Part 3 — CASES OF CONSCIENCE, ABOUT MATTERS ECCLESIASTICAL. (continued 4)
Reading edition
3. And it is most convenient that they be no more than can ordinarily meet in the same assembly, at least for sacramental communion.
4. But yet they may meet in many places or assemblies, as chapels, or oratories, or other subordinate meetings, which are appointed to supply the necessity of the weak and aged, and them that cannot travel far. And in times of persecution, when the church dare not at all meet in one place, they may make up several smaller meetings, under several pastors of the same church. But they should come all together as oft as they can.
5. And it is to be considered that all the persons of a family can seldom go to the assembly at one time, especially when they live far off. Therefore if a church place would receive but ten thousand, yet twenty thousand might be members, while half meet one day and half another (or another part of the day).
6. Two congregations distinctly associated for personal worship, under distinct pastors, or having statedly (as Ignatius speaketh) two bishops and two altars, are two particular churches, and can no otherwise be one church, than as that may be called one which is a consociation of divers.
Quest. LVI. Is any form of church government of divine institution?
Answ. Yea: there are two essentially different policies or forms of church government of Christ's own institution, never to be altered by man. 1. The form of the universal church, as headed by Christ himself; which all christians own as they are christians in their baptism.
2. Particular churches, which are headed by their particular bishops or pastors, and are parts of the universal, as a troop is of an army, or a city of a kingdom.
Here it is of divine institution, 1. That there be holy assemblies for the public worship of God.
2. That these assemblies be societies, constituted of the people with their pastors, who are to them as captains to their troops under the general, or as mayors to cities under the king.[306]
3. That these pastors have the power of the keys, or the special guidance and governance (by the word, not by the sword) of their own particular charge, in the matters of faith, worship, and holy living; and that the flocks obey them. And when all this is jure divino, why should any say, that no form of government is jure divino?
3. Moreover it is of divine appointment, that these churches hold the nearest concord, and help each other as much as they can; whether by synods, or other meet ways of correspondency. And though this be not a distinct government, it is a distinct mode of governing.
Object. But that there be pastors with fixed churches or assemblies is not of the law of nature.
Answ. 1. Hath Christ no law but the law of nature? Wherein then differ the christian religion and the heathenish? 2. Suppose but Christ to be Christ, and man to be what he is, and nature itself will tell us that this is the fittest way for ordering the worship of God. For nature saith, God must be solemnly and ordinarily worshipped, and that qualified persons should be the official guides in the performance, and that people who need such conduct and private oversight besides, should where they live have their own stated overseers.
Object. But particular congregations are not de primaria intentione divina: for if the whole world could join together in the public worship of God, no doubt that would be properly a church. But particular congregations are only accidental, in reference to God's intention of having a church, because of the impossibility of all men's joining together for ordinances, &c.
Answ. 1. The question with me is not whether they be of primary intention, but whether stated churches headed with their proper bishops or pastors be not of God's institution in the Scripture?
2. This objection confirmeth it, and not denieth it. For, 1. It confesseth that there is a necessity of joining for God's worship: 2. And an impossibility that all the world should so join: 3. But if the whole world could so join, it would be properly a church. So that it confesseth that to be a society joined for God's public worship, is to be properly a church. And we confess all this: if all the world could be one family, they might have one master; or one kingdom, they might have one king. But when it is confessed, that, 1. A natural impossibility of a universal assembly necessitateth more particular assemblies; 2. And that Christ hath instituted such actually in his word, what more can a considerate man require?
3. I do not understand this distinction, de primaria intentione divina, and accidental, &c. The primary intention is properly of the ultimate end only: and no man thinketh that a law de mediis, of the means, is no law, or that God hath made no laws de mediis: for Christ as a mediator is a means. But suppose it be limited to the matter of church laws; if this be the meaning of it, that it is not the principal means, but a subordinate means, or that it is not instituted only propter finem ultimum, no more than propter se, but also in order to a higher thing as its immediate end, we make no question of that. Assemblies are not only that there may be assemblies; but for the worship and offices there performed: and those for man; and all for God. But what of all this? Hath God made no laws for subordinate means? No christian denieth it.
Therefore the learned and judicious disputer of this point declareth himself for what I say, when he saith, I engage not in the controversy, Whether a particular congregation be the first political church or no? it sufficeth for my purpose, that there are other churches besides.—The thing in question is, Whether there be no other church but such particular congregations? Where it seemeth granted that such particular churches are of divine institution; and for other churches I shall say more anon. In the mean time note, that the question is but de nomine here, whether the name church be fit for other societies, and not de re.[307]
But lest any should grow to the boldness to deny that Christ hath instituted christian stated societies, consisting of pastors and flocks, associate for personal communion in public worship and holy living; (which is my definition of a particular church, as not so confined to one assembly, but that it may be in divers, and yet not consisting of divers such distinct stated assemblies with their distinct pastors, nor of such as can have no personal communion, but only by delegates;) I prove it thus from the word of God.
(1.) The apostles were commissioned by Christ to deliver his commands to all the churches, and settle them according to his will, John xx. 21; Matt. xxviii. 19, 20, &c.
(2.) These commissioned persons had the promise of an infallible Spirit for the due performance of their work, John xvi. 13-15; xv. 26; xiv. 26; Matt, xxviii. 20.
(3.) These apostles, wherever the success of the gospel prepared them materials, did settle christian stated societies, consisting of pastors or elders with their flocks, associated for personal communion in public worship and holy living. These settled churches they gave orders to for their direction, and preservation, and reformation: these they took the chief care of themselves, and exhorted their elders to fidelity in their work. They gave command that none should forsake such assemblies; and they so fully describe them, as that they cannot easily be misunderstood. All this is proved, Acts xiv. 23; Titus i. 5; Rom. xvi. 1; 1 Cor. xi. 18, 20, 22, 26; xiv. 4, 5, 12, 19, 23, 28, 33, 34; Col. iv. 16; Acts xi. 26; xiii. 1; 1 Cor. xvi. 1, 2; Acts xiv. 27; xv. 3, to omit many more. Here are proofs enow that such particular churches were de facto settled by the apostles. Heb. x. 25, "Forsake not the assembling of yourselves together." So James ii. 2, they are called synagogues.
2. It is confessed that there is a natural necessity of such stated churches or assemblies, supposing but the institution of the worship itself which is there performed; and if so, then we may that the law of nature itself doth partly require them.
(1.) It is of the law of nature, that God be publicly worshipped, as most expositors of the fourth commandment do confess.
(2.) It is of the law of nature that the people be taught to know God and their duty, by such as are able and fit to teach them.
(3.) The law of nature requireth, that man being a sociable creature, and conjunction working strongest affections, we should use our sociableness in the greatest matters, and by conjunction help the zeal of our prayers and praises of God.
(4.) God's institution of public preaching, prayer and praise, are scarce denied by any christians.
(5) None of these can be publicly done but by assembling.
(6.) No assembly can suffice for these without a minister of Christ; because it is only his office to be the ordinary teacher, and to go before the people in prayer and praise, and to administer the Lord's supper, which without a minister may not be celebrated, because Christ's part cannot be otherwise performed, than by some one in his name, and by his warrant to deliver his sealed covenant to the receivers, and to invest them visibly in the benefits of it, and receive them that offer themselves in covenant to him.
(7.) It is also a ministerial duty to instruct the people personally, and to watch over them at other times, Acts xx. 20, 28. And to be examples of the flock, 1 Pet. v. 1-3. To have the rule over the people, and labour among them, and admonish them, 1 Thess. v. 12; Heb. xiii. 7, 17; 1 Tim. v. 17. To exercise holy discipline among them, Titus iii. 10; Matt. xviii. 17, 18; 1 Cor. v. To visit the sick and pray over them, James v. 14. Yea, to take care of the poor. See Dr. Hammond on 1 Cor. xii. 28. And all this cannot possibly be well done by uncertain, transient ministers, but only by a resident, stated pastor, no more than transient strangers can rule all our families, or all the christian kingdoms of the world.
(8.) And as this cannot be done but by stated pastors, so neither on transient persons ordinarily; for who can teach them that are here to-day and gone to-morrow? When the pastor should proceed from day to day in adding one instruction to another, the hearers will be gone, and new ones in their place. And how can vigilancy and discipline be exercised on such transient persons, whose faults and cases will be unknown? Or how can they mutually help each other? And seeing most in the world have fixed habitations, if they have not also fixed church relations, they must leave their habitations and wander, or else have no church communion at all.
(9.) And as this necessity of fixed pastors and flocks is confessed, so that such de facto were ordinarily settled by the apostles, is before proved, if any Scriptures may pass for proof.
The institution and settlement then of particular worshipping churches is out of doubt. And so that two forms of church government are jure divino, the universal church form, and the particular.
4. Besides this, in the apostles' days there were under Christ in the church universal, many general officers that had the care of gathering and overseeing churches up and down, and were fixed by stated relation unto none. Such were the apostles, evangelists, and many of their helpers in their days. And most christian churches think that though the apostolical extraordinary gifts, privileges, and offices cease, yet government being an ordinary part of their work, the same form of government which Christ and the Holy Ghost did settle in the first age, were settled for all following ages, though not with the same extraordinary gifts and adjuncts. Because, |Reasons for a larger episcopacy.|1. We read of the settling of that form, (viz. general officers as well as particular,) but we never read of any abolition, discharge, or cessation of the institution. 2. Because if we affirm a cessation without proof, we seem to accuse God of mutability, as settling one form of government for one age only, and no longer. 3. And we leave room for audacious wits accordingly to question other gospel institutions, as pastors, sacraments, &c. and to say that they were but for one age. 4. It was general officers that Christ promised to be with to the end of the world, Matt. xxviii. 20.
Now either this will hold true or not. If not, then this general ministry is to be numbered with the human additions to be next treated of. If it do, then here is another part of the form of government proved to be of divine institution. I say not, another church, (for I find nothing called a church in the New Testament, but the universal church and the particular,) but another part of the government of both churches, universal and particular; because such general officers are so in the universal, as to have a general oversight of the particular; as an army is headed only by the general himself, and a regiment by the colonel, and a troop by the captain: but the general officers of the army (the lieutenants-general, the majors-general, &c.) are under the lord-general in and over the army, and have a general oversight of the particular bodies (regiments and troops). Now if this be the instituted form of Christ's church government, that he himself rule absolutely as general, and that he hath some general officers under him, (not any one having a charge of the whole, but in the whole unfixedly, or as they voluntarily part their provinces,) and that each particular church have its own proper pastor, (one or more,) then who can say, that no form of church government is of divine appointment or command?
Object. But the question is only whether any sole form be of God's commanding? And whether another may not have as much said for it as this?
Answ. Either you mean another instead of this, as a competitor, or, another part conjunct with these parts.
1. If the first be your sense, then you have two works to do. 1. To prove that these before mentioned were mutable institutions, or that they were settled but disjunctively with some other, and that the choice was left indifferent to men. 2. To prove the institution of your other form (which you suppose left with this to men's free choice).
But I have already proved, that both the general and particular church form are settled for continuance as unchangeable ordinances of God. I suppose you doubt not of the continuance of Christ's supremacy, and so of the universal form: and if you will prove that church assemblies with their pastors may cease, and some other way supply the room, you must be strange and singular undertakers. The other two parts of the government (by general officers, and by consociation of churches) are more disputed; but it is the circumstances of the last only that is controverted, and not the thing; and for the other I shall now add nothing to what I have said elsewhere.[308]
2. But if you only mean that another part of the form may be jure divino as well as this, that will but prove still that some form is jure divino.
But, 3. If you mean that God having instituted the forms now proved, hath left man at liberty to add more of his own, I shall now come to examine that case also.
Quest. LVII. Whether any forms of churches, and church government, or any new church officers, may lawfully be invented and made by man?
Answ. To remove ambiguities, 1. By the word forms may be meant either that relative form of such aggregate bodies which is their essence, and denominateth them essentially; or only some accidental mode which denominateth them but accidentally.
2. By churches is meant either holy societies related by the foundation of a divine institution; or else societies related by accident, or by human contract only.
3. By church government is meant, either that government formally ecclesiastical, which constituteth a church, of Christ's making; or else some government about the matters of the church, which is formally either magistratical or human, (by contract,) &c.
4. So by church officers are meant, either such as are accounted essential to a church in the pure christian sense; or integral at least (as deacons); or else such as are accounted but accidental to it, and essential only to the human form. And so I answer,
1. As there are some things circa sacra, or accidents of God's special church worship, which are left to human prudence to determine of, so the same human prudence may determine who shall do them. As, e. g. Who shall repair the buildings of the church; the windows, the bells, the pulpits, the tables, &c.; who shall keep the clock; who shall keep the cups, cloths, and other utensils; who shall be the porter, the keeper of the books, &c.; who shall call the people to church, or ring the bells, or give them notice of church assemblies; who shall make the bread for the sacrament, or provide wine, or bring water for baptism; who shall make the graves, and bury the dead, or attend marriages, or baptizings, &c.; who shall set the tune of the psalm, or use the church music (if there be any); who shall summon any of the people on any just occasion to come to their pastors; or who shall summon the pastors to any synod, or lawful assembly, and give them notice of the time and place; when they are to meet, who shall be called first, and who second; who shall sit highest, and who lowest; who shall take the votes, or moderate or guide the disputations of the assembly; who shall be the scribe, and record what is done; who shall send abroad their agreements, and who shall be the church messenger to carry them. The agents of such circumstantials maybe chosen by the magistrate, or by the churches, or pastors, as is most convenient. Though I doubt not but in the beginning the deacons were mere servants to the pastors, to do as much of such circumstantial work as they were able; of which serving at tables, and looking to the poor, and carrying bread and wine to the absent, &c. were but parts; and all went under the name of ministering to the pastors or churches. And therefore they seem to be such an accidental office, appointed by the apostles, on such common reasons, as magistrates or churches might have appointed them, if they had not.
2. If one will call all or many of these, church officers, and another will not, it is but a strife about names, which one will use more largely and the other more narrowly or strictly.
3. If magistrates by authority, or the churches by agreement, shall distribute the country for conveniency into parishes, (not making all to be church members that dwell in those precincts, but determining that all persons that are fit in those proximities, and they only, shall be members of that particular church,) and then shall denominate the church from this accident of place, it is but what is left to their discretion.
4. And if the said magistrates or churches shall divide a kingdom into provinces, and say, that whereas God commandeth us the use of correspondencies, mutual advice, and synods, for the due help, concord, and communion of churches, and all things must be done in order and to edification; therefore we determine that so many churches shall make up such a synod, and the churches of such a district shall make up another synod, and so shall be specially related to each other for concord as advisers, all this is but the prudent determining of church circumstances or accidents left to man.
5. And if they shall appoint that either a magistrate or one pastor shall be for order's sake the appointer of the times and places of meeting, or the president of the synod, to regulate and order proceedings, and keep peace, as is aforesaid, it is but an accident of the sacred work which man may determine of. Therefore a layman may be such a president or regulator.
6. And if they will call this man by the name of a church governor, who doth but a common part therein, and from thence will call this association or province by the name of a church, which is but a company of churches associated for concord and counsel, the name maketh it not another thing than it is without that name; and the name may be lawful or unlawful as times and probable consequents make it fit or unfit as to use.
7. So much of church matters as is left to the magistrate's government, may be under monarchy, aristocracy, or democracy, and under such subordinate officers as the supreme ruler shall appoint.
8. And if the magistrate will make assemblies or councils of pastors, to be his councils, and require them frequently to meet to advise him in the performance of his own trust and work about religion and the church, he may accordingly distribute them into provinces for that use, or order such circumstances as he please.
9. And if a province of churches be called one church, because it is under one magistrate, or a nation of churches called a national church, because it is under one king, or many kingdoms or an empire called one catholic church, because they are all under one emperor; it must be confessed that this question is but de nomine, and not de re.
And further, 1. That in sacred things that which is of divine and primary institution is the famosius analogatum, and not that which is but formed by man. 2. That when such an ambiguous word is used without explication or explicating circumstances, it is to be taken for the famosius analogatum. 3. That in this case the word church or church form is certainly ambiguous and not univocal. 4. That a national, imperial, or provincial church as headed by a king, emperor, magistrate, or any head of man's appointment, is another thing from a church of Christ's institution; and is but an accident or adjunct of it: and the head of the human form, if called the head of the church of Christ, is but an accidental head, and not constitutive. And if Christ's churches be denominated from such a head, they are denominated but from an accident, as a man may be denominated clothed or unclothed, clothed gorgeously or sordidly, a neighbour to this man or that, &c. It is no formal denomination of a church in the first acception, as it signifieth the famosius analogatum; though otherwise many kind of societies may be called ecclesiæ or cœtus: but divines should not love confusion.
10. It seemeth to me that the first distribution of churches in the Roman empire, into patriarchal, primates, metropolitical, provincial, diocesan, were only the determination of such adjuncts or extrinsic things, partly by the emperors, and partly by the church's consent upon the emperor's permission; and so that these new church governments were partly magistratical, or by power derived from the emperors, and partly mere agreements or contracts by degrees degenerating into governments; and so the new forms and names are all but accidental, of adjuncts of the true christian churches. And though I cannot prove it unlawful to make such adjunctive or extrinsic constitutions, forms, and names, considering the matter simply itself, yet by accident these accidents have proved such to the true churches, as the accident of sickness is to the body, and have been the causes of the divisions, wars, rebellions, ruins, and confusions of the christian world. 1. As they have served the covetousness and ambition of carnal men. 2. And have enabled them to oppress simplicity and sincerity. 3. And because princes have not exercised their own power themselves, nor committed it to lay officers, but to churchmen. 4. Whereby the extrinsic government hath so degenerated, and obscured the intrinsic, and been confounded with it, that both going under the equivocal name of ecclesiastical government, few churches have had the happiness to see them practically distinct.[309] Nay, few divines do clearly in their controversy distinguish them. (Though Marsilius Patavinus and some few more have formerly given them very fair light, yet hath it been but slenderly improved.)
11. There seemeth to me no readier and directer way, to reduce the churches to holy concord, and true reformation, than for the princes and magistrates who are the extrinsic rulers, to re-assume their own, and to distinguish openly and practically between the properly priestly or pastoral intrinsic office, and their extrinsic part, and to strip the pastors of all that is not intrinsically their own (it being enough for them, and things so heterogeneous not well consisting in one person): and then when the people know what is claimed as from the magistrate only, it will take off most of their scruples as to subjection and consent.
12. No mortal man may abrogate or take down the pastoral office, and the intrinsic, real power thereof, and the church form which is constituted thereby; seeing God hath instituted them for perpetuity on earth.
13. But whether one church shall have one pastor or many is not at all of the form of a particular church; but it is of the integrity or gradual perfection of such churches as need many, to have many, and to others not so: not that it is left merely to the will of man, but it is to be varied as natural necessity and cause requireth.
14. The nature of the intrinsic office or power (anon to be described) is most necessary to be understood as distinct from the power of magistrates, by them that would truly understand this. The number of governors in a civil state make that which is called a variety of forms of commonwealths, monarchy, aristocracy, or democracy: because commanding power is the thing which is there most notably exercised, and primarily magnified. And a wiser and better man, yea, a thousand, must stand by as subjects, for want of authority or true power; which can be but in one supreme, either natural or political person; because it cannot consist in the exercise with self-contradiction. If one be for war, and another for peace, &c. there is no rule. Therefore the many must be one collective or political person, and must consent or go by the major vote, or they cannot govern. But that which is called government in priests or ministers, is of another nature; it is but a secondary subservient branch of their office: the first parts are teaching and guiding the people, as their priests, to God in public worship: and they govern them by teaching, and in order to further teaching and worshipping God; and that not by might, but by reason and love. Of which more anon. Therefore if a sacred congregation be taught and conducted in public worship, and so governed as conduceth hereunto, whether by one, two, or many, it no more altereth the form of the church, than it doth the form of a school, when a small one hath one schoolmaster, and a great one four: or of an hospital, when a small one hath one physician, and a great one many; seeing that teaching in the one, and healing in the other, is the main denominating work, to which government is but subservient in the most notable acts of it.
15. No mortal man may take on him to make another church, or another office for the church, as a divine thing, on the same grounds, and of the same nature pretendedly as Christ hath made those already made. The case of adding new church officers or forms of churches, is the same with that of making new worship ordinances for God, and accordingly to be determined (which I have largely opened in its place). Accidents may be added. Substantials of like pretended nature may not be added; because it is a usurping of Christ's power, without derivation by any proved commission; and an accusing of him, as having done his own work imperfectly.
16. Indeed no man can here make a new church officer of this intrinsic sort, without making him new work, which is to make new doctrine, or new worship (which are forbidden): for to do God's work already made belongs to the office already instituted. If every king will make his own officers, or authorize the greater to make the less, none must presume to make Christ officers and churches without his commission.
17. No man must make any office, church, or ordinance, which is corruptive or destructive, or contrary or injurious to the offices, churches, and ordinances which Christ himself hath made. This Bellarmin confesseth, and therefore I suppose protestants will not deny it. Those human officers which usurp the work of Christ's own officers, and take it out of their hands, do malignantly fight against Christ's institutions: and while they pretend that it is but preserving and not corrupting or opposing additions which they make, and yet with these words in their mouths, do either give Christ's officers' work to others, or hinder and oppress his officers themselves, and by their new church forms undermine or openly destroy the old, by this expression of their enmity they confute themselves.
18. This hath been the unhappy case of the Roman frame of church innovations, as you may observe in the particulars of its degeneracy.
(1.) Councils were called general or œcumenical in respect to one empire only; and they thence grew to extend the name to the whole world; when they may as well say, that Constantine, Martian, &c. were emperors of the whole world, seeing by their authority they were called.
(2.) These councils at first were the emperor's councils called to direct him what to settle in church orders by his own power; but they were turned to claim an imposing authority of their own to command the churches as by commission from God.
(3.) These councils at first were only for counsel, or for agreement by way of contract or mutual consent to the particular bishops; but they degenerated into a form of government, and claimed a ruling and commanding power.
(4.) The patriarchs, primates and metropolitans, at first claimed but a power about circumstantials extrinsical to the pastoral office, such as is the timing and placing of councils, the sitting above others, &c. And the exercise of some part of the magistrate's power committed to them, that is, the deposing of other bishops or pastors from their station of such liberty and countenance as the magistrate may grant or deny as there is cause. But in time they degenerated to claim the spiritual power of the keys, over the other bishops, in point of ordination, excommunication, absolution.
(5.) These patriarchs, primates, and metropolitans, at first claimed their extrinsic power but from man, that is, either the consent and agreement of the churches, or the grant of the emperors: but in time they grew to claim it as of divine or apostolical appointment, and as unalterable.
(6.) At first they were taken only for adjuncts, ornaments, supports, or conveniences to the churches: but afterwards they pretended to be integral parts of the church universal, and at last the pope would needs be an essential part; and his cardinals must claim the power of the church universal in being the choosers of a universal head, or a king priest and teacher for all the christians of the world.
(7.) At first laymen (now called chancellors, &c.) were only the bishops' counsellors, or officers to the magistrate or them, in performing the extrinsical work about church adjuncts, which a layman might do: but at last they came to exercise the intrinsic power of the keys in excommunications and absolutions, &c.
(8.) At first a number of particular churches consociated with their several bishops, were taken to be a community or company of true churches prudentially cantonized or distributed and consociated for concord; but after they grew to be esteemed proper political societies, or churches of divine appointment, if not the ecclesia minimæ, having turned the particular churches into oratories or chapels, destroying Ignatius's character of one church, To every church there is one altar, and one bishop with his presbyters and deacons. Abundance more such instances may be given.
Object. Wherever we find the notion of a church particular, there must be government in that church; and why a national society incorporated into one civil government, joining into the profession of christianity, and having a right thereby to participate of gospel ordinances, in the convenient distributions of them in the particular congregations, should not be called a church, I confess I can see no reason.
Answ. 1. Here observe, that the question is only of the name, (whether it may be called a church,) and not of the thing (whether all the churches in a kingdom may be under one king, which no sober man denieth).
2. Names are at men's disposal much; but I confess I had rather the name had been used no otherwise, or for no other societies, than Scripture useth it. My reasons are, (1.) Because when Christ hath appropriated or specially applied one name to the sacred societies of his institution, it seemeth somewhat bold to make that name common to other societies. (2.) Because it tendeth to confusion, misunderstanding, and to cherish errors and controversies in the churches, when all names shall be made common or ambiguous, and holy things shall not be allowed any name proper to themselves, nor any thing can be known by a bare name without a description. If the name of Christ himself should be used of every anointed king, it would seem not a little thus injurious to him. If the name, Bible, Scripture, preachers, &c. be made common to all that the notation of the names may extend to, it will introduce the aforesaid inconveniences; so how shall we in common talk distinguish between sacred societies of divine institution and of human if you will allow us no peculiar name, but make that common which Christ hath chosen?
3. And that the name is here used equivocally is manifest. For the body political is informed and denominated from the pars imperans, the governing part or head: therefore as a head of divine institution, authorized for the spiritual or pastoral work, denominateth the society accordingly; so a civil head can make but a civil society, and a head of man's making, but a human society. It is certain that Christ hath appointed the episcopal or pastoral office, and their work, and consequently episcopal or pastoral churches; and it is certain that a king is no constitutive part of one of these churches, but accidental; and therefore that he is an accidental head to a pastoral church as such, to which the pastor is essential.
Therefore if you will needs call both these societies churches, you must distinguish them into pastoral churches, and regal churches, or magistratical churches; for the word national, notifieth not the government which is the constitutive part; and may be used of consociated churches, though under many civil governors (as in the Saxon Heptarchy).
So that our question is much like this, Whether all the grammar schools in England as under one king may be called one national school? Answ. Not without unfitness, and inconveniences; but rather than breed any quarrel, they may call them so that please: but, 1. They must confess that a particular school is the famosius significatum. 2. That the king is king of schools, but not a schoolmaster, nor a constitutive part of a school. 3. That if you will needs denominate them from the regent part, as one, you must call them all one royal school, if you will leave the well-known sense of words for such uncouth phrases. But give us leave to call the body which is essentiated by a king, by the name of a kingdom only, though it have in it many schools, academies, colleges, cities, churches, which they that please may call all one royal school, academy, college, city, and church, if they love confusion.
4. Christianity giveth men right to communion in particular churches, when they also make known their christianity to the bishops of those churches, and are received (as stated or transient) members by mutual consent; but not otherwise; nor doth mere regal government give any subject right to church communion, except by a church you mean a kingdom.
Object. A particular church then I would describe thus, It is a society of men joined together in the visible profession of the true faith, having a right to, and enjoying among them, the ordinances of the gospel.
Answ. 1. When you tell us by your description what you will mean by a particular church, we may understand your denomination; but yet while it is unusual, you must not expect that other men so use the word. Had you called your description a definition, I would have asked you, 1. Whether by a society, you mean not strictly a political society constituted by a pars gubernans, et gubernata? If not, it is no church save equivocally. If so, should not the pars regens which is constitutive have been put in? If private men join together, &c. it makes but a community. 2. A right to gospel ordinances is supposed, but need not be in the definition. 3. The enjoying of them, is not essential to a church. The relation may continue, when the enjoyment is a long time hindered. 4. Among them is a very ambiguous word; is it among them in the same place; or in the same country or kingdom; or in the same world? If you difference and define them not, by relation to the same bishops or pastors, and by intended personal holy communion, your description confoundeth the universal church, as well as the national, with a particular church; for the whole christian world, is a society of men joining together in the visible profession of the true faith, having a right to, and enjoying among them, the ordinances of the gospel.
Object. A nation joining in the profession of christianity is a true church of God; whence it evidently followeth, that there must be a form of ecclesiastical government over a nation as a church, as well as of civil government over it, as a society governed by the same laws.—For every society must have its government belonging to it as such a society; and the same reason that makes government necessary in any particular congregation, will make it necessary for all the particular congregations, joining together in one visible society, as a particular national church, for the unity and peace of that church ought much more to be looked after than any one particular congregation, &c.
Answ. 1. From one absurdity many follow: our controversy before was but of the name: if an accidental royal or civil head may equivocally denominate an ecclesiastical society, and we grant you the use of an equivocal name, (or rather the abuse,) you will grow too hard upon us, if thence you will gather a necessity of a real ecclesiastical policy, besides the civil. Names abused infer not the things signified by an univocal term.
2. You must first prove the form of government, and thence infer the denomination, and not, contrarily, first beg the name, and then infer the government.
3. If yet by a form of ecclesiastical government, you meant nothing but the king's extrinsic government, which you may as well call also a form of school government, of college government, &c. we would grant you all. But if I can understand you, you now speak of ecclesiastical government as distinct from that. And then,
4. You are now grown up from a may be, to a must be, and necessity; and a greater necessity of one national ecclesiastical government, than of a particular church government; which being undeniably of Christ's institution, (by the Holy Ghost in the apostles,) you do not make all forms to be indifferent, or deny this to be jure divino. What! necessary and more necessary than that which is jure divino, and yet indifferent and not jure divino? If you say, It is necessary only on supposition that there be a national church: I answer, But your reasons evidently infer that it is also necessary that there be such a national church where it may be had; though you deny the necessity of monarchical government by one high priest in it. But I know you call not this a form of government, unless as determinately managed by one, many or most. But why a national spiritual policy as distinct from congregational, may not be called a form of government, as well as one man is distinct from two, over the same people, I see not: but this is at your liberty. But your necessity of such a national regimen is a matter of greater moment.
In these three senses I confess a national church. 1. As all the christians in a nation are under one civil church governor. 2. As they are consociated for concord, and meet in synods or hold correspondences. 3. As they are all a part of the universal church, cohabiting in one nation. But all these are equivocal uses of the word church; the denomination being taken in the first from an accident; in the second the name of a policy being given to a community agreeing for concord; in the third the name of the whole is given to a small integral part.
But the necessity of any other church, headed by your ecclesiastical, national governor, personal or collective, monarchical, aristocratical, or democratical, I utterly deny, and find not a word of proof which I think I have any need to furnish the reader with an answer to.
5. And your judgment in this is downright against the constitution, canons, and judgment of the national church of England; for that they use the word in the senses allowed by me, and not in yours, is proved, (1.) From the visible constitution, in which there is (besides the king) no distinct ecclesiastical head. For the archbishop of Canterbury is not the proper governor of the archbishop of York and his province.
(2.) From the canons. Can. cxxxix. "A national synod is the church representative; whosoever shall affirm that the sacred synod of this nation, in the name of Christ and by the king's authority assembled, is not the true church of England by representation, let him be excommunicated," &c. So that the synod is but the representative church; and therefore not the political head of the church: whether it be the laity, or the whole clergy, or both, which they represent, representation of those that are no national head, maketh them not a national head.
(3.) From the ordinary judgment of episcopal divines, (maintained by Bishop Bilson and many others at large, against the papists,) that all bishops jure divino are equal and independent, further than human laws, or agreements, or difference of gifts may difference them, or as they are bound to consociation for concord.
6. How shall I deny not only the lawfulness, but the necessity of such a papacy as really was in the Roman empire, on your grounds? I have proved against W. Johnson that the pope was then actually but the head of the imperial churches, and not of all the world. And if there must be one national ecclesiastical head under one king, why not one also in one empire? Or whether it be one monarch, or a collective person, it is still one political person which is now in question. (Either a ruling pope, or a ruling aristocracy or democracy, which is not the great matter in controversy.)
7. And why will not the same argument carry it also, for one universal visible head of all the churches in the world? at least as lawful? at least as far as human capacity and converse will allow? And who shall choose this universal head? And who can lay so fair a claim to it as the pope? And if the form be indifferent, why may not the churches, by consent at least, set up one man as well as many? Whether you carry it to an imperial church, or a papal, to a patriarchal, or provincial, or national, till you have proved it to be of divine institution, (and particular churches to be unnecessary, alterable, and of human institution,) I shall never grant you that it is to be preferred before that which is unquestionably of God. For though I easily grant that all the churches of a nation, empire, or the world, are to be more esteemed and carefully preserved, than one bishop's or pastor's particular church; yet I will not grant you that your human policy is more necessary to the safety of all these churches than the divine. For the safety of these churches may be better preserved by God's three great means, (1. The polity of particular churches with the conduct of their present faithful bishops or pastors. 2. The loving consociation of neighbour churches for concord. 3. The protection and countenance of magistrates,) without any new church form, (or national, or imperial, or universal pastor,) than with it.
Nay, when that sort of usurpation hath been the very engine of dividing, corrupting, and undoing the christian churches above a thousand years, we are not easily persuaded now, that it is yet either necessary or desirable.
8. But the best and easiest way to discern how far the making new churches or church offices is lawful or unlawful, is by trying it by the quality of their office work. For it is the work which giveth us the description of the office; and the office of the ruling part, which giveth us the definition of the church, which that office constituteth.
The work which the new human officer is to do, is either, 1. The same which God hath already appointed bishops or pastors to do, or at least the unfixed ministers in the universal church. 2. Or it is such as he hath appointed magistrates to do. 3. Or it is such as belongeth to private and laymen. 4. Or it is somewhat different from all these.
1. If it be of the first sort, it is a contradiction. For men that are by office appointed to do the same work which ministers are already appointed to do, are not a new office, but ministers indeed, such as Christ hath instituted: for the office is nothing but an obligation and authority to do the work.
2. If it be the same work which belongeth to the magistrate, then it is no new office, for they are magistrates.
3. If it be that which belongeth to private men, by God's appointment, they cannot disoblige themselves by transferring it to a new officer.
4. If it be none of all these, what is it? I doubt it may prove some needless or rather sinful work, which God committed to none of these three sorts, and therefore unfit to make a church office of. Unless it be such as I before described and granted. (1.) I confess that the magistrate may make new inferior officers, to do his own part (as church justices, churchwardens, &c.) (2.) I grant that the people may make an office for the better doing of some parts of their own work: they may make collectors, door-keepers, artists by office, to keep the clock, and bells, and church buildings, &c. if the magistrates leave it to them.
(3.) I grant that the bishops or pastors may do some circumstances of their work by human officers; as to facilitate their concord in synods, by choosing one to preside, to choose time and place, to send messengers to take votes, to moderate disputes, to record agreements, &c. as aforesaid; and these circumstantials are the things that officers may be made for.
But the very modes and circumstances which are part of the work to which every bishop or pastor is obliged, he cannot commit to another; as to choose his text, subject, method, words, &c. These are parts of his own work; though concord in these is the work of many.
Now what is the work besides all these that we must have new churches and offices made for? Is it to govern all these bishops and churches? How? By the word or by the sword? If by the sword, the magistrate is to do it; if by the word, (or spiritual authority,) either God hath made such an office as archbishops or general bishops over many, or he hath not: if he have, we need no new human office for it, God having provided for it already; if not, but God hath left all bishops independent, and to learn of one another, as equal in office, and unequal only in gifts, then either such an office is fit and necessary, or not. If it be, you accuse God of omission in not appointing a bishop over bishops as well as a bishop of the lowest order. If not, then by what reason or power will you make new needless officers in the church? when Cyprian and his Carthage council so vehemently disclaimed being Episcopi Episcoporum?
19. I would fain know whether those new-made churches of human and not of divine fabrication, (whether universal, (or papal,) patriarchal, provincial, &c.) were made by former churches, or by no churches. If by no churches, then either by other societies or by single persons: if by other societies, by what power do they make new churches to Christ, who are themselves no churches? If by single persons, either they are before church members, or not; if not, how can those make new churches that be not so much as members of churches, without a commission from Christ? But if either former churches or their members made these new churches, then, (1.) It followeth that there were another sort of churches before these new or human churches. And if so, either those other that made these were themselves made of God or not. And so the question will run up till you bring it either to some church of God's making which made these other, or some person commissioned to do it. If you say the first, then he that will confess that there is a species of churches of Christ's institution, and a species not of his institution, must prefer the former, and must well prove the power of making the latter. And so they must do, if they say that it was done by particular persons that were no particular church members. For if Christ commissioned them to settle any one species of churches, those are to be esteemed settled by Christ. (2.) But if you say that Christ left them to vary the species of churches as they saw cause, and so on to the end of the world, 1. You must well prove it. 2. It is before disproved (unless you take the word church equivocally).
20. Lastly, all christians are satisfied of Christ's authority; and therefore in that they can agree: but so they are not of any human church maker's authority; and therefore in that there will never be an agreement: therefore such new churches, and ecclesiastical governments, will be but (as they ever have been) the engines of division and ruin in the churches; and the species of God's making, with the mutability of mutable adjuncts and circumstances, will best preserve the church's peace.
But if the true nature of pastoral or ecclesiastical government were well understood, it would put an end to all these controversies. Which may be mostly gathered from what is said before. To which I will add this little following.
Quest. Wherein consisteth the true nature of pastoral church government?
Answ. 1. Not in any use of the sword, or corporal force.
2. Not in a power to contradict God's word.
3. Not in a power co-ordinate with Christ's, to do his proper work, or that which hath the same grounds, reasons, and nature.
4. Not in an unquestionable empire, to command things which none must presume to examine, or judge of by a discerning judgment, whether they be forbidden by God or not.
5. Not now in making a new word of God, or new articles of faith, or new universal laws, for the whole church.
6. Not in any thing which derogates from the true power of magistrates, or parents, or masters.
But, 1. It is a ministerial power, of a messenger or servant, who hath a commission to deliver his master's commands and exhortations.[310]
2. As it is over the laity or flocks, it is a power in the sacred assemblies to teach the people by office, and to be their priests or guides in holy worship;[311] and to rule the worship actions for the time, length, method, and orderly performance of them.[312]
3. As to particular persons, it is the power of the church keys, which is, 1. To judge who is meet to be by baptism taken into the church. 2. To reprove, exhort, and instruct those that by vice or ignorance, in order to repentance, or knowledge, or confirmation, do need the pastoral help.[313] 3. To judge who is to be forbidden church communion as impenitent; or at least, with whom that church must be forbidden to communicate. 4. To judge who is meet for absolution as a penitent. 5. To deliver men personally a sealed pardon from Christ in his two sacraments. 6. To visit the sick, and comfort the sad, and resolve the doubting, and help the poor. This is the true church government, which is like a philosopher's or schoolmaster's in his school among volunteers, supposing them to have no power of the rod or violence, but only to take in or put out of their schools: and what need is there of a universal, patriarchal, or national head, to do any of this work, which is but the government of a personal teacher and conductor; and which worketh only on the conscience?
4. But besides this there is a necessity of agreeing in the right management of this work; which needeth no new head, but only the consultations of the several bishops or pastors, and the magistrate's civil rule, or extrinsic episcopacy (as Constantine called it).
5. And besides this there is need to ordain pastors and bishops in the church. And this is not done by any force neither; but, 1. By judging what men are fit; 2. By persuading the people to consent and receive them; and, 3. By investing them by a delivery of possession by the imposition of hands. Now for all this, there needs no human species of bishops or churches to be made.
6. Besides this there is need of some oversight of these pastors and ministers and fixed bishops when they are made; and of some general care of pastors and people, if they decline to heresies, errors, vices, or lukewarmness: but for this, 1. When magistrates have done their part; 2. And neighbour ministers to one another; 3. And the consociated bishops to the particular ones; 4. And unfixed ministers have done their parts in the places where occasionally they come; if moreover any general pastors or archbishops are necessary, to rebuke, direct, and persuade the bishops or their flocks, by messengers, epistles, or in presence, no doubt but God hath appointed such as the successors of the apostles, evangelists, and other general ministers of those first times. But if no such thing be appointed by Christ, we may be sure it is not necessary nor best.
If it were but considered that the ruling power in the church is so inseparable from the teaching power, that it is exercised by teaching and only by God's word, (either generally or personally applied,) and that upon none but those that willingly and by consent receive it, it would quiet the world about these matters. And oh that once magistrates would take the sword wholly to themselves, and leave church power to work only by its proper strength and virtue, and then all things would fall into joint again; though the Ithacians would be displeased.
Quest. LVIII. Whether any part of the proper pastoral or episcopal power may be given or deputed to a layman, or to one of any other office, or the proper work may be performed by such?
Answ. 1. Such extrinsical, or circumstantial, or accidental actions as are afore-mentioned may be done by deputies or others (as calling the church together, summoning offenders, recording actions, &c.)
2. The proper episcopal or pastoral work or office cannot be deputed, in whole or part, any other way than by communication, which is, by ordination, or making another to be of the same office. For if it may be done by a layman, or one that is not of the same order and office, then it is not to be called any proper part of the pastoral or episcopal office: if a layman may baptize, or administer the sacrament of Christ's body and blood, or may ordain, or excommunicate, (ecclesiastically,) or absolve, merely because a bishop authorizeth or biddeth him, then, 1. What need Christ have made an office work of it, and persons be devoted and consecrated to it?
2. And why may not the people's election and the king's commission serve to enable a layman to do it? For if commanding only be proper to the bishop or pastor, and executing be common to laymen, it is certain that the king may command all bishops and pastors to do their office work; and therefore he may command a layman to do that which a bishop may command him to do.
3. And is it not a contradiction to say that a man is a layman or of another order, who is authorized by a bishop to do a bishop's work or office? when as the office itself is nothing (as is oft said) but an obligation and authority to do the work. If therefore a bishop authorize and oblige any other man to do the proper work of a bishop or pastor, (to ordain, to baptize, to give the sacrament of the eucharist, to excommunicate, to absolve, &c.) he thereby maketh that man a bishop or a pastor, whatever he call him.
Object. But doth not a bishop preach per alios, to all his diocess? and give them the sacraments per alios, &c.?
Answ. Let not the phrase be made the controversy instead of the matter. Those other persons are either ministers of Christ, or laymen. If laymen, their actions are unlawful. If ministers, they are commissioned officers of Christ themselves, and it is the work of their own office which they do, and it is they that shall have the reward or punishment. But if preaching to all these churches, or giving to all these persons in a thousand parishes the sacraments, &c. were the bishops' or archbishops' work, that is, which they are obliged to do, then they would sin in not doing it. But if they are the governors only of those that are obliged to do it, and are not obliged to do it themselves, then governing the doers of it is only their work; and therefore it is but equivocally said that the work is theirs, which others and not they are obliged to do; and that they do their work per alios, when they do but govern those others in doing their own work.
Of this read the Lord Bacon's "Considerations," and Grotius "de Imper. summ. Potest. circa Sacra," who soundly resolve the case, against doing the pastoral work per alium.
Quest. LIX. May a layman preach or expound the Scriptures? Or what of this is proper to the pastor's office?
Answ. 1. No doubt but there is some preaching or teaching and expounding which a layman may use. So did Origen; so did Constantine; so may a king, or judge on the bench; so may a parent to his children, and a master to his family, and a schoolmaster or tutor to his scholars.
2. It is not any one method or sermon fashion which is proper to a minister and forbidden to a layman; that method which is most meet to the matter and hearers, may be used by one as well as by the other.
3. It is not the mere publicness of the teaching, which must tell us what is unlawful for a layman. For writing and printing are the most public ways of teaching; and these no man taketh to be forbidden the laity. Scaliger, Casaubon, Grotius, Erasmus, Constantine, King James, the Lord Bacon, and abundance more laymen, have done the church great service by their writings. And judges on the bench speak oft theologically to many.
But that which is proper to the ministers or pastors of the church is, 1. To make a stated office of it, and to be separated, set apart, devoted, or consecrated and appropriated to this sacred work; and not to do it occasionally only, or sometimes, or on the by; but as their calling and the employment of their lives.
2. To do it as called and commissioned ministers of Christ, who have a special nunciative and teaching authority committed to them; and therefore are in a special manner to be heard, according to their special authority.
3. To be the stated teachers of particular churches, as their pastors and guides (though they may sometimes permit a layman when there is cause to teach them pro tempore). These three are proper to the ministerial and pastoral office.
But for the regulating of laymen's teaching, 1. They must statedly keep in their families, or within their proper bounds.
2. They must not presume to go beyond their abilities, especially in matters dark and difficult.
3. They must not thrust themselves without a just call and need into public or numerous meetings as teachers, nor do that which savoureth of pride or ostentation, or which tendeth to cherish those vices in others.
4. They must not live or preach, as from under the government of the church pastors; but being members of their flocks, must do all as under their lawful oversight and guidance: much less must they proudly and schismatically set up themselves against their lawful pastors, and bring them into contempt to get themselves reputation, and to draw away disciples after them.[314]
5. Times and places must be greatly distinguished. In infidel or grossly ignorant countries, where through the want of preachers there is a true necessity, men may go much further than in countries where teachers and knowledge do abound.
Quest. LX. What is the true sense of the distinction of pastoral power, in foro interiore et exteriore, rightly used?
Answ. 1. Not as if the pastors had any power of the sword or outward force, or of men's bodies or estates immediately: for all the pastoral power is immediately on the soul, and but secondarily on the body, so far as the persuaded soul will move it. Reason and love, and the authority of a messenger of Christ, are all the power by which bishops or pastors as such can work, in foro interiore vel exteriore; they rule the body but by ruling the soul.
2. But the true use of the distinction is only to serve instead of the usual distinction of public and personal obligation. It is one thing to satisfy a man's private conscience about his own personal case or matters; and another thing to oblige the whole church, or a particular person, of his duty as a member of the society to the rest. When the pastor absolveth a penitent person, in foro interiore, that is, in his own conscience, he delivereth him a discharge in the name of Christ on condition he be truly penitent; else not. But in foro exteriore he actually and absolutely restoreth him to his visible state of church communion. The rest of the members perhaps may justly think this man unlike to prove a true penitent; and then in foro interiore they are not bound to believe him certainly penitent or pardoned by God; but in foro exteriore that he is restored to church communion, and that for order's sake they are bound to hold communion with him, they are bound (internally) to believe. So that it comes near the sense of the distinction of the secret judgment (of God and conscience) and church judgment.
Quest. LXI. In what sense is it true that some say, that the magistrate only hath the external government of the church, and the pastors the internal?
Answ. 1. Not as external and internal are opposed in the nature of the action. For the voice of the pastor in preaching is external, as well as the king's.
2. Not as they are opposed in the manner of reception. For the ears of the auditors are external recipients from the preacher as well as from the king.
3. Not as distinguishing the parts that are to obey, the duties commanded, and the sins forbidden, as if the king ruled the body only and the pastor the soul. For the soul is bound to obey the king, or else the body could not be bound to obey him; unless by cords. And the body must obey the preacher as well as the soul. Murder, drunkenness, swearing, lying, and such other external vices, are under the pastor's power to forbid in Christ's name, as well as the king's.
4. Not as if all the external parts or actions of religion were exempted from the pastor's power. For preaching, praying, reading, sacraments, church assemblies, are external parts of religion, and under the pastor's care.
But in two respects the external power is only the king's or civil magistrate's. 1. As it is denominated from the sword, or mulcts, or corporal penalties, which is the external means of execution; though in this respect the distinction were far more intelligibly expressed by, The government by the sword, and by the sacred word.[315]
2. But the principal sense of their distinction is the same with Constantine's, who distinguished of a bishop without and within; or of our common distinction of intrinsic and extrinsic government. And though internal and external have the same signification, use maketh intrinsic and extrinsic more intelligible. And by internal is meant that power which intrinsically belongeth to the pastor's office as instituted by Christ; and so is intrinsical to the pastorship and the church (as preaching, praying, sacraments, the keys of admission and exclusion, ordination, &c.). And by external is meant, that which is extrinsical to the pastorship and the church; which princes have sometimes granted them, but Christ hath made no part of their office. In this sense the assertion is good, and clear, and necessary; that the disposal of all things circa sacra, all accidents and circumstances whatsoever, which by Christ's institution are not intrinsical to the pastorship and church, but extrinsical, do belong to the power of kings and magistrates.
Quest. LXII. Is the trial, judgment, or consent of the laity necessary to the admittance of a member into the universal or particular church?
Answ. 1. It is the pastor's office to bear and exercise the keys of Christ's church; therefore by office he is to receive those that come in; and consequently to be the trier and judge of their fitness.
2. It belongeth to the same office which is to baptize, to judge who is to be baptized; otherwise ministers should not be rational judges of their own actions, but the executioners of other men's judgment. It is more the judging who is to be baptized, which the minister's office consisteth in, than in the bare doing of the outward act of baptizing.
3. He that must be the ordinary judge in church admissions, is supposed to have both ability and leisure to make him fit; and authority and obligation to do the work.
4. The ordinary body of the laity have none of all these four qualifications, much less all. 1. They are not ordinarily able, so to examine a man's faith and resolution with judgment and skill, as may neither tend to the wrong of himself nor of the church; for it is great skill that is required thereunto. 2. They have not ordinarily leisure from their proper callings and labours, to wait on such a work as it must be waited on, especially in populous places. 3. They are not therefore obliged to do that which they cannot be supposed to have ability or leisure for. 4. And where they have not the other three, they can have no authority to do it.
5. It is therefore as great a crime for the laity to usurp the pastor's office in this matter, as in preaching, baptizing, or other parts of it.
6. And though pride often blind men (both people and pastors) so as to make them overlook the burden and look only at the authority and honour; yet is it indeed an intolerable injury to the laity, if any would lay such a burden on them which they cannot bear, and consequently, would make them responsible for the omissions or misdoing of it, to Christ their Judge.
7. There is not so much as any fair pretence for the laity having power to judge who shall be received into the universal church; for who of the laity should have this power? Not all, nor the major vote of the church; for who ever sought the votes of all the christians in the world, before he baptized a man? Not any one particular church or persons above the rest; for they have no right to show for it, more than the rest.
8. It is not in the power of the laity to keep a man out of their own particular church communion, whom the pastor receiveth; because, as is said, it is his office to judge and bear the keys.
9. Therefore, if it be ill done, and an unworthy person be admitted, the consciences of the people need not accuse themselves of it, or be disturbed, because it is none of their employment.
10. Yet the liberty of the church or people, must be distinguished from their governing power, and their executing duty, from the power of judging. And so, 1. The people are to be guided by the pastors as volunteers, and not by violence: and therefore it is the pastor's duty, in all doubtful cases, to give the people all necessary satisfaction, by giving them the reasons of his doings, that they may understandingly and quietly obey and submit. 2. And in case the people discern any notable appearance of danger, by introducing heretics and grossly impious men to corrupt the church, and by subverting the order of Christ, they may go to their pastors to desire satisfaction in the case. 3. And if by open proof or notoriety it be certain, that by ignorance, fraud, or negligence, the pastors thus corrupt the church, the people may seek their due remedy from other pastors and magistrates. 4. And they may protest their own dissent from such proceedings. 5. And in case of extremity, may cast off heretical, and impious, and intolerable pastors, and commit their souls to the conduct of fitter men; as the churches did against the Arian bishops, and as Cyprian declareth it his people's duty to do; as is aforesaid.[316]
Quest. LXIII. What power have the people in church censures and excommunication?
Answ. This is here adjoined, because it requireth but little more than the foregoing answer. 1. As it is the pastor's office to judge who is to be received, so also to judge who is to be excluded.
2. But the execution of his sentence belongeth to the people as well as to himself. It is they that either hold communion with the person, or avoid him.[317]
3. Therefore though ordinarily they must acquiesce in the pastor's judgment, yet if he grossly offend against the law of God, and would bring them, e. g. to communion with heretics and openly impious, and excommunicate the orthodox and godly, they may seek their remedy as before.
Quest. LXIV. What is the people's remedy in case of the pastor's mal-administration?
Answ. This also is here annexed for despatch, as being almost sufficiently answered already.
It must be supposed that all church disorders and mal-administrations cannot be expected to be remedied; but many while we are sinners and imperfect must be borne.
1. The first remedy is to speak submissively to the pastor of his faults, and to say to Archippus, "Take heed to the ministry which thou hast received."[318] And if he hear not more privately, for the people more openly to warn and entreat him; not as his governors, but as christians that have reason to regard Christ's interest and their own, and have charity to desire his reformation.
2. The next remedy is, to consult with the neighbour pastors of other churches, that they may admonish him; not as his governors, but as neighbour pastors.[319]
3. The next remedy is to seek redress from those governors that have the power to correct or cast out the intolerable.
4. The last remedy is that of Cyprian, to desert such intolerable pastors.
But in all this, the people must be sure that they proceed not proudly, ignorantly, erroneously, passionately, factiously, disorderly, or rashly.
Quest. LXV. May one be a pastor or a member of a particular church, who liveth so far from it, as to be uncapable of personal communion with them?
Answ. The name is taken from the relation; and the relation is founded in capacity, right, and obligation to actual communion, duties, and privileges: 1. He that is so statedly distant is uncapable statedly of communion, and therefore uncapable of the relation and name.
2. He that is but for a time accidentally so distant, is but for that time uncapable of communion with them; and therefore retaineth capacity, right, and obligation statedly for the future, but not for the present exercise. Therefore he retaineth the relation and name, in respect to his future intended exercise; but not in so plenary a sense, as he that is capable of present communion.
3. It is not the length or shortness of the time of absence that wholly cutteth off or continueth the relation and name, but the probability or improbability of a seasonable accession. For if a man be removed but a day, with a purpose to return no more, his relation ceaseth. And if a man be long purposing and probably like to return, and by sickness or otherwise be hindered, it doth not wholly end his relation.
4. If the delay be so long as either maketh the return improbable, or as necessitated the church to have another statedly in the pastor's place, where they can have but one, and so the people by taking another, consent (though with grief) to quit their relation and title to the former, there the relation is at an end.
5. It is a delusory formality of some, that call themselves members of a separated (or other) church, from which they most ordinarily and statedly live at an utter distance, and yet take themselves to be no members of the church where they live, and usually join with: and all because they covenanted with one and not with the other.
Quest. LXVI. If a man be injuriously suspended or excommunicated by the pastor or people, which way shall he have remedy?
Ans. As is aforesaid in case of mal-administration; 1. By admonishing the pastor or those that wrong him. 2. By consulting neighbour pastors, that they may admonish him. 3. By the help of rulers, where such are, and the church's good forbids it not. 4. In case of extremity, by removing to a church that will not so injure you. And what needs there any more, save patience?
Quest. LXVII. Doth presence always make us guilty of the errors or faults of the pastor in God's worship, or of the church? Or in what cases are we guilty?
Answ. 1. If it always made us guilty, no man could join with any pastor or church in the world, without being a wilful sinner. Because no man worshippeth God without sin, in matter or manner, omission or commission.
2. If it never made us guilty, it would be lawful to join with Mahometans and bread-worshippers, &c.
3. Therefore the following decision of the question, In what cases it is a duty or a sin to separate, doth decide this case also. For when separation is no duty, but a sin, there our presence in the worship is no sin; but when separation is a duty, there our presence is a sin.
4. Especially in these two cases our presence is a sin: 1. When the very assembly and worship is so bad as God will not accept, but judgeth the substance of it for a sin. 2. In case we ourselves be put upon any sin in communion, or as a previous condition of our communion (as to make some false profession, or to declare our consent to other men's sin, or to commit corporal, visible, reputative idolatry, or the like). But the pastor and church shall answer for their own faults, and not we, when we have cause to be present, and make them not ours by any sinful action of our own.
Quest. LXVIII. Is it lawful to communicate in the sacrament with wicked men?
Answ. The answer may be gathered from what is said before.
1. If they be so wicked for number, and flagitiousness, and notoriety, as that it is our duty to forsake the church, then to communicate with them is a sin. Therefore the after-resolution of the just causes of separation must be perused. As if a church were so far defiled with heresy, or open impiety, that it were justified by the major vote, and bore down faith and godliness, and the society were become uncapable of the ends of church association and communion: in this and other cases it must be deserted.
2. If we do not perform our own duty to remove unlawful communions, (whether it be by admonition of the offender or pastor, or whatever is proved really our duty,) the omission of that duty is our sin.
3. But if we sin not by omitting our own duty, it will be no sin of ours to communicate with the church, where scandalous sinners or heretics are permitted. The pastor's and delinquent's sins are not ours.
4. Yea, if we do not omit our own duty in order to the remedy, that will justify us in denying communion with the church while wicked men are there. But it will rather aggravate our sin, to omit one duty first, and thence fetch occasion to omit another.
Quest. LXIX. Have all the members of the church right to the Lord's table? And is suspension lawful?
Of this see the defence of the synod's propositions in New England. I answer,
1. You must distinguish between a fundamental right of state, and an immediate right of present possession; or if you will, between a right duly to receive the sacrament, and a right to immediate reception simply considered.
2. You must distinguish between a questioned, controverted right, and an unquestioned right; and so you must conclude as followeth.
(1.) Every church member (at least adult) as such, hath the fundamental right of stated relation, or a right duly to receive the sacrament; that is, to receive it understandingly and seriously at those seasons when by the pastors it is administered.
(2.) But if upon faults or accusations, this right be duly questioned in the church, it is become a controverted right; and the possession or admission may, by the bishops or pastors of the church, be suspended, if they see cause, while it is under trial, till a just decision.
3. Though infants are true members, yet the want of natural capacity duly to receive maketh it unlawful to give them the sacrament, because it is to be given only to receivers, and receiving is more than eating and drinking; it is consenting to the covenant, which is the real receiving in a moral sense, or at least consent professed. So that they want not a state of right, as to their relation, but a natural capacity to receive.
4. Persons at age who want not the right of a stated relation, may have such actual natural and moral indispositions, as may also make them for that time unmeet to receive. As sickness, infection, a journey, persecution, scattering the church, a prison. And (morally) 1. Want of necessary knowledge of the nature of the sacrament (which by the negligence of pastors or parents may be the case of some that are but newly past their childhood). 2. Some heinous sin, of which the sinner hath not so far repented, as to be yet ready to receive a sealed pardon, or which is so scandalous in the church, as that in public respects the person is yet unfit for its privileges. 3. Such sins or accusations of sin, as make the person's church title justly controverted, and his communion suspended, till the case be decided. 4. Such fears of unworthy receiving, as were like to hurt and distract the person, if he should receive till he were better satisfied. These make a man uncapable of present reception, and so are a bar to his plenary right: they have still right to receive in a due manner; but being yet uncapable of that due receiving, they have not a plenary right to the thing.
5. The same may be said of other parts of our duty and privileges. A man may have a relative, habitual, or stated right to praise God, and give him thanks for his justification, sanctification, and adoption, and to godly conference, to exercises of humiliation, &c. who yet for want of present actual preparation, may be uncapable, and so want a plenary right.
6. The understanding of the double preparation necessary, doth most clearly help us to understand this case. A man that is in an unregenerate state, must be visibly cured of that state, (of utter ignorance, unbelief, ungodliness,) before he can be a member of the church, and lay a claim to its privileges. But when that is done, besides this general preparation, a particular preparation also to each duty is necessary to the right doing of it. A man must understand what he goeth about, and must consider of it, and come with some suitable affections. A man may have right to go a journey, that wants a horse; or may have a horse that is not saddled: he that hath clothes must put them on, before he is fit to come into company: he that hath right to write, may want a pen, or have a bad one: having of gracious habits, may need the addition of bringing them into such acts as are suitable to the work in hand.
Quest. LXX. Is there any such thing in the church, as a rank or classis, or species of church members at age, who are not to be admitted to the Lord's table, but only to hearing the word and prayer, between infant members, and adult confirmed ones?
Answ. Some have excogitated such a classis, or species, or order, for convenience, as a prudent, necessary thing; because to admit all to the Lord's table they think dangerous on one side; and to cast all that are unfit for it out of the church, they think dangerous on the other side, and that which the people would not bear. Therefore to preserve the reverence of the sacrament, and to preserve their own and the church's peace, they have contrived this middle way or rank. And indeed the controversy seemeth to be more about the title (whether it may be called a middle order of mere learners and worshippers) than about the matter. I have occasionally written more of it than I can here stay to recite; and the accurate handling of it requireth more words than I will here use. This breviate therefore shall be all.
1. It is certain that such catechumens as are in mere preparation to faith, repentance, and baptism, are no church members or christians at all; and so in none of these ranks.
2. Baptism is the only ordinary regular door of entrance into the visible church; and no man (unless in extraordinary cases) is to be taken for a church member or visible christian till baptized.
Two objections are brought against this. 1. The infants of christians are church members as such, before baptism, and so are believers. They are baptized because members, and not members by baptism.
What makes a visible member?
Answ. This case hath no difficulty. 1. A believer as such, is a member of Christ and the church invisible, but not of the visible church, till he be an orderly professor of that belief. And this profession is not left to every man's will how it shall be made, but Christ hath prescribed and instituted a certain way and manner of profession, which shall be the only ordinary symbol or badge, by which the church shall know visible members; and that is baptism. Indeed when baptism cannot be had, an open profession without it may serve; for sacraments are made for man, and not man for sacraments. But when it may be had, it is Christ's appointed symbol, tessera, and church door. And till a person be baptized, he is but irregularly and initially a professor; as an embryo in the womb is a man; or as a covenant before the writing, sealing, and delivering is initially a covenant; or as persons privately contracted without solemn matrimony are married; or as a man is a minister upon election and trial before ordination: he hath only, in all these cases, the beginning of a title, which is not complete; nor at all sufficient in foro ecclesiæ, to make a man visibly and legally a married man, a minister, and so here a christian. For Christ hath chosen his own visible badge, by which his church members must be known.
2. And the same is to be said of the infant title of the children of believers; they have but an initial right before baptism, and not the badge of visible christians. For there are three distinct gradations to make up their visible Christianity. 1. Because they are their own, (and as it were parts of themselves,) therefore believers have power and obligation to dedicate their children in covenant with God. 2. Because every believer is himself dedicated to God, with all that is his own, (according to his capacity,) therefore a believer's child is supposed to be virtually (not actually) dedicated to God in his own dedication or covenant, as soon as his child hath a being. 3. Being thus virtually and implicitly first dedicated, he is after actually and regularly dedicated in baptism, and sacramentally receiveth the badge of the church; and this maketh him a visible member or christian, to which the two first were but introductory, as conception is to human nativity.
Object. But the seed of believers as such are in the covenant; and therefore church members.
Answ. The word covenant here is ambiguous; either it signifieth God's law of grace, or prescribed terms for salvation, with his immediate offer of the benefits to accepters, called the single covenant of God; or it signifieth this with man's consent, called the mutual covenant, where both parties covenant. In the former sense, the covenant only offereth church membership, but maketh no man a church member, till consent. It is but God's conditional promise, "If thou believe thou shalt be saved," &c. If thou give up thyself and children to me, I will be your God, and you shall be my people. But it is only the mutual covenant that maketh a christian or church member.
Object. The promise is to us and our children as ours.
Answ. That is, that you and your children dedicated to God, shall be received into covenant; but not otherwise. Believing is not only bare assenting, but consenting to the covenant, and delivering up yourselves to Christ; and if you do not consent that your child shall be in the covenant, and deliver him to God also, you cannot expect acceptance of him, against your wills; nor indeed are you to be taken for true believers yourselves, if you dedicate not yourselves to him, and all that are in your power.
Object. This offer or conditional covenant belongeth also to infidels.
Answ. The offer is to them, but they accept it not. But every believer accepteth it for himself, and his, or devoteth to God himself and his children when he shall have them; and by that virtual dedication or consent, his children are virtually in the mutual covenant; and actually upon actual consent and dedication.
Object. But it is profession, and not baptism, that makes a visible member.
Answ. That is answered before: it is profession by baptism; for baptism is that peculiar act of profession, which God hath chosen to this use, when a person is absolutely devoted, resigned, and engaged to God in a solemn sacrament, this is our regular initiating profession; and it is but an irregular embryo of a profession, which goeth before baptism ordinarily.
Prop. 3. The time of infant membership, in which we stand in covenant by our parents' consent, cannot be determined by duration, but by the insufficiency of reason, through immaturity of age, (or continuing idiots,) to choose for oneself.
Prop. 4. It is not necessary that the doctrine of the Lord's supper be taught catechumens before baptism; nor was it usual with the ancients so to do (though it may very well be done.)
Prop. 5. It is needful that the nature of the Lord's supper be taught all the baptized before they receive it, (as was opened before,) else they must do they know not what.
Prop. 6. Though the sacrament of the Lord's supper seal not another, but the same covenant that baptism sealeth; yet are there some further truths therein expressed, and some more particular exercises of faith in Christ's sacrifice, and coming, &c. and of hope, and love, and gratitude, &c. requisite. Therefore the same qualifications which will serve for baptism, justification, and adoption, and salvation, are not enough for the right use of church communion in the Lord's supper, the one being the sacrament of initiation and our new birth; the other of our confirmation, exercise, and growth in grace.
7. Whether persons be baptized in infancy or at age, if they do not before understand these higher mysteries, they must stay from the exercise of them till they understand them; and so with most there must be a space of time between their baptism and fuller communion.
8. But the same that we say of the Lord's supper must be said of other parts of worship; singing psalms, praise, thanksgivings, &c. men must learn them, before they can practise them; and usually these as eucharistical acts concur with the Lord's supper.
9. Whether you will call men in this state, church members of a middle rank and order, between the baptized and the communicants, is but a lis de nomine, a verbal controversy. It is granted that such a middle sort of men there are in the church.
10. It is to be maintained that these are in a state of salvation, even before they thus communicate. And that they are not kept away for want of a stated relation title, but of an immediate capacity, as is aforesaid.
11. There is no necessity, but upon such unfitness, that there should be one day's time between baptism and the sacrament of the Lord's supper: nor is it desirable; for if the baptized understand those mysteries the first day they may communicate in them.
12. Therefore as men are prepared, some may suddenly communicate, and some stay longer.
13. When persons are at age, if pastors, parents, and themselves be not grossly negligent, they may and ought to learn these things in a very little time; so that they need not be settled in a lower learning state for any considerable time, unless their own negligence be the cause.
14. And in order to their learning, they have right to be spectators and auditors at the eucharist, and not to be driven away with the catechumens, as if they had no right to be there. For it is a thing best taught by the practice to beholders.
15. But if any shall by scandal or gross neglect of piety, and not only by ignorance, give cause of questioning their title, and suspending their possession of those sacred privileges, these are to be reckoned in another rank, even among those whose title to church membership itself becometh controverted, and must undergo a trial in the church.
And this much I think may serve to resolve this considerable question.
Quest. LXXI. Whether a form of prayer be lawful?
Answ. I have said so much of this and some following questions in many books already, that to avoid repetition, I shall say very little here.
The question must be out of question with all christians:
1. Because the Scripture itself hath many forms of prayer; which therefore cannot be unlawful.
Object. They were lawful then, but not now.
Answ. He that saith so, must prove where God hath since forbidden them. Which can never be.
Object. They may lawfully be read in Scripture for instruction, but not used as prayers.
Answ. They were used as prayers then, and are never since forbidden: yea, John and Christ did teach their disciples to pray, and Christ thus prefaceth his form, "When ye pray, say"——
2. All things must be done to edification: but to use a form of prayer is for the edification of many persons, at least those that cannot otherwise do so well; therefore those persons must use a form. Full experience doth prove the minor, and nothing but strangeness to men can contradict it.
Quest. LXXII. Are forms of prayer or preaching in the church lawful?
Answ. Yes: most ministers study the methodical form of their sermons before they preach them; and many write the very words, or study them: and so most sermons are a form. And sure it is as lawful to think beforehand what to say in praying as in preaching.[320]