Master Bezaes sermons upon the three chapters of the canticle of canticlesMaster Bezaes sermons vpon the three chapters of the canticle of canticles

6 But besides these unto whom properly this charge appertaineth, there are yet other hunters in the vineyard of the Lord, who ought to travel no less in this hunting, to wit, the magistrates aswell sovereign as other, called also servants of god, established in authority, & girded by him with a bawdrier, Job. 12.18. Rom. 13.1. to the end they should maintain, not only honesty of life opposed unto all violence and dissolution, but to the end that God may be known and obeyed by the establishment and maintenance of the true service of God, which is called Piety or godliness, 1. Tim. 2.2. These are they therefore who should with all their power which God hath given them, uphold & maintain the holy ministry & service of God, as well in the purity of doctrine, as also in the discipline of the Church, each conformably unto the word of the Lord witnessed by the writings of his Prophets, without either adding any thing thereto, or diminishing ought there-from, and consequently bridle as much as in them lieth, and also punish according unto the exigence of the case, the open and convicted wicked and incorrigible perturbers of that which is the true ⟨p. 294⟩Archpiller and foundation of humane society, namely the purity and exercise of true religion: and all this they should do by the order which God himself hath established, not meddling with that which appertaineth unto the pastors and ancients of the Church and the holy ministry, like unto Uzzias, 2. Chron. 26.19. Matth. 20.25. and Luk. 12.14. pertaining also as little and less a great deal to the pastors to intermeddle with civil Jurisdiction and temporal as they call it, as unto the magistrates to administer in the Church the word and the sacraments. The magistrates on the other side must take heed how they make Laws to bind the conscience, or take upon them to set up a government of the house of God according unto their own wisdom and advice: which thing appertaineth unto God alone who hath ordained, delivered and enregistered his inviolable laws in his holy Scriptures, as well of the old covenant, which dured but a time, as of the new which shall continue and endure unto the end of the world. Which if it had been well observed, or if it might be redressed at this day, then verily we should see the Church of God so reformed as it ought to be: