Quest. IX. Whether the people are bound to receive or consent to an ungodly, intolerable, heretical pastor, yea, or one far less fit and worthy than a competitor, if the magistrate command it, or the bishop impose him?
For the deciding of this, take these propositions.
1. The magistrate is authorized by God to govern ministers and churches, according to the orders and laws of Christ (and not against them); but not to ordain or degrade, nor to make ministers or unmake them, nor to deprive the church of the liberty settled on it by the laws of Christ.
2. The bishops or ordainers are authorized by Christ to judge of the fitness of the person to the office in general, and solemnly to invest him in it, but not to deprive the people of their freedom, and exercise of the natural care of their own salvation, or of any liberty given them by Christ.
3. The people’s liberty in choosing or consenting to their own pastors, to whom they must commit the care of their souls, is partly founded in nature, (it being they that must have the benefit or loss, and no man being authorized to damn or hazard men’s souls, at least against their wills,) and partly settled by Scripture, and continued in the church above a thousand years after Christ, at least in very many parts of it. See Blondel’s “Full Proof de jure plebis in regim. Eccles.” Hildebertus Cænoman. (alias Turonensis) even in his time showeth, that though the clergy were to lead, and the people to follow, yet no man was to be made a bishop, or put upon the people, without their own consent: Epist. 12. Bibl. Pet. to. iii. p. 179. Filesacus will direct you to more such testimonies. But the thing is past controversy. I need not cite to the learned the commonly cited testimony of Cyprian, Plebs maximam habet potestatem indignos recusandi, &c. And indeed in the nature of the thing it cannot be: for though you may drench a mad-man’s body by force, when you give him physic, you cannot so drench men’s souls, nor cure them against their wills.
4. Not that the people’s consent is necessary to the general office of a gospel minister, to preach and baptize; but only to the appropriation or relation of a minister to themselves; that is, to the being of a pastor of a particular church as such, but not of a minister of Christ as such.
5. A man’s soul is of so great value above all the favour of man, or treasures of this world, that no man should be indifferent to what man’s care he doth commit it; nor should he hazard it upon the danger of everlasting misery, for fear of displeasing man, or being accused of schism or disorder.
6. There is as great difference between an able, learned, judicious, orthodox, godly, diligent, lively teacher, and an ignorant, heretical, ungodly, dull, and slothful man, as there is between a skilful and an ignorant pilot at sea; or between an able, experienced, faithful physician, and an ignorant, rash, and treacherous one, as to the saving men’s lives. And he that would not take a sot or an empiric for his physician, who were like to kill him, and refuse the counsel of an able physician, in obedience to a magistrate or bishop, hath as little reason to do the like by his soul; nor should he set less by that than by his life. And if Paul said, We have this power for edification and not for destruction, we may say so of all magistrates and bishops. Sober divines have lately showed their error who teach men that they must be ready to submit to damnation if God require it, or to suppose that his glory and our salvation are separable ends; because damnation is a thing which nature necessitateth man not to desire or intend! And shall we ascribe more to a magistrate than to God? and say that we must cast our souls on a likelihood of damnation to keep order and in obedience to man? No man can be saved without knowledge and holiness: an ignorant, dead, ungodly minister is far less likely to help us to knowledge and holiness, than an able, holy man. To say God can work by the unfittest instrument is nothing to the purpose; till you prove that God would have us take him for his instrument, and that he useth equally to work by such, as well as by the fit and worthy, or that we expect wonders from God, and that ordinarily without tempting him! yea, when such a usurper of the ministry is like to damn himself, as well as the people.
And here to lenify the minds of Ithacian prelates towards those that seek their own edification, in such a case as this, or that refuse unworthy pastors of their imposing, I will entreat them to censure those near them no more sharply than they do the persons in these following instances. Yea, if a separatist go too far, use him no more uncharitably, than you would do these men.
(1.) Gildas Brit. is called Sapiens, and our eldest writer; and yet he calleth the multitude of the lewd British clergy whom he reprehendeth in his “Acris Correptio,” traitors and no priests; and concludeth seriously, that he that calleth them priests, is not eximius christianus, any excellent christian. Yet those few that were pious he excepteth and commendeth. Shall he account them no priests, for their sinfulness, and will you force others, not only to call them priests, but to commit their souls to such men’s conduct? when Christ hath said, “If the blind lead the blind, both will fall into the ditch?” and Paul, “Take heed unto thyself and unto thy doctrine; for in so doing, thou shalt both save thyself and them that hear thee?”
The second is our second (and first English) historian, Beda, and in him the famous Johannes Episc. Hagulstadensis Eccles. who, as he reporteth, wrought very great miracles, as Eccles. Hist. lib. v. cap. 2-5, is to be read. This man had one Herebaldus in his clergy, after an abbot; who himself told Beda as followeth: — That this Johannes Ep. cured him miraculously of a perilous hurt, taken by disobedient horsemanship; and when he recovered, he asked him, whether he were sure that he was baptized? who answered, That he knew it past doubt, and named the presbyter that baptized him. The bishop answered him, If thou wast baptized by that priest, thou wast not rightly baptized: for I know him, and that when he was ordained presbyter, he was so dull of wit, that he could not learn the ministry of catechising and baptizing. Wherefore I commanded him altogether to give over the presumption of this ministry, which he could not altogether fulfil. And having thus said, he himself took care to catechise me the same hour; and — being cured — vitali etiam unda perfusus sum, I was baptized.
I commend not this example of re-baptizing, the rather because it seems the priest was not deposed till after he had baptized Herebaldus: but if he went so far as to re-baptize, and account the baptism a nullity, which was done by an unable, insufficient presbyter, though rightly ordained, judge but as favourably of men that avoid such presbyters in our age.
The third instance shall be that of Cyprian, and all the worthy bishops in the councils of Carthage in his time, who re-baptized those baptized by heretics. And consider withal that in those times many were called heretics whom we call but schismatics, that drew disciples after them into separated bodies and parties, speaking perverse things, though not contrary to the very essentials of religion, Acts xx. 30. I justify not their opinion: but if so many holy bishops counted the very baptism of such a nullity, be not too severe and censorious against those that go not at all so far from an insufficient, or ungodly, or grossly scandalous man, for the mere preservation of their own souls.
To these I will add the saying of one of the honester sort of Jesuits, Acosta; and in him of an ancienter than he: lib. iv. c. 1. p. 354. de reb. Indic. He extolleth the words of Dionysius Epist. viii. ad Demoph. which are, Si igitur quæ illuminat sacerdotum est sancta distinctio, proculdubio ille a sacerdotali ordine et virtute omnino prolapsus est, qui illuminans non est, multoque sane magis qui neque illuminatus est. Atque mihi quidem videtur audax nimium hujusmodi est, si sacerdotalia munia sibi assumit; neque metuit, neque veretur ea quæ sunt divina præter meritum persequi; putatque ea latere Deum, quorum sibi ipse conscius sit; et se Deum fallere existimat, quem falso nomine appellat patrem; audetque scelestas blasphemias suas (neque enim preces dixerim) sacris aris inferre; easque super signa illa divina, ad Christi similitudinem dicere. Non est iste sacerdos; non est; sed infestus, atrox, dolosus, illusor sui, et lupus in dominicam gregem ovina pelle armatus. His plura aut majora de evangelici ministerii et culmine et præcipitio qui expectat, cuique ad resipiscendum non ista sufficiunt, infatuatum se juxta Domini sententiam, et nullo unquam sale saliri posse demonstrat. I will not English it, lest those take encouragement by it who are bent to the other extreme.
7. Yet it will be a great offence, if any censorious, self-conceited person shall on this pretence set up his judgment of men’s parts, to the contempt of authority, or to the vilifying of worthy men; and especially if he thereby make a stir and schism in the church, instead of seeking his own edification.
8. Yea, if a minister be weaker, yea, and colder and worse than another, yet if his ministry be competently fitted to edification, he that cannot leave him and go to a better, without apparent hurt to the church, and the souls of others, by division, or exasperating rulers, or breaking family order, or violating relative duties, must take himself to be at present denied the greater helps that others have, and may trust God in the use of those weaker means, to accept and bless him; because he is in the station where he hath set him. This case therefore must be resolved by a prudent comparing of the good or hurt which is like to follow, and of the accidents or circumstances whence that must be discerned.
In the time of the Arian emperors the churches refused the bishops whom the emperors imposed on them, and stuck to their own orthodox bishops; especially at Alexandria and Cæsarea, after the greatest urgency for their obedience.
Matt. xvi. 26; Prov. x. 32; xix. 8; Luke xii. 4.
Matt. xv. 14; 1 Tim. iv. 6, 16; Matt. xvi. 6; xxiv. 4.
Mark iv. 24; Luke viii. 18; Matt. xxiii. 16.