A42758:118
An assertion of the government of the Church of Scotland in the points of…
An assertion of the government of the Church of Scotland in the points of ruling-elders and of the authority of presbyteries and synods with a postscript in answer to a treatise lately published against presbyterial government.An assertion of the government of the Church of Scotland in the points of ruling-elders and of the authority of presbyteries and synods with a postscript in answer to a treatise lately published against presbyteriall government.
Edinburgh: printed for James Bryson, 1641Edinburgh: printed for Iames Bryson, 1641
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
We reply,1 first, if the Apostle had mentioned Rulers or Governors alone, then might we have indeed guessed, that he meant a general kind only, and no particular Species: But since he hath enumerate so many Species, as Apostles, Prophets, Teachers, gifts of miracles, gifts of tongues, &c. Surely they did either most ignorantly, or most maliciously err who tell us, that the Apostle putteth a Genus in the midst of so many Species. Secondly, the Apostle speaketh only of Ecclesiastical Officers, God hath set some in the Church, &c. What meant Whitgift to extend his words to the civill Magistrate. T. C. answered him, that he could not distinguish betwixt the Church and Common-wealth, and so betwixt ⟨p. 42⟩the Church Officers, and the Officers of the Common-wealth. He replied, that he could not put any such difference betwixt them, that the one may not be comprehended under the Apostles word, as well as the other. For I utterly renounce, saith he, that distinction invented by Papists, and maintained by you, which is, that Christian Magistrates govern not in the respect they be Christians but in the respect they be men; and that they govern Christians, not in that they be Christians, but in that they be men: which is to give no more authority to the Christian Magistrate in the Church of Christ, then to the great Turk. Let our opposites here go by the ears among themselves: for M. Jo. Wemys holdeth,2 that all Kings have alike jurisdiction in the Church, Infidels as well as Christian Kings. We hold that Christian Magistrates govern their subjects, neither as Christians, nor as men, but as Magistrates; and they govern Christian subjects as Christian Magistrates. In like manner, Christians are governed by Magistrates, neither as they are Christians, nor as they are men, but as they are subjects, and they are governed by Christian Magistrates, as they are Christian subjects. And we all maintain, that a Christian Magistrate hath great authority over Christian subjects, in things pertaining to the conservation ⟨p. 43⟩and purgation of religion, which the great Turk, nor no Infidel Magistrate hath, or can have, except he become Christian. But what do I digressing after the impertinences of a roving disputer? for what of all this?