CHAP. LXXXIII.
The first head, that both jurisdictions may stand together.
The first head examined. John xvii. 36. Jer. xxix. 7. Ezra vii. 23, Rom. i. 2, 3, 1 Tim. ii. 2.
Peace.“Whereas divers affecting transcending power to themselves over the church, have persuaded the princes of the world that the kingdom of Christ in his church cannot rise or stand without the falls of those commonweals wherein it is set up, we do believe and profess the contrary to this suggestion; the government of the one being of this world, the other not; the church helping forward the prosperity of the commonweal by means only ecclesiastical and spiritual; the commonweal helping forward her own and the church’s felicity by means political or temporal:—the falls of commonweals being known to arise from their scattering and diminishing the power of the church, and the flourishing of commonweals with the well ordering of the people, even in moral and civil virtues, being observed to arise from the vigilant administration of the holy discipline of the church: as Bodin, a man not partial to church discipline, plainly testifieth. The vices in the free estate of Geneva,que legibus nusquamvindicantur, by means of church discipline,sine vi et tumultu coercentur; the Christian liberty not freeing us from subjection to authority, but from enthralment and bondage unto sin.”[206]
The civil commonweal and the spiritual commonweal, the church, not inconsistent, though independent the one on the other.
Truth.Ans.From this conclusion, that the church, or kingdom of Christ, may be set up without prejudice of the commonweal, according to John xviii. 36,My kingdom is not of this world, &c., I observe, that although the kingdom of Christ, the church, and the civil kingdom or government be not inconsistent, but that both may stand together; yet that they are independent according to that scripture, and that therefore there may be, as formerly I have proved, flourishing commonweals and societies of men, where no church of Christ abideth. And, secondly, the commonweal may be in perfect peace and quiet, notwithstanding the church, the commonweal of Christ, be in distractions and spiritual oppositions, both against their religions and sometimes amongst themselves, as the church of Christ in Corinth troubled with divisions, contentions, &c.
Secondly, I observe, it is true the church helpeth forward the prosperity of the commonweal by spiritual means, Jer. xxix. 7. The prayers of God’s people procure the peace of the city where they abide; yet, that Christ’s ordinances and administrations of worship are appointed and given by Christ to any civil state, town, or city, as isimplied by the instance of Geneva, that I confidently deny.
Christ’s ordinances put upon a whole city or nation, may more civilize, and moralize, but never Christianize them.
The ordinances and discipline of Christ Jesus, though wrongfully and profanely applied to natural and unregenerate men, may cast a blush of civility and morality upon them, as in Geneva and other places—for the shining brightness of the very shadow of Christ’s ordinances casts a shame upon barbarism and incivility—yet withal, I affirm, that the misapplication of ordinances to unregenerate and unrepentant persons hardens up their souls in a dreadful sleep and dream of their own blessed estate, and sends millions of souls to hell in a secure expectation of a false salvation.