A Christian Directory, Part 3: Christian Ecclesiastics

1. Canons made by virtue of the pastoral office and God's general laws (in nature or Scripture) for regulating it, are a sort of laws to the subjects or flocks of those pastors.

2. Canons made by the votes of the laity of the church, or private part of that society as private, are no laws at all, but agreements; because they are not acts of any governing power.

3. Canons made by civil rulers about the circumstantials of the church, belonging to their office, as orderers of such things, are laws, and may be urged by moderate and meet civil or corporal penalties, and no otherwise.

4. Canons made by princes or inferior magistrates, are no laws purely and formally ecclesiastical, which are essentially acts of pastoral power; but only materially ecclesiastical, and formally magistratical.

5. No church officers as such, (much less the people,) can make laws with a co-active or coercive sanction; that is, to be enforced by their authority with the sword or any corporal penalty, mulct, or force; this being the sole privilege of secular powers, civil, or economical, or scholastic.

6. There is no obligation ariseth to the subject for particular obedience of any law, which is evidently against the laws of God (in nature or holy Scripture).

7. They are no laws which pastors make to people out of their power: as the popes, &c.

8. There is no power on earth under Christ, that hath authority to make universal laws; to bind the whole church on all the earth; or all mankind. Because there is no universal sovereign, civil or spiritual, personal or collective.

9. Therefore it is no schism, but loyalty to Christ, to renounce or separate from such a society of usurpation; nor any disobedience or rebellion, to deny them obedience.

10. Pastors may and must be obeyed in things lawful as magistrates, if the king make them magistrates: though I think it unmeet for them to accept a magistracy with the sword, except in case of some rare necessity.

11. If pope, patriarchs, or pastors shall usurp any of the king's authority, loyalty to Christ and him, and the love of the church and state, oblige us to take part with Christ and the king against such usurpation, but only by lawful means, in the compass of our proper place and calling.

12. The canons made by the councils of many churches, have a double nature: as they are made for the people and the subjects of the pastors, they are a sort of laws; that is, they oblige by the derived authority of the pastors; because the pastors of several churches do not lose any of their power by their assembling, but exercise it with the greater advantage of concord. But as they are made only to oblige the present or absent pastors who separatedly are of equal office power, so they are no laws, except in an equivocal sense, but only agreements or contracts.268 So Bishop Usher professed his judgment to be; and before him the council of Carthage in Cyprian's time; but it needs no proof, any more than that a convention of kings may make no laws to bind the kings of England, but contracts only.

13. But yet we are aliunde obliged even by God, to keep these agreements in things lawful, for the church's peace and concord, when greater contrary reasons, a fine, do not disoblige us. For when God saith, You shall keep peace and concord, and keep lawful covenants, the canons afford us the minor, But these are lawful contracts or agreements, and means of the church's peace and concord; therefore (saith God's law) you shall observe them. So though the contracts (as of husband and wife, buyer and seller, &c.) be not laws, yet that is a law of God which bindeth us to keep them.

14. Seeing that even the obliging commands of pastors may not by them be enforced by the sword, but work by the power of divine authority or commission manifested, and by holy reason and love, therefore it is most modest and fit for pastors (who must not lord it over God's heritage, but be examples to all269) to take the lower name of authoritative directions and persuasions, rather than of laws; especially in a time when papal usurpation maketh such ruinating use of that name, and civil magistrates use to take it in the nobler and narrower sense.

The questions, 1. If one pastor make orders for his church, and the multitudes or synods be against them; which must be obeyed, you may gather from what is said before of ordination. And, 2. What are the particulars proper, materially, to the magistrate's decision, and what to the pastor's? I here pass by.

Quest. XXVI. Whether church canons, or pastors' directive determinations of matters pertinent to their office, do bind the conscience? and what accidents will disoblige the people? you may gather before in the same case about magistrates' laws, in the political directions: as also by an impartial transferring the case to the precepts of parents and schoolmasters to children; without respect to their power of the rod (or supposing that they had none such)Quest. XXVII. What are Christ's appointed means of the unity and concord of the universal church, and consequently of its preservation, if there be no human universal head and governor of it upon earth? And if Christ have instituted none such, whether prudence and the law of nature oblige not the church to set up and maintain a universal ecclesiastical monarchy or aristocracy; seeing that which is every man's work, is as no man's, and omitted by all?

I. To the first question I must refer you in part to two small, popular, yet satisfactory Tractates,270 written long ago, that I do not one thing too oft. Briefly now,

1. The unity of the universal church, is founded in and maintained by their common relation to Christ the head (as the kingdom in its relation to the king).

2. A concord in degrees of goodness, and in integrals and accidentals of christianity, will never be obtained on earth, where the church is still imperfect; and perfect holiness and wisdom are necessary to perfect harmony and concord, Phil. iii. 12-14.

3. Experience hath long taught the church, if it will learn, that the claim of a papal headship and government over the church universal, hath been the famous incendiary and hinderer of concord in the christian world.

4. The means to attain such a measure of concord and harmony which is to be hoped for, or endeavoured upon earth, I have so distinctly, fully, and yet briefly described (with the contrary impediments) in my treatise of the "Reasons of Christian Religion," part vii. chap. 14. p. 470, 471, in about two leaves, that I will not recite them. If you say, you are not bound to read the books which I refer you to; I answer, Nor this.

II. To the latter question I answer, To set up such an universal head on the supposition of natural reasons and human policy is, 1. To cross Christ's institution, and the laws of the Holy Ghost, as hath been long proved by protestants from the Scripture.

2. It is treason against Christ's sovereign office to usurp such a vicegerency without his commission.

3. It is against the notorious light of nature, which telleth us of the natural incapacity of mortal man, to be such a universal governor through the world.

4. It is to sin against long and dreadful common experience, and to keep in that fire that hath destroyed emperors, kings, and kingdoms, and set the churches, pastors, and christian world in those divisions, which are the great and serviceable work of Satan, and the impediment of the church's increase, purity, and peace, and the notorious shame of the christian profession in the eyes of the infidel world.

And if so many hundred years' sad experience will not answer them that say, If the pope were a good man, he might unite us all, I conclude that such deserve to be deceived, 2 Thess. ii. 10-12.

Quest. XXVIII. Who is the judge of controversies in the church? 1. About the exposition of the Scripture, and doctrinal points in themselves: 2. About either heresies or wicked practices, as they are charged on the persons who are accused of them; that is, 1. Antecedently to our practice, by way of regulation; 2. Or consequently, by judicial sentence (and execution) on offenders

I have answered this question so oft, that I can persuade myself to no more than this short, yet clear solution.

The papists used to cheat poor, unlearned persons that cannot justly discern things that differ, by puzzling them with this confused, ambiguous question. Some things they cunningly and falsely take for granted, as that there is such a thing on earth as a political, universal church, headed by any mortal governor. Some things they shuffle together in equivocal words. They confound, 1. Public judgment of decision, and private judgment of discerning. 2. The magistrate's judgment of church-controversies, and the pastor's, and the several cases, and ends, and effects of their several judgments. 3. Church-judgment as directive to a particular church, and as a means of the concord of several churches. Which being but distinguished, a few words will serve to clear the difficulty.

1. As there is no universal human church, (constituted or governed by a mortal head,) so there is no power set up by Christ to be a universal judge of either sort of controversies, by decisive judicial sentence, nor any universal civil monarch of the world.

2. The public, governing, decisive judgment, obliging others, belongeth to public persons, or officers of God, and not to any private man.271

3. The public decision of doubts or controversies about faith itself, or the true sense of God's word and laws, as obliging the whole church on earth to believe that decision, or not gainsay it, because of the infallibility or governing authority of the deciders, belongeth to none but Jesus Christ; because, as is said, he hath made no universal governor, nor infallible expositor.272 It belongeth to the lawgiver only to make such a universally obliging exposition of his own laws.

4. True bishops or pastors in their own particular churches are authorized teachers and guides, in expounding the laws and word of Christ; and the people are bound as learners to reverence their teaching, and not contradict it without true cause; yea, and to believe them fide humana, in things pertinent to their office: for oportet discentem credere.

5. No such pastors are to be absolutely believed, nor in any case of notorious error or heresy, where the word of God is discerned to be against them.

6. For all the people as reasonable creatures, have a judgment of private discerning to judge what they must receive as truth, and to discern their own duty, by the help of the word of God, and of their teachers.

7. The same power of governing judgment lawful synods have over their several flocks, as a pastor over his own, but with greater advantage.

8. The power of judging in many consociate churches, who is to be taken into communion as orthodox, and who to be refused by those churches as heretics, in specie, that is, what doctrine they will judge sound or unsound, as it is judicium discernendi, belongeth to every one of the council singly: as it is a judgment obliging themselves by contract, (and not of governing each other,) it is in the contracters and consenters; and for peace and order usually in the major vote; but with the limitations before expressed.

9. Every true christian believeth all the essentials of christianity, with a divine faith, and not by a mere human belief of his teachers, though by their help and teaching his faith is generated, and confirmed, and preserved. Therefore no essential article of christianity is left to any obliging decision of any church, but only to a subservient obliging teaching: as whether there be a God, a Christ, a heaven, a hell, an immortality of souls? Whether God be to be believed, loved, feared, obeyed before man? Whether the Scripture be God's word, and true? Whether those that contradict it are to be believed therein? Whether pastors, assemblies, public worship, baptism, sacrament of the Lord's supper, be divine institutions? And the same I may say of any known word of God: no mortals may judge in partem utramlibet, but the pastors are only authorized teachers and helpers of the people's faith. (And so they be partly to one another.)

10. If the pope, or his council, were the infallible or the governing expositors of all God's laws and Scriptures, 1. God would have enabled them to do it by a universal commentary which all men should be obliged to believe, or at least not to contradict. For there is no authority and obligation given to men (yea, to so many successively) to do that (for the needful decision of controversies) which they never have ability given them to do. For that were to oblige them to things impossible. 2. And the pope and his council would be the most treacherous miscreants on earth, that in so many hundred years, would never write such an infallible nor governing commentary, to end the differences of the christian world. Indeed they have judged (with others) against Arius, that Christ is true God, and one with the Father in substance, &c. But if they had said the contrary, must we have taken it for God's truth, or have believed them?

11. To judge who, for heresy or scandal, shall be punished by the sword, belongeth to none but the magistrate in his own dominions: as to judge who shall have communion or be excommunicated from the church, belongeth, as aforesaid, to the pastors. And the said magistrate hath first as a man his own judgment of discerning what is heresy, and who of his subjects are guilty of it, in order to his public governing judgment.

12. The civil, supreme ruler may antecedently exercise this judgment of discerning (by the teaching of their proper teachers) in order to his consequent sentences on offenders; and so in his laws may tell the subjects, what doctrines and practices he will either tolerate or punish. And thus may the church pastors do in their canons to their several flocks, in relation to communion or non-communion.

13. He that will condemn particular persons as heretics or offenders, must allow them to speak for themselves, and hear the proofs, and give them that which justice requireth, &c. And if the pope can do so at the antipodes, and in all the world, either per se, or per alium, without giving that other his essential claimed power, let him prove it by better experience than we have had.

14. As the prime and sole universal legislation belongeth to Jesus Christ, so the final judgment, universal and particular, belongeth to him, which only will end all controversies, and from which there is no appeal.

Quest. XXIX. Whether a parent's power over his children, or a pastor or many pastors or bishops over the same children, as parts of their flock, be greater, or more obliging in matters of religion and public worship?

This being touched on somewhere else, I only now say, That if the case were my own, I would, 1. Labour to know their different powers, as to the matter commanded, and obey each in that which is proper to its place.

2. If I were young and ignorant, natural necessity, and natural obligation together, would give my parents with whom I lived such an advantage above the minister (whom I seldom see or understand) as would determine the case de eventu, and much de jure.

3. If my parents command me to hear a teacher who is against ceremonies or certain forms, and to hear none that are for them, natural necessity here also (ordinarily) would make it my duty first to hear and obey my parents; and in many other cases, till I came to understand the greater power of the pastors, in their own place and work.

4. But when I come to church, or know that the judgment of all concordant godly pastors condemneth such a thing as damnable heresy or sin, which my father commandeth me to receive and profess, I would more believe and follow the judgment of the pastors and churches.

Quest. XXX. May an office teacher or pastor be at once in a stated relation of a pastor and a disciple to some other pastor?

1. That Timothy was still Paul's son in point of learning, and his disciple, and so that under apostles the same persons might be stated in both relations at once, seemeth evident in Scripture.

2. But the same that is a pastor is not at once a mere layman.

3. That men in the same office may so differ in age, experience, and degrees of knowledge, as that young pastors may, and often ought, many years to continue, not only in occasional reception of their help, but also in an ordinary stated way of receiving it, and so be related to them as their ordinary teachers, by such gradual advantages, is past all doubt. And that all juniors and novices owe a certain reverence and audience, and some obedience, to the elder and wiser.

4. But this is not to be a disciple to him as in lower order or office, but as of lower gifts and grace.

5. It is lawful and very good for the church, that some ordained persons continue long as pupils to their tutors in schools or academies (e. g. to learn the holy languages, if they have them not, &c.) But this is a relation left to voluntary contractors.

6. In the ancient churches the particular churches had one bishop, and some presbyters and deacons, usually of much lower parts, who lived all together (single or chaste) in the bishop's or church house, which was as a college, where he daily edified them by doctrine and example.

7. The controversy about different orders by divine institution, belongeth not to me here to meddle with: but as to the natural and acquired imparity of age and gifts, and the unspeakable benefit to the juniors and the churches, that it is desirable that there were such a way of their education and edification, I take to be discernible to any that are impartial and judicious.

Ambrose was at once a teacher and a learner, Beda, Eccl. Hist. mentioneth one in England, that was at once a pastor and disciple. And in Scotland some that became bishops were still to be under the government of the abbot of their monasteries according to their first devotion, though the abbot was but a presbyter.

8. Whether a settled, private church member may not at once continue his very formal relation to the pastor of that church, and yet be of the same order with him in another church, as their pastor, at the same time, (as he may in case of necessity continue his apprenticeship or civil service,) is a case that I will not determine. But he that denieth it, must prove his opinion (or affirmation of its unlawfulness) by sufficient evidence from Scripture or nature; which is hard.

Quest. XXXI. Who hath the power of making church canons?

This is sufficiently resolved before. 1. The magistrate only hath the power of making such canons or laws for church matters as shall be enforced by the sword.

2. Every pastor hath power to make canons for his own congregation; that is, to determine what hour or at what place they shall meet; what translation of Scripture, or version of Psalms, shall be used in his church; what chapter shall be read; what psalm shall be sung, &c.: except the magistrate contradict him, and determine it otherwise, in such points as are not proper to the ministerial office.

3. Councils or assemblies of pastors have the power of making such canons for many churches, as shall be laws to the people, and agreements to themselves.

4. None have power to make church laws or canons about any thing, save, (1.) To put God's own laws in execution. (2.) To determine to that end, of such circumstances as God hath left undetermined in his word.

5. Canon-making under pretence of order and concord, hath done a great deal of mischief to the churches; whilst clergymen have grown up from agreements, to tyrannical usurpations and impositions, and from concord about needful accidents of worship, to frame new worship ordinances, and to force them on all others: but especially, (1.) By encroaching on the power of kings, and telling them that they are bound in conscience to put all their canons into execution by force. (2.) And by laying the union of the churches and the communion of christians upon things needless and doubtful, yea, and at last on many sinful things; whereby the churches have been most effectually divided, and the christian world set together by the ears; and schisms, yea, and wars have been raised: and these maladies cannot possibly be healed, till the tormenting, tearing engines be broken and cast away, and the voluminous canons of numerous councils (which themselves also are matter of undeterminable controversy) be turned into the primitive simplicity; and a few necessary things made the terms of concord. Doubtless if every pastor were left wholly to himself for the ordering of worship circumstances and accidents in his own church, without any common canons, save the Scriptures, and the laws of the land, there would have been much less division, than that is, which these numerous canons of all the councils, obtruded on the church, have made.

Quest. XXXII. Doth baptism as such enter the baptized into the universal church, or into a particular church, or both? And is baptism the particular church covenant as such?

Answ. 1. Baptism as such doth enter us into the universal church, and into it alone; and is no particular church covenant, but the solemnizing of the great christian covenant of grace, between God, and a believer and his seed.

For, (1.) There is not essentially any mention of a particular church in it.

(2.) A man may be baptized by a general unfixed minister, who is not the pastor of any particular church:273 and he may be baptized in solitude, where there is no particular church. The eunuch, Acts viii. was not baptized into any particular church.

(3.) Baptism doth but make us christians, but a man may be a christian who is no member of any particular church.

(4.) Otherwise baptism should oblige us necessarily to a man, and be a covenant between the baptized and the pastor and church into which he is baptized: but it is only our covenant with Christ.

(5.) We may frequently change our particular church relation, without being baptized again. But we never change our relation to the church which we are baptized into, unless by apostasy.

2. Yet the same person at the same time that he is baptized may be entered into the universal church, and into a particular; and ordinarily it ought to be so where it can be had.

3. And the covenant which we make in baptism with Christ, doth oblige us to obey him, and consequently to use his instituted means, and so to hear his ministers, and hold due communion with his churches.

4. But this doth no more enter us into a particular church, than into a particular family. For we as well oblige ourselves to obey him in family relations as in church relations.

5. When the baptized therefore is at once entered into the universal and particular church, it is done by a double consent to the double relation. By baptism he professeth his consent to be a member of Christ and his universal church; and additionally he consenteth to be guided by that particular pastor in that particular church; which is another covenant or consent.

Quest. XXXIII. Whether infants should be baptized, I have answered long ago in a treatise on that subject. Also what infants should be baptized? and who have right to sacraments? and whether hypocrites are univocally or equivocally christians and church members? I have resolved in my "Disput. of Right to Sacraments."Quest. XXXIV. Whether an unbaptized person who yet maketh a public profession of christianity, be a member of the visible church? And so of the infants of believers unbaptized

Answ. 1. Such persons have a certain imperfect, irregular kind of profession, and so of membership; their visibility or visible christianity is not such as Christ hath appointed. As those that are married, but not by legal celebration, and as those that in cases of necessity are ministers without ordination; so are such christians as Constantine and many of old without baptism.

2. Such persons ordinarily are not to be admitted to the rights and communion of the visible church, because we must know Christ's sheep by his own mark; but yet they are so far visible christians, as that we may be persuaded nevertheless of their salvation. As to visible communion, they have but a remote and incomplete jus ad rem, and no jus ad re, or legal investiture and possession.