Let not envy so far prevail, as to make us account that a blemish, which if there be in us any spark of sound judgment, or of religious conscience, we must of necessity acknowledge to be one of the chiefest ornaments unto this land: by the ancient laws whereof, the clergy being held for the chief of those three estates, which together make up the entire body of this commonwealth, under one supreme head and governor; it hath all this time ever borne a sway proportionable in the weighty affairs of the land; wise and virtuous kings condescending most willingly thereunto, even of reverence to the Most High; with the flower of whose sanctified inheritance, as it were with a kind of Divine presence, unless their chiefest civil assemblies were so far forth beautified as might be without any notable impediment unto their heavenly functions, they could not satisfy themselves, as having shewed towards God an affection most dutiful.

Thus, first, in defect of the civil magistrates: secondly, for the ease and quietness of scholastical societies: thirdly, by way of political necessity: fourthly, in regard of quality, care, and extraordinancy: fifthly, for countenance unto the ministry: and, lastly, even of devotion and reverence towards God himself, there may be admitted at leastwise in some particulars well and lawful enough a conjunction of civil and ecclesiastical power, except there be some such law or reason to the contrary, as may prove it to be a thing simply in itself nought.

Against it many things are objected, as, first, "That the matters which are noted in the Holy Scriptures to have belonged unto the ordinary office of any ministers of God's holy word and sacraments, are these which follow, with such-like, and no other; namely, the watch of the sanctuary, the business of God, the ministry of the word and sacraments, oversight of the house of God, watching over his flock, prophecy, prayer, dispensations of the mysteries of God, charge and care of men's souls. If a man would shew what the offices and duties of a surgeon or physician are, I suppose it were not his part, so much as to mention any thing belonging to the one or the other, in case either should be also a soldier or a merchant, or a housekeeper, or a magistrate; because the functions of these are different from those of the former, albeit one and the same man may haply be both. The case is like, when the Scripture teacheth what duties are required

in an ecclesiastical minister; in describing of whose office, to teach any other thing than such as properly and directly toucheth his office that way, were impertinent.

Was

Yea, "But in the Old Testament the two powers civil and ecclesiastical were distinguished, not only in nature, but also in person; the one committed unto Moses, and the magistrates joined with him; the other to Aaron and his sons. Jehosaphat in his reformation doth not only distinguish causes ecclesiastical from civil, and erecteth divers courts for them, but appointeth also divers judges." With the Jews these two powers were not so distinguished, but that sometimes they might and did concur in one and the same person. not Eli both priest and judge? after their returns from captivity, Esdras a priest, and the same their chief governor even in civil affairs also? These men which urge the necessity of making always a personal distinction of these two powers, as if by Jehosaphat's example the same person ought not to deal in both causes, yet are not scrupulous to make men of civil place and calling presbyters and ministers of spiritual jurisdiction in their own spiritual consistories.

If it be against the Jewish precedents for us to give civil power unto such as have ecclesiastical; is it not as much against the same for them to give ecclesiastical power unto such as have civil? They will answer perhaps, that their position is only against conjunction of ecclesiastical power of order, and the power of civil jurisdiction in one person. But this answer will not stand with their proofs, which make no less against the power of civil and ecclesiastical jurisdiction in one person; for of these two powers Jehosaphat's example is: besides, the contrary example of Eli and of Ezra, by us alleged, do plainly shew, that among the Jews even the power of order ecclesiastical and civil jurisdiction were sometimes lawfully united in one and the same person. Pressed farther we are with our Lord and Saviour's example, who "denieth his kingdom to be of this world, and therefore, as not standing with his calling, refused to be made a king, to give sentence in a criminal cause of adultery, and in a civil of dividing an inheritance."

The Jews imagining that their Messiah should be a potent monarch upon earth, no marvel, though when they did otherwise wonder at Christ's greatness, they sought forthwith to have him invested with that kind of dignity, to the

2 Tim.

end he might presently begin to reign. Others of the Jews, which likewise had the same imagination of the Messiah, and did somewhat incline to think that peradventure this might be he, thought good to try whether he would take upon him that which he might do, being a king, such as they supposed their true Messiah should be. But Christ refused to be a king over them, because it was no part of the office of their Messiah, as they did falsely conceive; and to intermeddle in those acts of civil judgment he refused also, because he had no such jurisdiction in that commonwealth, being, in regard of his civil person, a man of mean and low calling. As for repugnancy between ecclesiastical and civil power, or any inconvenience that these two powers should be united, it doth not appear, that this was the cause of his resistance either to reign, or else to judge.

What say we then to the blessed apostles who teach, "That soldiers entangle not themselves with the businesses of this life, but leave them, to the end they may please him who hath chosen them to serve; and that so the good soldiers of Christ ought to do."

The apostles which taught this, did never take upon them any place or office of civil power. No, they gave over the ecclesiastical care of the poor, that they might wholly attend upon the word and prayer. St. Paul indeed doth exhort Timothy after this manner, "Suffer thou evil as a noble soldier of Jesus Christ: no man warring is entangled with the affairs of life, because he must serve such as have pressed him unto warfare." The sense and meaning whereof is plain, that soldiers may not be nice and tender, that they must be able to endure hardness, that no man betaking himself unto wars continueth entangled with such kind of businesses, as tend only unto the ease and quiet felicity of this life; but if the service of him who hath taken them under his banner require the hazard, yea, the loss of their lives, to please him; they must be content and willing with any difficulty, any peril, be it never so much against the natural desire which they have to live in safety. And at this point the clergy of God must always stand; thus it behoved them to be affected as oft as their Lord and Captain leadeth them into the field, whatsoever conflicts, perils, or evils, they are to endure. Which duty being not such, but that wherewith the civil dignities, which ecclesiastical persons amongst us do enjoy,

may

well enough stand; the exhortation of Paul to Timothy is but a slender allegation against them. As well might we gather out of this place, that men having children or wives, are not fit to be ministers (which also hath been collected, and that by sundry of the ancients); and that it is requisite the clergy be utterly forbidden marriage. For, as the burden of civil regiment doth make them who bear it the less able to attend their ecclesiastical charge; even so St. Paul doth say, that the married are careful for the world, the unmarried freer to give themselves wholly to the service of God. Howbeit, both experience hath found it safer, that the clergy should bear the care of honest marriage, than be subject to the inconveniences which single life, imposed upon them, would draw after it; and as many as are of sound judgment know it to be far better for this present age, that the detriment be borne which haply may grow through the lessening of some few men's spiritual labours, than that the clergy and commonwealth should lack the benefit which both the one and the other may reap through their dealing in civil affairs. In which consideration, that men consecrated unto the spiritual service of God be licensed so far forth to meddle with the secular affairs of the world, as doth seem for some special good cause requisite, and may be without any grievous prejudice unto the church; surely, there is not in the apostle's words, being rightly understood, any let. That no apostle did ever bear office, may it not be a wonder, considering the great devotion of the age wherein they lived, and the zeal of Herod, of Nero the great commander of the known world, and of other kings of the earth at that time, to advance by all means Christian religion? Their deriving unto others that smaller charge of distributing of the goods which are laid at their feet, and of making provision for the poor, which charge, being in part civil, themselves had before (as I suppose, lawfully) undertaken, and their following of that which was weightier, may serve as a marvellous good example for the dividing of one man's office into divers slips, and the subordination of inferiors to discharge some part of the same, when by reason of multitude increasing, that labour waxeth great and troublesome, which before was easy and light: but

a Convenit hujusmodi eligi et ordinari sacerdotes, quibus nec liberi sunt nec nepotes. Etenim fieri vix potest, ut vacans hujus vitæ quotidianæ curis, quas liberi creant parentibus maxime, omne studium omnemque cogitationem circa divinam liturgiam et res ecclesiasticas consumat. Lib. xlii. sect. 1. c. de episc, et cler.

very small force it hath to infer a perpetual divorce between ecclesiastical and civil power in the same persons. The most that can be said in this case is, "That sundry eminent canons, bearing the name of apostolical, and divers councils likewise there are, which have forbidden the clergy to bear any secular office; and have enjoined them to attend altogether upon reading, preaching, and prayer: whereupon the most of the ancient fathers have shewed great dislikes that these two powers should be united in one person."

For a full and final answer whereunto, I would first demand, whether commension and separation of these two powers be a matter of mere positive law, or else a thing simply with or against the law immutable of God and nature? That which is simply against this latter law can at no time be allowable in any person, more than adultery, blasphemy, sacrilege, and the like. But conjunction of power ecclesiastical and civil, what law is there which hath not at some time or other allowed as a thing convenient and meet? In the law of God we have examples sundry, whereby it doth most manifestly appear, how of him the same hath oftentime been approved. No kingdom or nation in the world, but hath been thereunto accustomed without inconvenience and hurt. In the prime of the world, kings and civil rulers were priests for the most part all. The Romans a note it as a thing beneficial in their own commonwealth, and even to them bapparently forcible for the strengthening of the Jews' regiment under Moses and Samuel. I deny not, but sometime there may be, and hath been perhaps, just cause to ordain otherwise. Wherefore we are not to urge those things which heretofore have been either ordered or done, as thereby to prejudice those orders, which, upon contrary occasion, and the exigence of the present time, by like authority have been es

a Cam multa divinitus, pontifices, à majoribus nostris inventa atque instituta sunt, tum nihil præclarius, quam quod vos eosdem et religionibus deorum immortalium, et summæ reipub. præesse voluerunt. Cic. pro domo sua ad pontiff.

b"Honor sacerdotii firmamentum potentiæ assumebatur." Tacit. hist. lib. v. He sheweth the reason wherefore their rulers were also priests. The joining of these two powers, as now, so then likewise profitable for the public state, but in respect clean opposite and contrary. For, whereas then Divine things being more esteemed, were used as helps for the countenance of secular power; the case in these latter ages is turned upside down, earth hath now brought heaven under foot, and in the course of the world, hath of the two the greater credit. Priesthood was then a strengthening to kings, which now is forced to take strength and credit from far meaner degrees of civil authority. "Hic mos apud Judæos fuit, ut eosdem reges et sacerdotes haberent, quorum justitia religioni permixta incredibile quantum evaluere." Just. Hist. lib. xxxvi. lib. xlii. sect. 22. c. de episc.