Note 122 — BOOK XIV.

The doctrine of Erastus, a German divine, who asserted that the pastoral office was only persuasive, like that of the professorship of any other science; that the communion was free to all, and that a minister could only dissuade, but not prohibit, a vicious character from participating in the ordinance of the Lord’s Supper; and that the punishment of all ecclesiastical offences, as well as the support of all ecclesiastical institutions, belonged to the civil magistrate, upon the principle that they who paid servants had a right to demand their service in the manner they thought most proper, and to dismiss them if they disobeyed their orders.