What laws may be made for

of the

church, and to

whom the

them appertaineth.

causes which by the law are civil; nor yet, if the matter be indeed spiritual, a mere civil court to give judgment of it. Touching supreme power, therefore, to command all men, and in all manner of causes of judgment to be highest, let thus much suffice as well for declaration of our own meaning, as for defence of the truth therein.

The cause is not like when such assemblies are gathered together by supreme authority concerning other affairs of the church, and when they meet about the making of ecclesiastical laws or statutes. For in the one they are only to advise, in the other to decree. The persons which are of the one, the king doth voluntarily assemble, as being in respect of quality fit to consult withal; them which are of the other, he calleth by prescript of law, as having right t obe thereunto called. Finally, the one are but themselves, and their sentence hath but the weight of their own judgment; the other represent the whole clergy, and their voices are as much as if all did give personal verdict. Now the question is, whether the clergy alone so assembled, ought to have the whole power of making ecclesiastical laws, or else consent of the laity may thereunto be made necessary, and the king's assent so necessary, that his sole denial may be of force to stay them from being laws.

If they with whom we dispute were uniform, strong, and constant, in that which they say, we should not need to trouthe affairs ble ourselves about their persons, to whom the power of making laws for the church belongs. For they are sometime very vehement in contention, that from the greatest thing power of unto the least about the church, all must needs be immedimaking ately from God. And to this they apply the pattern of the ancient tabernacle which God delivered unto Moses, and was therein so exact, that there was not left as much as the least pin for the wit of man to devise in the framing of it. To this they also apply that strait and severe charge which God Deut.iv. 2. so often gave concerning his own law. "Whatsoever I xii. 32. command you, take heed ye do it; thou shalt put nothing thereto, thou shalt take nothing from it;" nothing, whether it be great or small. Yet sometimes bethinking themselves

Josh. i. 7.

cognoscere de iis, quæ sunt spiritualibus annexa, sicut de decimis et aliis ecclesiæ proventionibus. Again: Non est laicus conveniendus coram judice ecclesiastico de aliquo, quod in foro seculari terminari possit et debeat.

art. 2.

better, they speak as acknowledging that it doth suffice to have received in such sort the principal things from God, and that for other matters the church had sufficient authority to make laws. Whereupon they now have made it a question, what persons they are whose right it is to take order for the church's affairs, when the institution of any new thing therein is requisite. Law may be requisite to be made, either Thom. 1. 2. concerning things that are only to be known and believed in, quæs. 108. or else touching that which is to be done by the church of God. The law of nature, and the law of God, are sufficient for declaration in both what belongeth unto each man separately, as his soul is the spouse of Christ; yea, so sufficient, that they plainly and fully shew whatsoever God doth require by way of necessary introduction unto the state of everlasting bliss. But as a man liveth joined with others in common society, and belongeth to the outward politic body of the church, albeit the same law of nature and Scripture have in this respect also made manifest the things that are of greatest necessity; nevertheless, by reason of new occasions still arising, which the church, having care of souls, must take order for as need requireth; hereby it cometh to pass, that there is, and ever will be, so great use even of human laws and ordinances, deducted by way of discourse as a conclusion from the former Divine and natural, serving as principles thereunto. No man doubteth, but that for matters of action and practice in the affairs of God, for manner in Divine service, for order in ecclesiastical proceedings about the regiment of the church, there may be oftentimes cause very urgent to have laws made: but the reason is not so plain, wherefore human laws should appoint men what to believe. Wherefore in this we must note two things: 1. That in matters of opinion, the law doth not make that to be truth which before was not, as in matter of action it causeth that to be a duty which was not before; but manifesteth only and giveth men notice of that to be truth, the contrary whereunto they ought not before to have believed. 2. That opinions, do cleave to the understanding, and are in heart assented unto, it is not in the power of any human law to command them, because to prescribe what men shall think belongeth only unto God: "Corde creditur, ore fit confessio," saith the apostle. As opinions are either fit or inconvenient to be pro

fessed, so man's laws have to determine of them. It may for public unity's sake, require men's professed assent, or prohibit their contradiction to special articles, wherein, as there haply hath been controversy what is true, so the same were like to continue still, not without grievous detriment unto a number of souls, except law, to remedy that evil, should set down a certainty which no man afterward is to gainsay. Wherefore, as in regard of Divine laws, which the church receiveth from God, we may unto every man apply those words Prov. vi. of wisdom in Solomon, "My son, keep thou thy father's precepts; Conserva, fili mi, præcepta patris tui:" even so concerning the statutes and ordinances which the church itself makes, we may add thereunto the words that follow, "Et ne dimittas legem matris tuæ, And forsake thou not thy mother's law.”

It is a thing even undoubtedly natural, that all free and independent societies should themselves make their own laws, and that this power should belong to the whole, not to any certain part of a politic body, though haply some one part may have greater sway in that action than the rest; which thing being generally fit and expedient in the making of all laws, we see no cause why to think otherwise in laws concerning the service of God, which in all well-ordered states and commonwealths is the first thing that law hath care to provide for. When we speak of the right which naturally belongeth to a commonwealth, we speak of that which must needs belong to the church of God. For if the commonwealth be Christian, if the people which are of it do publicly embrace the true religion, this very thing doth make it the church, as hath been shewed. So that unless the verity and purity of religion do take from them which embrace it, that power wherewith otherwise they are possessed; look what authority, as touching laws for religion, a commonwealth hath simply, it must of necessity retain the same, being of the Christian religion.

It will be therefore perhaps alleged, that a part of the ve

* Δεῖ τὸν νόμον τὰ περὶ Θεοὺς καὶ δαίμονας καὶ γονέας καὶ ὅλως τὰ καλὰ ἢ τίμια πρῶτα τίθεσθαι. Δεύτερον δὲ τὰ συμφέροντα· τὰ γὰς μικρὰ τοῖς μείζοσιν ἀκολουθεῖν προσήκει. Archit. de leg. et instit. That is, it behoveth the law first to establish or settle those things which belong to the gods, and Divine powers, and to our parents, and universally those things which be virtuous and honourable. In the second place, those things that be convenient and profitable; for it is fit that matters of the less weight should come after the greater.

rity of Christian religion is to hold the power of making ecclesiastical laws a thing appropriated unto the clergy in their synods; and whatsoever is by their only voices agreed upon, it needeth no farther approbation to give unto it the strength of a law, as may plainly appear by the canons of that first most venerable assembly: where those things the apostles Acts xv.7. and James had concluded, were afterward published and 13-23. imposed upon the churches of the gentiles abroad, as laws, the records thereof remaining still in the book of God for a testimony, that the power of making ecclesiastical laws belongeth to the successors of the apostles, the bishops and prelates of the church of God.

To this we answer, that the council of Jerusalem is no argument for the power of the clergy to make laws. For first, there has not been sithence any council of like authority to that in Jerusalem. Secondly, the cause why that was of such authority came by a special accident. Thirdly, the reason why other councils being not like unto that in nature, the clergy in them should have no power to make laws by themselves alone, is in truth so forcible, that except some commandment of God to the contrary can be shewed, it ought notwithstanding the aforesaid example to prevail.

The decrees of the council of Jerusalem were not as the canons of other ecclesiastical assemblies, human, but very Divine ordinances: for which cause the churches were far and wide commanded every where to see them kept, no otherwise than if Christ himself had personally on earth been the author of them. The cause why that council was of so great authority and credit above all others which have been sithence, is expressed in those words of principal observation, "Unto the Holy Ghost and to us it hath seemed good:" Acts xv. 28. which form of speech, though other councils have likewise used, yet neither could they themselves mean, nor may we so understand them, as if both were in equal sort assisted with the power of the Holy Ghost; but the latter had the Matt. xvi. favour of that general assistance and presence which Christ Chap. ult. doth promise unto all his, according to the quality of their several estates and callings; the former, the grace of special, miraculous, rare, and extraordinary illumination, in relation whereunto the apostle, comparing the Old Testament and the 2 Cor. iii. New together, termeth the one a testament of the letter, for

per fundum

præd. et

rum divis.

xcvi. c.

ubinam.

that God delivered it written in stone; the other a testament of the Spirit, because God imprinted it in the hearts, and declared it by the tongues of his chosen apostles, through the power of the Holy Ghost, feigning both their conceits and speeches in most Divine and incomprehensible manner. Wherefore, inasmuch as the council of Jerusalem did chance to consist of men so enlightened, it had authority greater than were meet for any other council besides to challenge, wherein such kind of persons are, as now the state of the church doth stand; kings being not then that which now they are, and the clergy not now that which then they were. Till it be proved that some special law of Christ hath for ever annexed unto the clergy alone the power to make ecclesiastical laws, we are to hold it a thing most consonant with equity and reason, that no ecclesiastical laws be made in a Christian commonwealth, without consent as well of the laity as of the clergy, but least of all without consent of the highest power.

Cap. delict. For of this thing no man doubteth, namely, that in all de excess. societies, companies, and corporations, what severally each Prælator L. shall be bound unto, it must be with all their assents ratified. Rusticor. Against all equity it were, that a man should suffer detriment sect. Religi- at the hands of men, for not observing that which he never osum de re- did, either by himself or by others, mediately or immediately, agree unto; much more that a king should constrain all others to the strict observation of any such human ordinance as passeth without his own approbation. In this case thereGloss. dict. fore especially, that vulgar axiom is of force, "Quod omnes tangit, ab omnibus tractari et approbari debet." Whereupon Pope Nicholas, although otherwise not admitting lay-persons, no, not emperors themselves, to be present at synods, doth notwithstanding seem to allow of their presence when matters of faith are determined whereunto all men must stand bound: "Ubinam legistis imperatores, antecessores vestros, synodalibus conventibus interfuisse ? nisi forsitan in quibus de fide tractatum est, quæ non solum ad clericos, verum etiam ad laicos et omnes pertinet Christianos." A law, be it civil or ecclesiastical, is a public obligation, wherein, seeing that the whole standeth charged, no reason it should pass without his privity and will, whom principally the whole doth depend upon. "Sicut laici jurisdictionem clericorum per