CXI propositions concerning the ministry and government of the ChurchCXI propositions concerning the ministerie and government of the Church

84.

If any man should again object that the Magistrate is not indeed to resist Ecclesiastical Government, yet that the abuses thereof are to be corrected and taken away by him: The answer is ready, in the worst and troublesome times, or in the decayed and troubled estate of things, when the ordinance of God in the Church is violently turned into tyranny, to the treading down of true Religion, and to the oppressing of the Professors thereof, and when nothing almost is found or whole, divers things are yielded to be lawful to godly Magistrates, which are not ordinarily lawful for them, that so to extraordinary diseases extraordinary remedies may be applied. So also the Magistrate abusing his power unto tyranny, and making havoc of all, tis lawful to resist him by some extraordinary ways and means, which are not ordinarily to be allowed.

If any man should again object that the Magistrate is not indeed to resist Ecclesiasticall Government, yet that the abuses thereof are to be corrected and taken away by him: The answer is ready, in the worst and troublesome times, or in the decayed and troubled estate of things, when the ordinance of God in the Church is violently turned into tyranny, to the treading down of true Religion, and to the oppressing of the Professors thereof, and when nothing almost is found or whole, divers things are yeelded to be lawfull to godly Magistrates, which are not ordinarily lawfull for them, that so to extraordinary diseases extraordinary remedies may be applyed. So also the Magistrate abusing his power unto tyranny, and making havock of all, tis lawfull to resist him by some extraordinary wayes and meanes, which are not ordinarily to bee allowed.