A86000:92
A form for Church government and ordination of ministers, contained in CXI propositions, propounded…
A form for Church government and ordination of ministers, contained in CXI propositions, propounded to the late General Assembly at Edinburgh, 1647. Together with an Act concerning Erastianism, independency, and liberty of conscience. Published by authority.A form for Church government and ordination of ministers, contained in CXI propositions, propounded to the late Generall Assembly at Edinburgh, 1647. Together with an Act concerning Erastianisme, independencie, and liberty of conscience. Published by authority.
London: printed for Robert Bostock, 1647
Title page typeset from the transcription.
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.
42.
Wherefore the opinion of those Sectaries of this Age is altogether to be disallowed, who though otherwise insinuating themselves craftily into the Magistrates favour, do deny unto him the authority and right of restraining Heretics and Schismatics, and do hold and maintain that such persons, how much soever hurtful and pernicious enemies to true Religion and to the Church, yet are to be tolerated by the Magistrate, if so be he conceive them to be such as no way violate the Laws of the Commonwealth, and in no wise disturb the civill Peace.
Wherefore the opinion of those Sectaries of this Age is altogether to be disallowed, who though otherwise insinuating themselves craftily into the Magistrates favour, doe denie unto him the authority and right of restraining Hereticks and Schismaticks, and doe hold and maintain that such persons, how much soever hurtfull and pernicious enemies to true Religion and to the Church, yet are to be tolerated by the Magistrate, if so be hee conceive them to be such as no way violate the Lawes of the Commonwealth, and in no wise disturb the civill Peace.
43.
Yet the civill Power and the ecclesiastical ought not by any means to be confounded or mixed together: Both Powers are indeed from God, and ordained for his glory, and both to be guided by his word, and both are comprehended under that precept, Honour thy Father and thy Mother: So that men ought to obey both civill Magistrates and ecclesiastical governors in the Lord; To both powers their proper dignity and authority is to be maintained and preserved in force: To both also is some way entrusted the keeping of both Tables of the Law; also both the one and the other doth exercise some jurisdiction, and giveth sentence of Judgement in an external court or judicatory: But these, and other things of like sort, in which they agree notwithstanding; yet by marvellous vast differences are they distinguished the one from the other, and the rights of both remain distinct, and that eight manner of ways, which it shall not be amiss here to add, that unto each of these Administrations its own set bounds may be the better maintained.