A Christian Directory, Part 4: Christian Politics. Richard Baxter

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СКАЧАТЬ worship of God. Were they only for the low and contemptible matters of this world, their office would be contemptible and low. To help you out in this, I shall answer some of the commonest doubts.

      Quest. I. Is the civil magistrate judge in controversies of faith or worship?

      Who shall be judge in points of faith and worship?

      Answ. It hath many a time grieved me to hear so easy a question frequently propounded, and pitifully answered, by such as the public good required to have had more understanding in such things. In a word, judgment is public or private. The private judgment, which is nothing but a rational discerning of truth and duty, in order to our own choice and practice, belongeth to every rational person. The public judgment is ever in order to execution. Now the execution is of two sorts, 1. By the sword. 2. By God's word applied to the case and person. One is upon the body or estate; the other is upon the conscience of the person, or of the church, to bring him to repentance, or to bind him to avoid communion with the church, and the church to avoid communion with him.66 And thus public judgment is civil or ecclesiastical; coercive and violent in the execution; or only upon consenters and volunteers. In the first, the magistrate is the only judge, and the pastors in the second. About faith or worship, if the question be, Who shall be protected as orthodox, and who shall be punished by the sword as heretical, idolatrous, or irreligious? here the magistrate is the only judge. If the question be, Who shall be admitted to church communion as orthodox, or ejected and excommunicated as heretical or profane? here the pastors are the proper judges. This is the truth, and this is enough to end all the voluminous wranglings upon the question, Who shall be judge? and to answer the cavils of the papists against the power of princes in matters of religion. It is pity that such gross and silly sophisms, in a case that a child may answer, should debase christian princes, and take away their chief power, and give it to a proud and wrangling clergy, to persecute and divide the church with.67

      Of the oath of supremacy.

      Quest. II. May our oath of supremacy be lawfully taken, wherein the king is pronounced supreme governor in all causes ecclesiastical as well as civil?

      Answ. There is no reason of scruple to him that understandeth, 1. That the title causes ecclesiastical is taken from the ancient usurpation of the pope and his prelates, who brought much of the magistrate's work into their courts, under the name of causes ecclesiastical. 2. That our canons, and many declarations of our princes, have expounded it fully, by disclaiming all proper pastoral power. 3. That by governor is meant only one that governeth coercively, or by sword; so that it is no more than to swear That in all causes ecclesiastical, so far as coercive government is required, it belongeth not to pope or prelates under him; but to the king and his officers or courts alone: or, That the king is chief in governing by the sword in causes ecclesiastical as well as civil. So that if you put spiritual instead of ecclesiastical, the word is taken materially, and not formally; not that the king is chief in the spiritual government, by the keys of excommunication and absolution, but that he is chief in the coercive government about spiritual matters, as before explained.68

      Quest. III. Is not this to confound the church and state, and to give the pastor's power to the magistrate?

      Answ. Not at all; it is but to say that there may be need of the use both of the word and sword against the same persons, for the same offence; and the magistrate only must use one, and the pastors the other. An heretical preacher may be silenced by the king upon pain of banishment, and silenced by the church upon pain of excommunication. And what confusion is there in this?

      Quest. IV. But hath not the king power in cases of church discipline, and excommunication itself?

      Answ. There is a magistrate's discipline, and a pastoral discipline. Discipline by the sword, is the magistrate's work; discipline by the word is the pastor's work. And there is a coercive excommunication, and a pastoral excommunication. To command upon pain of corporal punishment, that a heretic or impenitent, wicked man shall forbear the sacred ordinances and privileges, a magistrate may do; but to command it only upon divine and spiritual penalties, belongeth to the pastors of the church. The magistrate hath power over their very pastoral work, though he have not power in it, so as to do it himself. Suppose but all the physicians of the nation to be of divine institution, with their colleges and hospitals, and in the similitude you will see all the difficulties resolved, and the next question fully answered.69

      Quest. V. Seeing the king, and the pastors of the church, may command and judge to several ends in the same cause, suppose they should differ, which of them should the church obey?

      Answ. Distinguish here, 1. Between a right judgment and a wrong. 2. Between the matter in question; which is either, 1. Proper in its primary state to the magistrate. 2. Or proper primarily to the pastor. 3. Or common to both (though in several sorts of judgment). And so I answer the question thus.

      1. If it be a matter wherein God himself hath first determined, and his officers do but judge in subordination to his law, and declare his will, then we must obey him that speaketh according to the word of God, if we can truly discern it; and not him that we know goeth contrary to God.70 As if the magistrate should forbid communion with Arians or heretics, and the pastors command us to hold communion with them as no heretics; here the magistrate is to be obeyed (because God is to be obeyed) before the pastors, though it be in a matter of faith and worship. If you say, Thus you make all the people judges; I answer you, And so you must make them such private judges, to discern their own duty, and so must every man; or else you must rule them as beasts or madmen, and prove that there is no heaven or hell for any in the world but kings and pastors; or, at least, that the people shall be saved or damned for nothing, but obeying or not obeying their governors; and if you could prove that, you are never the nearer reconciling the contradictory commands of those governors.

      2. But if the matter be not fore-determined by God, but left to man; then, 1. If it be the magistrate's proper work, we must obey the magistrate only. 2. If it be about the pastor's proper work, the pastor is to be obeyed; though the magistrate gainsay it, so be it he proceed according to the general rules of his instructions, and the matter be of weight. As if the magistrate and the pastors of the church do command different translations or expositions of the Bible to be used, or one forbiddeth and another commandeth the same individual person to be baptized, or receive the sacrament of the Lord's supper, or to be esteemed a member of the church; if the people know not which of them judgeth right, it seemeth to me they should first obey their pastors, because it is only in matters intimately pertaining to their office. I speak only of formal obedience, and that of the people only, for, materially, prudence may require us rather to do as the magistrate commandeth, quod, non quia, to avoid a greater evil. And it is always supposed that we patiently bear the magistrate's penalties, when we obey not his commands. 3. But in points common to them both, the case is more difficult. But here you must further distinguish, first, between points equally common, and points unequally common; secondly, between determinations of good, or bad, or indifferent consequence as to the main end and interest of God and souls. 1. In points equally common to both, the magistrate is to be obeyed against the pastors; because he is more properly a commanding governor, and they are but the guides or governors of volunteers; and because, in such cases, the pastors themselves should obey the magistrate; and therefore the people should first obey him.71 2. Much more in points unequally common, which the magistrate is more concerned in than the pastors, the magistrate is undoubtedly to be first obeyed. Of both, there might instances be given about the circumstantials or adjuncts of God's worship. As the place of public worship, the situation, form, bells, fonts, pulpits, seats, precedency in seats, tables, cups, and other utensils; church bounds by parishes, church ornaments, gestures, habits, some councils, and СКАЧАТЬ