A Christian Directory, Part 3: Christian Ecclesiastics

5. If magistrates and bishops should concur in commanding my remove in a case notoriously injurious and pernicious to the church, (as in the aforesaid case, to bring in an Arian,) I would not obey formally for conscience sake; supposing that God never gave them such a power against men's souls and the gospel of Christ; and there is no power but of God.

6. But I would prefer both the command of the magistrate, and the direction of the pastors, before the mere will and humour of the people, when their safety and welfare were not concerned in the case.

7. And when the magistrate is peremptory, usually I must obey him materially, when I do it not formally (in conscience to his mere command). Because though in some cases he may do that which belongeth not to his office, but to the pastor's, yet his violence may make it become the church's interest, that I yield and give place to his wrath; for as I must not resist him by force, so if I depart not at his command, it may bring a greater suffering on the churches: and so for preventing a greater evil he is to be submitted to in many cases, where he goeth against God and without authority; though not to be formally obeyed.

8. Particular churches have no such interest in their ministers or pastors, as to keep them against their wills and the magistrate's, and against the interest of the universal church, as shall be next asserted.

I have spoken to this instance as it taketh in all other cases of difference between the power of the magistrate, the pastor's and the people's interest, when they disagree, and not as to this case alone.

Quest. CIV. Is a pastor obliged to his flock for life? Or is it lawful so to oblige himself? And may he remove without their consent? And so also of a church member, the same questions are put

These four questions I put together for brevity, and shall answer them distinctly.

I. 1. A minister is obliged to Christ and the universal church for life, (durante vita,) with this exception, if God disable him not. 2. But as a pastor he is not obliged to this or that flock for life. There is no such command or example in God's word.

II. To the second: 1. It is lawful to oblige ourselves to a people for life in some cases, conditionally; that is, if God do not apparently call us away. 2. But it is never lawful to do it absolutely: 1. Because we shall engage ourselves against God; against his power over us, and interest in us, and his wisdom that must guide us. God may call us whither he please; and though now he speak not by supernatural revelation, yet he may do it by providential alterations. 2. And we shall else oblige ourselves against the universal church, to which we are more strictly bound, than to any particular church, and whose good may oblige us to remove. 3. Yea, we may bind ourselves to the hurt of that church itself; seeing it may become its interest to part with us. 4. And we should so oblige ourselves against our duty to authority, which may remove us.

III. To the third question I answer, 1. A pastor may not causelessly remove, nor for his own worldly commodity when it is to the hurt of the church and hinderance of the gospel. 2. When he hath just cause, he must acquaint the people with it, and seek their satisfaction and consent. 3. But if he cannot procure it, he may remove without it: as, 1. When he is sure that the interest of the gospel and universal church require it: 2. Or that just authority doth oblige him to it.

The reasons are plain from what is said; and also, 1. He is no more bound to the people, than they are to him; but they are not so bound to him, but they may remove on just occasion. 2. If he may not remove, it is either because God forbids it, or because his own contract with them hath obliged him against it. But, 1. God no where forbids it: 2. Such a contract is supposed not made, nor lawful to be made.

IV. As to the people's case, it needs no other answer; 1. No member may remove without cause. 2. Nor abruptly and uncharitably to the church's dissatisfaction, when he may avoid it. But, 3. He may remove upon many just causes, (private or public,) whether the church and pastors consent or not, so the manner be as becometh a christian.

Quest. CV. When many men pretend at once to be the true pastors of a particular church against each other's title, through differences between the magistrates, the ordainers, and the flocks, what should the people do, and whom should they adhere to?

What pastor to adhere to.

Answ. This case is mostly answered before in Quest. LXXXII. &c. I need only to add these rules of caution. 1. Do not upon any pretence accept of a heretic, or one that is utterly unfit for the office.

2. Do not easily take a dividing course or person, but keep as much as may be in a way of concord with the united, faithful pastors and churches in your proximity or country.

3. Look to the public good and interest of religion, more than to your particular congregation.

4. Neglect not the greatest advantages for your own edification; but rather take them by a removal of your dwelling, though you suffer by it in your estates, than by any division, disturbance of the church's peace, or common detriment.

5. Do not easily go against the magistrate's commands; unless they be apparently unlawful, and to the church's detriment or ruin, in the reception of your pastors.

6. Do not easily forsake him that hath been justly received by the church, and hath possession, that is, till necessity require it.

Quest. CVI. To whom doth it belong to reform a corrupted church? to the magistrates, pastors, or people?

Answ. A church is reformed three several ways: 1. By the personal reformation of every member: 2. By doctrinal direction: and, 3. By public, forcible execution, and constraint of others.

1. Every member, whether magistrates, pastors, or people, must reform themselves, by forsaking all their own sins, and doing their own duties. If a ruler command a private person to go to mass, to own any falsehood, or to do any sin, he is not to be obeyed, because God is to be first obeyed.

2. The bishops or pastors are to reform the church by doctrine, reproof, and just exhortations, and nunciative commands in the name of Christ to rulers and people to do their several duties; and by the actual doing of his own.350

3. The king and magistrates under him, only, must reform by the sword, that is, by outward force, and civil laws and corporal penalties: as forcibly to break down images, to cast out idolaters, or the instruments of idolatry from the temples, to put true ministers in possession of the temples, or the legal public maintenance; to destroy, punish, or hurt idolaters, &c. Supposing still the power of parents and masters in their several families.

Quest. CVII. Who is to call synods? princes, pastors, or people?

The question of the power of synods is sufficiently answered before.

Answ. 1. There are several ways of calling synods: 1. By force and civil mandates; 2. By pastoral persuasion and counsel; and, 3. By humble entreaty and petition.

1. Magistrates only (that is, the supreme by his own power, and the inferior by power derived from him) may call synods by laws and mandates, enforced by the sword or corporal penalties, or mulcts.

2. Bishops or pastors in due circumstances may call synods by counsel and persuasive invitation.

3. The people in due circumstances and necessity, may call synods by way of petition and entreaty.

But what are the due circumstances?

Answ. 1. The magistrate may call them by command at his discretion, for his own counsel, or for the civil peace, or the church's good.

2. The pastors and people may not call them, nor meet when the magistrate forbiddeth it, except when the necessity of the church requireth it: synods may profitably be stated for order, when it may be lawfully obtained (both as to limits of place, numbers, and time). But these prudential orders are not of stated necessity, but must give place to weightier reasons on the contrary.

3. Synods themselves are not ordinarily necessary, by nature or institution; (let him that affirmeth it, prove it;) but that which is statedly necessary is, The concord of the churches as the end, and a necessary correspondency of the churches as the means, and synods when they may well be had, as a convenient sort of means.

4. When synods cannot be had, or are needless, messengers and letters from church to church may keep up the correspondency and concord.

5. In cases of real necessity, (which are very rare, though usefulness be more frequent,) the bishops and people should first petition the king for his consent: and if that cannot be had, they may meet secretly and in small numbers, for mutual consultation and advice about the work of God; and not by keeping up the formality of their set numbers, times, places, and orders, provoke the king against them.

6. The contempt of synods by the separatists, and the placing more power in synods than ever God gave them by others, yea, and the insisting on their circumstantial orders, making them like a civil senate or court, have been the two extremes which have greatly injured and divided the churches, throughout the world.

Quest. CVIII. To whom doth it belong to appoint days and assemblies for public humiliation and thanksgiving?

Answ. The answer of the last question may serve for this. 1. The magistrate only may do it by way of laws, or civil mandate enforced by the sword.

2. The pastors may do it in case of necessity, by pastoral advice and exhortation, and nunciative command in the name of Christ.

3. The people may do it by petition.

4. As ordinary church assemblies must be held if the magistrate forbid them, (of which next,) so must extraordinary ones, when extraordinary causes make it a duty.

5. When the magistrate forcibly hindereth them, natural impossibility resolveth the question about our duty.

Quest. CIX. May we omit church assemblies on the Lord's day, if the magistrate forbid them?

May we omit church assemblies on the Lord's day, if forbidden by magistrates.

Answ. 1. It is one thing to forbid them for a time, upon some special cause, (as infection by pestilence, fire, war, &c.) and another to forbid them statedly or profanely.

2. It is one thing to omit them for a time, and another to do it ordinarily.

3. It is one thing to omit them in formal obedience to the law; and another thing to omit them in prudence, or for necessity, because we cannot keep them.

4. The assembly and the circumstances of the assembly must be distinguished.

(1.) If the magistrate for a greater good, (as the common safety,) forbid church assemblies in a time of pestilence, assault of enemies, or fire, or the like necessity, it is a duty to obey him. 1. Because positive duties give place to those great natural duties which are their end: so Christ justified himself and his disciples' violation of the external rest of the sabbath. "For the sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath." 2. Because affirmatives bind not ad semper, and out-of-season duties become sins. 3. Because one Lord's day or assembly is not to be preferred before many, which by the omission of that one are like to be obtained.

(2.) If princes profanely forbid holy assemblies and public worship, either statedly, or as a renunciation of Christ and our religion; it is not lawful formally to obey them.

(3.) But it is lawful prudently to do that secretly for the present necessity, which we cannot do publicly, and to do that with smaller numbers, which we cannot do with greater assemblies, yea, and to omit some assemblies for a time, that we may thereby have opportunity for more: which is not formal but only material obedience.

(4.) But if it be only some circumstances of assembling that are forbidden us, that is the next case to be resolved.

Quest. CX. Must we obey the magistrate if he only forbid us worshipping God in such a place, or country, or in such numbers, or the like?

What if we be forbidden only place, numbers, &c.

Answ. We must distinguish between such a determination of circumstances, modes, or accidents, as plainly destroy the worship or the end, and such as do not. For instance, 1. He that saith, You shall never assemble but once a year, or never but at midnight, or never above six or seven minutes at once, &c. doth but determine the circumstance of time: but he doth it so as to destroy the worship, which cannot so be done, in consistency with its ends. But he that shall say, You shall not meet till nine o'clock, nor stay in the night, &c. doth no such thing.

So, 2. He that saith, You shall not assemble but at forty miles' distance one from another; or you shall meet only in a room, that will hold but the twentieth part of the church; or you shall never preach in any city or populous place, but in a wilderness far from the inhabitants, &c. doth but determine the circumstance of place: but he so doth it, as tends to destroy or frustrate the work which God commandeth us. But so doth not he that only boundeth churches by parish bounds, or forbiddeth inconvenient places.

3. So he that saith, You shall never meet under a hundred thousand together, or never above five or six, doth but determine the accident of number: but he so doth it as to destroy the work and end. For the first will be impossible; and in the second way they must keep church assemblies without ministers, when there is not so many as for every such little number to have one. But so doth not he that only saith, You shall not meet above ten thousand, nor under ten.

4. So he that saith, You shall not hear a Trinitarian, but an Arian; or you shall hear only one that cannot preach the essentials of religion, or that cries down godliness itself; or you shall hear none but such as were ordained at Jerusalem or Rome, or none but such as subscribe the council of Trent, &c. doth but determine what person we shall hear: but he so doth it as to destroy the work and end. But so doth not he that only saith, You shall hear only this able minister, rather than that.

I need not stand on the application. In the latter case we owe formal obedience. In the former we must suffer, and not obey.

For if it be meet so to obey, it is meet in obedience to give over God's worship. Christ said, "When they persecute you in one city, flee to another;" but he never said, If they forbid you preaching in any city, or populous place, obey them. He that said, "Preach the gospel to every creature, and to all nations, and all the world," and that "would have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth,"351 doth not allow us to forsake the souls of all that dwell in cities and populous places, and preach only to some few cottagers elsewhere; no more than he will allow us to love, pity, and relieve the bodies only of those few, and take none for our neighbours that dwell in cities, but with priest and Levite to pass them by.

Quest. CXI. Must subjects or servants forbear weekly lectures, reading, or such helps, above the Lord's day's worship, if princes or masters do command it?

Answ. 1. There is great difference between a mere subject, or person governed, and a servant, slave, or child.

2. There is great difference between such as are hindered by just cause and real necessities, and such as are hindered only through profane malignity.

(1.) Poor people have not so much leisure from their callings, as the rich; and so providing for their families may, at that time, by necessity become the greater and the present duty.

(2.) So may it be with soldiers, judges, and others, that have present urgent work of public consequence; when others have no such impediment.

(3.) He that is the child or slave of another, or is his own by propriety, is more at his power, than he that is only a subject, and so is but to be governed in order to his own and the common good.

(4.) A servant that hath absolutely hired himself to another, is for that time near the condition of a slave; but he that is hired but with limitations, and exceptions of liberty, (expressed or understood,) hath right to the excepted liberty.

(5.) If the king forbid judges, soldiers, or others, whose labours are due to the public, to hear sermons at that time when they should do their work, or if parents or masters so forbid children and servants, they must be obeyed, while they exclude not the public worship of the Lord's own day, nor necessary prayer and duty in our private daily cases.

(6.) But he that is under such bondage as hindereth the needful helps of his soul, should be gone to a freer place, if lawfully he can. But a child, wife, or such as are not free, must trust on God's help in the use of such means as he alloweth them.

(7.) A prince, or tutor, or schoolmaster, who is not a proprietor of the person, but only a governor, is not to be obeyed formally and for conscience sake, if he forbid his subjects or scholars such daily or weekly helps for their salvation as they have great need of, and have no necessity to forbear; such as are hearing or assembling with the church on the week days at convenient time, reading the Scriptures daily, or good books, accompanying with men fearing God, praying, &c.; because God hath commanded these when we can perform them.

Quest. CXII. Whether religious worship may be given to a creature? and what?

Answ. While the terms of the question remain ambiguous, it is uncapable of an answer.

1. By worship is meant either cultus in genere, any honour expressed to another; or some special act of honour. We must understand the question in the first general sense, or else we cannot answer it, till men tell us, what acts of honouring they mean.

2. By religious is meant, either in general, that which we are bound to by God, or is done by virtue of a religious, that is, a divine obligation, and so is made part of our religion; that is, of our obedience to God: or else by religious is meant divine, or that which is properly due to God. The question must be taken in the first general sense; or else it is no question, but ridiculous (to ask whether we may give God's proper worship to a creature).

And so I answer, 1. By way of distinction. 2. Of solution.

(1.) We must distinguish between the honour of worshipping acts of the mind, and of the body. (2.) Between idolatry as against the first commandment, and idolatry or scandal as against the second.

Af. Prop. 1. There is due to every creature, a true estimation of it according to the degree of its dignity or goodness; and a love proportionable: as also a belief, a trust, a fear, proportionable to every man's credibility, fidelity, power, &c.

2. There is an eminent degree therefore of estimation, reverence, and love, and trust, due to good men above bad, and to those in heaven above those on earth; and a peculiar honour to rulers as such, which is not due to their inferiors.352

3. This is to be expressed by the body, by convenient actions.

4. The highest honour which we owe to any, is for the image of God in them; viz. 1. His natural image, as men. 2. His moral image, as saints. 3. His relative image of supereminency, as superiors. And so it is God in them first, and they next as the images of God, who are to be honoured.

5. There is no honour to be given to any creature, but that of which God himself is the end; viz. as it referreth to his glory.

6. Therefore all honour given to men must be thus far religious honour (or worship); for as all things are sanctified to and by saints, so all things that religious men do, must be religiously done.353

7. As persons, so places, books, words, utensils, times, &c. must be honoured for God's sake, as they are related to God, with such estimations and expressions as are suitable to their relations.

Neg. 1. No creature must be esteemed to be a god; nor any of God's proper attributes or honour given to any creature whatsoever.

2. No creature must be esteemed better, or greater, or wiser, than it is (as far as we have means to know it).

3. Whatsoever outward expressions of honour (by word or deed) are appropriated to the true God, 1. By divine institution; 2. Or by nature; 3. Or by received usage, that expression of honour ought not to be used to a creature, were the heart never so free from honouring it. (1.) Because it is bodily idolatry: (2.) And scandal as being idolatry interpretatively, in the just sense of others.354

4. Whatsoever outward expressions of honour idolaters have used, and do use, to signify their inward idolatry, or taking a creature or a fiction to be God, and so make it a tessera, or symbol, or professing sign of that their idolatry, if those actions are so used or esteemed among us, or within the notice of our actions, it is unlawful for us to use the like to any creature. Because the use of their expression maketh it to be a profession of idolatry by us, and so to be interpretative idolatry and scandal; for to use professing symbols is to profess.

Except when there is some notorious reason to use the same words or actions to another lawful signification, which is of greater weight than the scandal; and we make it as public to obviate the scandal, that we do it not to the idolater's intents.

For example, If the Mahometans make it a symbol of their religion, to say, God is but one, upon a false supposition that the christians make more gods than one; yet it is lawful for us to use that symbolical word to a better end. But if they add to their symbol, and Mahomet is his prophet, we may not use that, because it is, 1. Symbolical of a false religion; 2. And a falsehood of itself.

So if they make it a distinctive note of their religious meetings, to congregate the people by voice and not by bells, when it will be taken for a professing their religion to do the same, we must avoid it; but not when there is great cause for it, (as if we have no other means,) and the reason against it or scandal may be well avoided.

5. Image worship, (or bowing or otherwise worshipping towards an image as an object,) in the time of divine worship, or when we otherwise pretend to be worshipping God, is so gross an appearance of inward idolatry, (either as visibly describing God to be like a creature, or else as seeming to mean what idolaters did by that action,) that God hath thought meet to forbid it to all mankind by a special law. (Command. 2.)

6. The scandal of seeming idolatry is a heinous sin, and not to be excused by the contrary meaning of the heart, no more than lying, idolatrous professions are. Because to blaspheme God as if he were like a creature, or to tell the world by our actions that a creature is God, are both very heinous. And so is it to murder our brethren's souls, by tempting them to the like.355

7. It is no appearance of idolatry to kneel to a king, or a father, or superior, when we are professing nothing but to honour them with due honour. But when the church assembleth professedly to worship God, if then they mix expressions of veneration to angels, and saints in heaven, or to a king, or any creature, in their worshipping of God, without a very notorious signification of sufficient difference, it will seem a joining them in part of the same divine honour.356

8. So we may put off our hats to the chair of state, or king's image, yea and kneel towards it as to him, if the command is in due time and place, when it is human worship only which we profess. But to kneel or bow as an act of honour towards the image of king, saints, or angels, in the time of our professed worshipping of God, is scandalous, and an appearance that we give them a part of that which we are giving to God.

9. Yet it is not unlawful even in the sacred assemblies, to bow to our superior at our entrance, or going out, or in the intervals of God's worship; because the time, and custom, and manner may sufficiently notify the distinction, and prevent the scandal.

10. If any presumptuous clergyman on pretence of their authority, will bring images into the churches, and set them before us in divine worship, as objects only of remembrance, and means of exciting our affections to God, that they may show quam proxime se accedere posse ad peccatum sine peccato, how near they can come to sin without sin, it is not meet for any good christians to follow them in their presumption, nor by obeying them to invite them to proceed in their church tyranny.357 Though I now determine not, whether in case of necessity, a man may not be present with such a church, if their worship of God himself be sound, supposing him sufficiently to notify his dissent, and that he do not himself scandalously direct his worship toward such images. (As in the Lutheran churches we may suppose they do not.)