the cognition thereof (saith Junius[1118]) had pertained to the priests; but because he sinned against the commonwealth and the king's majesty, it was necessary to deal with him civilly, and not ecclesiastically. What! Are no ecclesiastical men in this time also thought to be lawfully judged by the civil magistrate, if, at any time, they be found guilty of appaired majesty?” As for the other sorts of faults, whereby (as we have said) sacred and ecclesiastical duties are violate, such as the teaching of false and heretical doctrine, neglecting of discipline, unbeseeming and scandalous conversation, &c. which things (if they be not mended) they who have the execution of ecclesiastical jurisdiction committed to them ought to punish by suspension, deposition, &c. Now, as when one is called to the work of the ministry, his fitness and qualification for that work should be tried and judged by the clergy of the adjacent bounds assembled in their classical presbytery, to whom it also appertaineth (after that he is by them tried and approved, and after that he is elected by the church where he is to serve) to send him out from them with power to exercise the office of a pastor; so when there is just cause of suspending and depriving him, it belongeth to the same presbytery to consider and judge hereof; and, according to his offence, to give judgment against him. For who should recal [pg 1-365] him but they that sent him? Or who should discharge him his ministerial function, except they who ordained him to exercise the same? And who may take the power from him but they who gave the power unto him? That ordination pertaineth to the whole presbytery, and not to the bishop alone, we have showed before, and now, by the same reason, we say suspension and deposition pertaineth to the presbytery also, and are not in the power of the bishop. And that, in the ancient church, as bishops gave not ordination, so neither did they suspend nor depose any man without the common counsel, advice, and concurrence of the presbytery, yea, and sometimes of a synod, it is clear from Cypr. (lib. 1, epist. 9; lib. 3, epist. 2, 10), Council Carthag. 3 (can. 8), Council Carthag. 4 (can. 22, 23), Council African. (can. 20), Council Hispan. 2 (can. 6), Justin. (Novel. 42, cap. 1), Jerome (Comment. ad Isa 3), Siricius (Epist ad Ambros. inter Ambr. Epist.) So, touching the suspension and deposition of ministers, the Assembly at Glasgow, anno 1610, ordained that the bishop should associate to himself the ministry of those bounds where the delinquent served, that is, the presbytery whereof he hath been a member, and, together with them, there take trial of the fact, and, upon just cause found, to deprive or suspend: which Act was ratified in the 12th parliament of king James, anno 1612. Nevertheless, if any man think the sentence of the bishop and the presbytery, given forth against him, to be unjust, he ought to have liberty of recourse to the synod, and there to be heard, according as it was decreed by the Fourth Council of Carthage, can. 66. But oftimes the matter is of such difficulty or importance that the bishop and the presbytery may not give out any peremptory sentence of suspension or deprivation till the matter be brought to the synod of the province,[1119] where, according to the ancient order, the matter is to be handled,[1120] not “by the censure of one bishop, but by the judgment of the whole clergy gathered together.”
Princes, therefore, may not suffer bishops to usurp the power of suspending and depriving at their pleasure, and whensoever they commit any such tyranny in smiting of [pg 1-366] their fellow-servants, it is the part of princes to cause these things to be redressed, and for this end graciously to receive the grievances of oppressed ministers. The Arians of old, being assembled in a council at Antioch, decreed, that if any ecclesiastical person should, without the advice and the letters of the bishops[1121] of the province, and chiefly of the metropolitan, go to the emperor to put up any grievance unto him, he should be cast out, not only from the holy communion, but from his proper dignity which he had in the church. Whereupon Osiander hath this observation:[1122] “This canon also was composed against holy Athanasius; for Athanasius being expelled by the Arians, had fled to the emperor Constantine the younger, and had from him obtained a return to his own church. Now this canon is very unjust, which forbids that a bishop, or any other minister of the church, being unjustly oppressed, flee to his godly civil magistrate; since it was lawful to the apostle Paul to appeal to the Roman emperor wicked Nero, as the Acts of the Apostles witness. But it may be seen in this place, that bishops were very soon seeking dominion, yea, tyranny over the church, and over their colleges.” Besides all this, there is yet another thing which ought to have a very principal consideration in the deposition of a minister, and that is, the consent of the church and congregation where he hath served. Let the magistrate know, saith Gerhard,[1123] “that as the vocation of ministers pertaineth to the whole church, so to the same also pertaineth the removing of ministers; therefore, as a minister ought not to be obtruded upon an unwilling church, so the hearers, being unwilling and striving against it, a fit minister ought not to be plucked away from them.” The deposing of a minister, whom the church loves and willingly hears, Balduine accounteth to be high sacrilege,[1124] and holdeth that, as the calling, so the dismissing of ministers pertaineth to the whole church; and so teacheth Junius.[1125] Shortly, as a man is rightly called to the ministerial office and dignity when he is elected by the church and ordained by the presbytery, so is he rightly deposed and put from the same [pg 1-367] when he is rejected by the church and discharged by the presbytery.
How there was brought forth in Scotland, anno 1610, a certain amphibian brood, sprung out of the stem of Neronian tyranny, and in manners like to his nearest kinsman, the Spanish Inquisition. It is armed with a transcendant power, and called by the dreadful name of the High Commission. Among other things, it arrogateth to itself the power of deposing ministers; but how unjustly, thus it appeareth:
1. If those commissioners have any power at all to depose ministers, they have it from the king, whose commissioners they are: but from him they have it not; therefore they have none at all. The proposition is most certain; for they sit not in that commission to judge in their own name, nor by their own authority, (quum nihil exerceat delegatus nomine proprio, as Panormitan saith,[1126]) but by virtue only of the commission and delegation which they have of the king. Yea, bishops themselves exercise not any jurisdiction in the High Commission as bishops, but only as the king's commissioners, as Dr Downame acknowledgeth.[1127] The assumption is grounded upon this reason: The king hath not power to depose ministers; therefore he cannot give this power to others. For nemo potest plus juris transferre in alium quam sibi competere dignoscatur,[1128] the king may sometimes inflict such a civil punishment upon ministers, whereupon, secondarily and accidentally, will follow their falling away from their ecclesiastical office and function (in which sense it is said that Solomon deposed Abiathar, as we heard before), but to depose them directly and formally (which the High Commission usurped to do) he hath no power, and that because this deposition is an act of ecclesiastical jurisdiction; whereas the power of ecclesiastical jurisdiction doth no more agree to the king than the power of ecclesiastical order: his power is civil and temporal, not spiritual and ecclesiastical. Dr Field also confesseth,[1129] that none may judicially degrade, or put any one, lawfully admitted, from his degree and order, but the spiritual guides of the church alone.
2. The deposing of ministers pertaineth [pg 1-368] to classical presbyteries, or (if the matter be doubtful and difficult) to synods, as hath been showed. And who, then, can give the High Commission such authority as to take this power from them and assume it unto itself. These commissioners profess that they have authority to discharge other ecclesiastical judicatories within the kingdom from meddling with the judging of anything which they shall think impertinent for them, and which they shall think good to judge and decide by themselves in their commission: which, if it be so, then, when it pleaseth them, they may make other ecclesiastical judicatories to be altogether useless and of no effect in the church.
3. In this commission ecclesiastical and temporal men are joined together, and both armed with the same power; therefore it is not right nor regular, nor in any ways allowable. For even, as when a minister hath offended in a civil matter, his fault is to be judged by civil judges according to the civil laws, and by no other; so, when he offendeth in an ecclesiastical matter, his fault is to be judged only by ecclesiastical persons according to ecclesiastical laws; and, in such case, Justinian forbiddeth[1130] civil men to be joined with ecclesiastical men in judgment. They are ecclesiastical things or causes which are handled and examined by the High Commission in the process of deposing ministers; and a shame it is to ecclesiastical men, if they cannot, without the help and joining of temporal men, judge and decide things of this quality.
4. As in the matters to be judged, so in the censures and punishments to be inflicted, ecclesiastical and civil men have, in this commission, alike power and authority; for ecclesiastical men therein have power of fining, confining, warding, &c., common to them with the temporal men; and, again, the temporal men have power of excommunication, suspension, deprivation, &c., common to them with the ecclesiastical men. For they all sit there as the king's commissioners, and eo nomine, they exercise this jurisdiction; which commission being alike discharged by them all, it is manifest that both temporal men take hold of the keys and ecclesiastical men take hold of the civil sword. And this monstrous confusion and mixture giveth sufficient demonstration that [pg 1-369] such a form of judgment is not from the God of order.
Of the abuses and irregularities of the High Commission we may not now speak at greater length, but are hasted to make forward.