and upon competent necessity, they cannot do it without great scandal, and sometimes great impiety. But of this I shall discourse in the next chapter. For the present I was to assert the rights of princes, and to establish the proper foundation of human laws; that the conscience may build upon a rock, and not trust to that, which stands upon sand, and trusts to nothing. 7. I have been the larger upon these things, because the adversaries are great and many, and the pretences and the challenges high, and their opposition great and intricate, and their affrightments large; for they use something to persuade and something to scare the conscience. Such is that bold saying of Pope Leo X.; " A jure tam divino quam humano laicis potestas nulla in ecclesiasticos personas attributa est;"" Both by divine and human laws ecclesiastics are free from all secular power."-But fierce and terrible are the words of the Extravagant' unam sanctam :' " Porro subesse Romano pontifici omnem humanam creaturam declaramus, dicimus, definimus et pronunciamus omnino esse de necessitate salutis;" "That every man should be subject to the bishop of Rome, we define, we say, we declare and pronounce, to be altogether necessary to salvation." This indeed is high; but how vain withal and trifling and unreasonable I have sufficiently evidenced. So that now the conscience may firmly rely upon the foundation of human laws, and by them she is to be conducted, not only in civil affairs, but in ecclesiastical, that is, in religion as well as justice: and there is nothing that can prejudice their authority, unless they decree against a law of God: of which because ecclesiastical persons are the preachers and expositors by ordinary divine appointment, princes must hear bishops, and bishops must obey princes: or because audire et obedire,' to hear and to obey,' have great affinity, I choose to end this with the expression of Abbot Berengare, almost eleven hundred years ago; "Sciendum est quod nec Catholicæ fidei nec Christianæ contrarium est legi, si, ad honorem regni et sacerdotii, rex pontifici et pontifex obediat regi;" "It is neither against the Catholic faith nor the Christian law, that the prince obey the bishop, and the bishop obey the prince :" the first is an obedience of piety, and the latter of duty; the one is justice, and the other is religion. Concil. Later, sub Lcon. X. e Lib. de Myster. Sign. in Biblioth. Sanct. Patr. CHAP. III. OF THE POWER OF THE CHURCH IN CANONS AND CENSURES, WITH THEIR OBLIGATIONS AND POWERS OVER THE CONSCIENCE. RULE I. The whole Power, which Christ hath left in ordinary to his Church, is merely spiritual. 1. THAT there are great things spoken by the doctors of the primitive church, of the ecclesiastical or spiritual power, is every where evident, and that there are many expressions which prefer it above the secular; all which I shall represent instead of others in the words of St. Chrysostoma, because of them all he was the most eloquent, and likeliest in the fairest imagery to describe the powers of his order :-" Others are the limits of the kingdom, others, of the priesthood; for this is greater than that: and you must not estimate it by the purple and gold. The king hath allotted to him the things of this world to be administered; but the right of priesthood descendeth from above. 'Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven.' To the king is committed what is here below; to me, that is, to the bishop, things celestial. The bodies are intrusted to princes, but the souls to bishops. The king remits the guilt of bodies, but the bishop the guilt of sins. The prince compels, the bishop exhorts. He governs by necessity, but we by counsel; he hath sensible armour, but we spiritual weapons; he wageth war against the barbarians, but we against the devil. Here then is a greater principality. For which cause the king submits himself to the priest's hand, and every where in the Old Testament the priests did anoint kings."-Where, by the way, though it be not exactly true that the kings of Israel and Judah were always anointed by priests", but sometimes by prophets who were no priests, as in the case of Jehu ; -yet, supposing all that, the discourse is true enough, and the spiritual power in relation to a nobler object is in that b 2 Kings, ix. 4. a Hom, lib. 4. ex verb. Isaiæ, regard better than the temporal: and therefore, is in spiritual account in order to a spiritual end above that, which serves the less excellent. But the effect of this discourse is, that kings are subject to bishops, just as the princes of Israel were to those that anointed them; that is, they came under their hands for unction, and consecration, and blessing, and counsel, and the rites of sacrifice. And all this is very true; and this is all that was or could be intended by St. Chrysostom, or those other eminent lights of the primitive church, who set their order upon a candlestick, and made it illustrious by the advantage of comparison. The advantages are wholly spiritual, the excellences are spiritual, the operations are spiritual, and the effects are spiritual; the office is spiritual, and so is all the power. But because the persons of the men in whom this spiritual power is subjected, are temporal as well as princes, and so are all their civil actions, therefore whatever eminence they have for their spiritual employment, it gives them no temporal advantage; that comes in upon another stock: but for the spiritual, it is as much as it is pretended; but then it is no more. 2. For it is purely spiritual. Where any thing of temporal is mingled with it, it is not greater in that, but subject to the temporal power. Without this, there could never be peace: and where the jurisdiction of two courts does interfere, there are perpetual wranglings. But God, having ordained two powers, hath made them both best; and yet so that both of them are inferior: but because it is in differing powers, they both rule in peace, and both obey with pleasure. How the ecclesiastic state is subject to the civil, I have largely accounted now I am to describe the eminences, powers, advantages, and legislations, of the spiritual concerning which we shall have the best light, if we rightly understand the nature and quality of the power. 3. "As my father sent me, so send I you," said Christ to his apostles. Now it is plain how the Father was pleased to send his Son; with humility and miracles, with a low fortune and a great design, with poverty and power, with fulness of the Spirit and excellency of wisdom. That was the manner. The end was, the redemption of man; the conquering of the devil; the preaching of the gospel; the foundation of the church; the instruction of faith; the baptizing converts; the reformation of manners; the extirpation of sin. This was the entire end, and that was the just manner in which Christ was sent into the world; and since his apostles and their successors were to pursue the same ends and no other, they were furnished with the same power: and Christ gave them the Holy Ghost, and gave them commandment and power to teach all nations, to baptize them, to bind and to loose, to minister his body and his blood, to exhort and to reprove, to comfort and to cure, to make spiritual separations of the vile from the precious. This is the sum of all the commissions they had from Christ. 4. This power, and these commissions, were wholly ministerial without domination, without proper jurisdiction, that is, without coaction; it being wholly against the design of the religion, that it should be forced; and it being far removed from persons so disposed, so employed, so instructed, to do it. And therefore one of the requisites of a bishop is μn elvai maŋxtixòv, “ he must be no striker:" he had no arms put into his hand to that purpose; the ecclesiastic state being furnished with authority, but no power, that is, "auctoritate suadendi, magis quam jubendi potestate" (that I may use the expression in Tacitus ); an authority to persuade and to rebuke, but no power to command,' as the word is used in the sense of secular dominion. 66 5. Concerning which, that the thing be rightly understood, we must first truly understand the word. Accursius d defines jurisdiction to be "potestatem de publico introductam cum necessitate juris dicendi et æquitatis statuendæ;" "a public power of doing right and equity."-It is "potestas ad jus dicendum," so Muscornus Cyprius; "a power of giving sentence in causes between party and party.”—But we shall best understand the meaning of ' jurisdictio' by that place of Cicero e: "quid ego istius in jure dicundo libidinem demonstrem? Quis vestrum non ex urbana jurisdictione cognovit? Quis unquam, isto prætore, Chelidone invitâ, lege agere potuit ?-Judices citari jubet: jubet citari Heraclium: citatur reus Sopatrus: Sthenium citari jubet: atque, ut aliquando de rebus ab isto cognitis, judicatisque, et de judiciis datis desis • De Mor. Germ. cap. 11. Oberlin. Lond. edit. vol. 2. p. 362. In lib. 1. in Verbo Potest. FF. de Jurisdict. e Orat. in Verrem, ii. cap. 16. et 48. Priestley's Cicero, vol. 1. pag. 204. 233. 66 mus dicere," &c. From which words it is plain, that jurís→ diction is a power of magistracy to summon the parties, to hear their cause, and to give sentence. And therefore in Suetonius we often find these expressions, " Imperatorem jus dixisse, cognovisse, judicasse," "The emperor took cognizance, did judge, did give sentence," that is, did exercise jurisdiction. Empire is always included under jurisdiction; and it is divided into a cognition of capital and pecuniary causes, as appears plainly in the title of the code de Jurisdictione,' which handles both causes; and Asconius Pædianus, in his argument upon the fourth action against Verres, proves expressly, that capital actions are part of jurisdiction. To which purpose is that of Suetonius f in the life of Augus"Dixit autem jus non diligentiâ modo summa sed et lenitate, siquidem manifesti parricidii reum, ne culeo insueretur, quod non nisi confessi afficiuntur hâc pœna," &c. But of this there is no question. Now of jurisdiction thus understood, it is evident that the ecclesiastic state hath no right derived to them from Christ,—that is, no power to punish any man corporally, or to compel him to answer in criminal causes; they have no power of the sword, no restraint upon the body: but having care of souls, which cannot be governed by force, they are to govern as souls can be governed, that is, by arguments and reason, by fear and hope, by preaching of rewards and punishments, and all the ways of the noblest government, that is, by wisdom, and by the ways of God. tus; 6. This appears in the Apostles' description of their own office and power. "What is Pauls, and what is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed?" "ministers of Christ," "stewards of the mysteries of Christ :" "To us is committed the word of reconciliation h," "We are ambassadors for Christ;" où XUGIEUOYTES, we are "not lords over the flock;" but " as though God did beseech you by us, we pray you, in Christ's stead, to be reconciled to God." Thus Christ set them over the household, not to strike the servants, but "to give them their meat in due season;" that is, as Optatus m expresses it, to minister the food of God's word and sacra Cap. 33. B. Crusius, vol. 1. pag. 259. ▾ h 2 Cor. v. 18. Luke, xii. í 2 Cor. v. 20. m Lib. 5. contra Parmen. g 1 Cor. iii. |