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always taken of the inferior sort alone, excluding the principal guides and governors, contrary to all men's customs of speech. The error ariseth by misconceiving of some Scripturesentences, where Christ as the head, and the church as the body, are compared or opposed the one to the other. And because in such comparisons or oppositions, the body is taken for those only parts which are subject unto the head, they imagine that whose is the head of any church, he is therefore even excluded from being a part of that church; that the magistrate can be none of the church, if so we make him the head of the church in his own dominions: a chief and principal part of the church therefore, next this, is surely a strange conclusion. A church doth indeed make the body of Christ, being wholly taken together; and every one in the same church fulfilleth the place of a member in the body, but not the place of an inferior member, the which hath supreme authority and power over all the rest. Wherefore, by making the magistrate head in his own dominions, we exclude him from being a member subject unto any other person which may visibly there rule in a place of a superior or head over him; but so far are we off from leaving him by this means no place in the church, that we do grant him the chief place. Indeed the heads of those visible bodies, which are many, can be but parts inferior in that spiritual body which is but one; yea, they may from this be excluded clean, who notwithstanding ought to be honoured, as possessing in order the highest rooms: but for the magistrate to be termed, in his dominions, a head, doth not bar him from being any way a part or member of the church of God.

As little to the purpose are those other cavils. "A church which hath the magistrate for head, is perfect man without Christ." So that the knitting of our Saviour thereunto should be an addition of that which is too much. Again, "If the church be the body of Christ and of the civil magistrate, it shall have two heads, which being monstrous, is to the great dishonour of Christ and his church." Thirdly, "If the church be planted in a popular estate, then, forasmuch as all govern in common, and all have authority, all shall be heads there, and no body at all; which is another monster." It might be feared what this birth of so many monsters together might portend, but that we know how things, natural enough in themselves, may seem monstrous, through mis

conceit; which error of mind is indeed a monster: and the skilful in nature's mysteries have used to term it the womb of monsters; if any be, it is that troubled understanding, wherein, because things lie confusedly mixed together, what they are it appeareth not. A church perfect without Christ, I know not how a man shall imagine; unless there may be either Christianity without Christ, or else a church without Christianity. If magistrates be heads of the church, they are of necessity Christians, then is their head Christ. The adding of Christ universal head over all, unto magistrates' particular headship, is no more superfluous in any church than in other societies; each is to be both severally subject unto some head, and to have a head also general for them all to be subject unto. For so in armies, in civil corporations, we see it fareth. A body politic, in such respects, is not like a natural body; in this, more heads than one is superfluous; in that not. It is neither monstrous, nor yet uncomely, for a church to have different heads: for if Christian churches be in number many, and every of them a perfect body by itself, Christ being Lord and Head over all; why should we judge it a thing more monstrous for one body to have two heads, than one head so many bodies? Him that God hath made the supreme head of the whole church; the head, not only of that mystical body which the eye of man is not able to discern, but even of every Christian politic society, of every visible church in the world? And whereas, lastly, it is thought so strange, that in popular states a multitude to itself, should be both body and head, all this wonderment doth grow from a little oversight, in deeming that the subject wherein headship ought to reside, should be evermore some one person; which thing is not necessary. For in the collective body that have not derived as yet the principality of power into some one or few, the whole of necessity must be head over each part; otherwise it could not have power possibly to make any one certain person head; inasmuch as the very power of making a head belongeth unto headship. These supposed monsters we see therefore are no such giants, as that there should need any Hercules to tame them.

The last difference which we have between the title of head when we give it unto Christ, and when we give it to other governors, is, that the kind of dominion which it importeth is not the same in both. Christ is head, as being

the fountain of life and ghostly nutriment, the wellspring of spiritual blessings poured into the body of the church; they heads, as being the principal instruments for the church's outward government; he head, as founder of the house; they, as his chiefest overseers. Against this is exception especially taken, and our purveyors are herein said to have their provision from the popish shambles: for by Pighius and Harding, to prove that Christ alone is not head of the church, this distinction, they say, is brought, that according to the inward influence of grace, Christ only is head; but according to the outward government, the being head is a thing common to him with others. To raise up falsehoods of old condemned, and bring it for confirmation of any thing doubtful, which already hath sufficiently been proved an error, and is worthily so taken, this would justly deserve censuring. But shall manifest truth therefore be reproached, because men convicted in some things of manifest untruth have at any time thought or alleged it? If too much eagerness against their adversaries had not made them forget themselves, they might remember, where being charged as maintainers of those very things, for which others before them had been condemned of heresy, yet, lest the name of any such heretic holding the same which they do, should T. C. make them odious; they stick not frankly to confess, "that they are not afraid to consent in some points with Jews and Turks." Which defence, for all that, were a very weak buckler for such as should consent with Jews and Turks in that which they have been abhorred and hated for in the church. But as for this distinction of headship, spiritual and mystical, of Jesus Christ, ministerial and outward in others besides Christ; what cause is there to mislike either Harding or Pighius, or any other besides, for it? That which they have been reproved for, is, not because they did therein utter an untruth, but such a truth as was not sufficient to bear up the cause which they did thereby seek to maintain. By this distinction, they have both truly and sufficiently proved that the name of Head, importing power and dominion over the church, might be given to others besides Christ, without prejudice to any part of his honour. That which they should have made manifest was, the name of head, importing the power of universal dominion over the whole church of Christ militant, doth, and that by Divine right, appertain to the pope of Rome. They

1. iii.

P. 168.

p. 415.

did prove it lawful to grant unto others besides Christ, the power of headship in a different kind from his; but they should have proved it lawful to challenge, as they did to the bishop of Rome, a power universal in that different kind. Their fault was therefore in exacting wrongfully so great power as they challenged in that kind, and not in making two kinds of power, unless some reasons can be shewed for which this distinction of power should be thought erroneous and false. A little they stir (although in vain) to prove that we cannot with truth make such distinction of power, whereof the one kind should agree unto Christ only, and the other be farther communicated. Thus therefore they argue, T. C. l.ii. "If there be no head but Christ, in respect of spiritual government, there is no head but he in respect of the word, sacraments, and discipline, administered by those whom he hath appointed, forasmuch also as it is his spiritual government." Their meaning is, that whereas we make two kinds of power, of which two, the one being spiritual, is proper unto Christ; the other, men are capable of, because it is visible and external: we do amiss altogether in distinguishing, they think, forasmuch as the visible and external power of regiment over the church, is only in relation unto the word, sacraments, and discipline, administered by such as Christ hath appointed thereunto, and the exercise of this power is also his spiritual government: therefore we do but vainly imagine a visible and external power in the church differing from his spiritual power. Such disputes as this do somewhat resemble the practising of well-willers upon their friends in the pangs of death; whose manner is, even then, to put smoke in their nostrils, and so to fetch them again, although they know it a matter impossible to keep them living. The kind of affection which the favourers of this labouring cause bear towards it will not suffer them to see it die, although by what means they should make it live, they do not see. But they may see that these wrestlings will not help. Can they be ignorant how little it booteth to overcast so clear a light with some mist of ambiguity in the name of spiritual regiment? To make things therefore so plain, that henceforward a child's capacity may serve rightly to conceive our meaning, we make the spiritual regiment of Christ to be generally that whereby his church is ruled and governed in things spiritual. Of this general we make two distinct kinds; the one invisible, exercised by Christ himself in his

T. C. l.ii. p.415.

own person; the other outwardly administered by them whom Christ doth allow to be rulers and guiders of his church. Touching the former of these two kinds, we teach that Christ, in regard thereof, is particularly termed the Head of the church of God; neither can any other creature, in that sense and meaning, be termed head besides him, because it importeth the conduct and government of our souls by the hand of that blessed Spirit wherewith we are sealed and marked, as being peculiarly his. Him only do we acknowledge to be the Lord, which dwelleth, liveth, and reigneth, in our hearts; him only to be that head, which giveth salvation and life unto his body; him only to be that fountain from whence the influence of heavenly graces distilleth, and is derived into all parts, whether the word, or the sacraments, or discipline, or whatsoever be the means whereby it floweth. As for the power of administering these things in the church of Christ, which power we call the power of order, it is indeed both spiritualand his; spiritual, because such properly concerns the Spirit his, because by him it was instituted. Howbeit, neither spiritual, as that which is inwardly and invisibly exercised; nor his, as that which he himself in person doth exercise. Again, that power of dominion, which is indeed the point of this controversy, and doth also belong to this second kind of spiritual government, namely, unto that regiment which is external and visible; this likewise being spiritual in regard of the manner about which it dealeth; and being his, inasmuch as he approveth whatsoever is done by it, must notwithstanding be distinguished also from that power whereby he himself in person administereth the former kind of his own spiritual regiment, because he himself in person doth not administer this; we do not, therefore, vainly imagine, but truly and rightly discern a power external and visible in the church exercised by men, and severed in nature from that spiritual power of Christ's own regiment: which power is termed spiritual, because it worketh secretly, inwardly, and invisibly: his, because none doth, nor can personally exercise, either besides or together with him; seeing that him only we may name our head, in regard of his; and yet, in regard of that other power from this, term others also, besides him, heads, without any contradiction at all. Which thing may very well serve for answer unto that also which they farther allege against the aforesaid distinction, namely, "That even the outward societies and assemblies of

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