Note 541 — NEW ENGLISH CANAAN OR NEW CANAAN. (continued 3)

“There hath been some difference about jurisdictions, or cognizance of causes: Some have held that, in causes betweene brethren of the Church, the matter should be first told the Church, before they goe to the civill Magistrate, because all causes in difference doe amount, one way or other, to a matter of offence; and that all criminall matters concerning Church members, should be first heard by the Church. But these opinionists are held, by the wiser sort, not to know the dangerous issues and consequences of such tenets.” (Plaine Dealing, p. 34.)