Of national churches their description, institution, use, preservation, danger, maladies and cure, partly applied…

§ 12. And whereas in my Defences against Dr. Stillingsleet and Dr. Sherlock, I called the Christian Magistrate an Accidental Head, and urged them hard to name the Essential National Church-Head; I spake on supposition of their Opinion which I opposed, that Bishops only were such Essential Heads, from whom A National Church must be unified and specified: But I still professed to own a National Church as a Christian Kingdom, containing Confederate Pastoral Churches: And of this the Sovereign Power is the Essentiating Head.

§ 12. And whereas in my Defences against Dr. Stillingsleet and Dr. Sherlock, I called the Christian Magistrate an Accidental Head, and urged them hard to name the Essential National Church-Head; I spake on supposition of their Opinion which I opposed, that Bishops only were such Essential Heads, from whom A National Church must be unified and specified: But I still professed to own a National Church as a Christian Kingdom, containing Confederate Pastoral Churches: And of this the Soveraign Power is the Essentiating Head.

§ 13. The names of distinction of Civil and Ecclesiastical as differencing the Office of the Christian Magistrates and Pastors, may be used as well understood; but is too Popish, and used by Papists and some others, to obscure and debase Christ's Government by Magistrates, as if they were only for secular uses: Whereas indeed in a Church as National the Prince is the chief Ecclesiastical Officer of Christ. And the true differencing terms are fetched, not from the subject matter, so much as from the Mode of Government, one being forcible by the Sword, and the other only on Conscience by the Word, doctrinally opened, and personally applied by the Keys. And Ruling is called Civil, because it is the Regiment over Cives quâ tales, so it is Ecclesiastical as it is over Cives quâ Christianos, and over particular Churches and Pastors; and for Souls more than for Bodies, and worldly Estates.

§ 13. The names of distinction of Civil and Ecclesiastical as differencing the Office of the Christian Magistrates and Pastors, may be used as well understood; but is too Popish, and used by Papists and some others, to obscure and debase Christ's Government by Magistrates, as if they were only for secular uses: Whereas indeed in a Church as National the Prince is the chief Ecclesiastical Officer of Christ. And the true differencing terms are fetcht, not from the subject matter, so much as from the Mode of Government, one being forcible by the Sword, and the other only on Conscience by the Word, doctrinally opened, and personally applied by the Keys. And Ruling is called Civil, because it is the Regiment over Cives quâ tales, so it is Ecclesiastical as it is over Cives quâ Christianos, and over particular Churches and Pastors; and for Souls more than for Bodies, and worldly Estates.