CHAP. CXXXV.
Truth.These arguments to prove the magistrate subject, even for sin committed in judicial proceeding, I judge, like Mount Zion, immoveable, and every true Christian that is a magistrate will judge so with me: yet a query or two will not be unseasonable.
Christ’s administrations are charged firstly upon the ministers thereof.
First, where they name the church in this whole passage, whether they mean the church without the ministry or governors of it, or with the elders and governors jointly? and if the latter, why name they not the governors at all, since that in all administrations of the church the duty lies not upon the body of the church, but firstly and properly upon the elders?
The ministers or governors of Christ’s church to be acknowledged in their dispensations.
It is true in case of the elder’s obstinacy in apparent sin, the church hath power over him, having as much power to take down as to set up, Col. iv. [17,]Say to Archippus, &c.; yet in the ordinary dispensations and administrations of the ordinances, the ministers or elders thereof are first charged with duty, &c.
Hence first for the apostles, who converted, gathered, and espoused the churches to Christ, I question whether their power to edification was not a power over the churches, as many scriptures seem to imply.
A paradox; magistrates made the judges of the churches, and governors of them, yet censurable by them.
Secondly, for the ordinary officers ordained for the ordinary and constant guiding, feeding, and governing the church, they were rulers, shepherds, bishops, or overseers, and to them was every letter and charge, commendation or reproof, directed, Rev. ii. 3, Acts xx. And that place by them quoted for the submission of the magistrates to the church, it mentions only submission to the rulers thereof, Heb. xiii. 17. Those excellent men concealed not this outof ignorance, and therefore most certainly in a silent way confess, that their doctrine concerning the magistrates’ power in church causes would seem too gross, if they should not have named the whole church, and but silently implied the governors of it. And is it not wonderful in any sober eye, how the same persons, magistrates, can be exalted over the ministers and members, as being bound to establish, reform, suppress by the civil sword in punishing the body or goods, and yet for the same actions, if the church and governors thereof so conceive, be liable to a punishment ten thousand times more transcendent, to wit, excommunication, a punishment reaching to their souls, and consciences, and eternal estate; and this not only for common sins, but for those actions which immediately concern the execution of their civil office, in judicial proceeding?
Queen Elizabeth’s bishops truer to their principles, than many of a better spirit and profession.
Peace.The prelates in Queen Elizabeth’s days, kept with more plainness to their principles: for, acknowledging the queen to be supreme in all church causes, according to the title and power of Henry VIII. her father, taken from the pope, and given to him by the parliament, they professed that the queen was not a sheep, but under Christ the chief shepherd, and that the church had not power to excommunicate the queen.
Mr. Barrowe’s profession concerning Queen Elizabeth.
Truth.Therefore, sweet Peace, it was esteemed capital, in that faithful witness of so much truth as he saw, even unto death, Mr. Barrowe, to maintain before the lords of the council, that the queen herself was subject to the power of Christ Jesus in the church: which truth overthrew that other tenent, that the queen should be head and supreme in all church causes.[227]
Peace.Those bishops according to their principles,though bad and false, dealt plainly, though cruelly, with Mr. Barrowe: but these authors, whose principles are the same with the bishops’, concerning the power of the magistrate in church affairs, though they waive the title, and will not call them heads or governors, which now in lighter times seems too gross, yet give they as much spiritual power and authority to the civil magistrates to the full, as ever the bishops gave unto them; although they yet also with the same breath lay all their honour in the dust, and make them to lick the dust of the feet of the churches, as it is prophesied the kings and the queens of the earth shall do, when Christ makes them nursing fathers and nursing mothers, Isa. xlix.[228]The truth is, Christ Jesus is honoured when the civil magistrate, a member of the church, punisheth any member or elder of the church with the civil sword, even to the death, for any crime against the civil state, so deserving it; for he bears not the sword in vain.
And Christ Jesus is again most highly honoured, when for apparent sin in the magistrate, being a member of the church, for otherwise they have not to meddle with him, the elders with the church admonish him, and recover his soul: or if obstinate in sin, cast him forth of their spiritual and Christian fellowship; which doubtless they could not do, were the magistrate supreme governor under Christ in ecclesiastical or church causes, and so consequently the true heir and successor of the apostles.