Quest. XXIV. Hath one bishop power by divine right to ordain, degrade, or govern, or excommunicate, or absolve, in another's diocess or church, either by his consent, or against it? And doth a minister that officiateth in another's church, act as a pastor, and their pastor, or as a private man? And doth the ministerial office cease when a man removeth from his flock?
I thrust these questions all together for their affinity, and for brevity.
1. Every true minister of Christ, bishop or pastor, is related to the universal church by stronger obligations than to his particular charge; as the whole is better than the parts, and its welfare to be preferred.
2. He that is no pastor of a particular church, may be a pastor in the universal, obliged as a consecrated person to endeavour its good, by the works of his office, as he hath a particular opportunity and call.
3. Yet he that hath a particular charge is especially and nearlier related and obliged to that charge or church, than to any other part of the universal (though not than to the whole); and consequently hath a peculiar authority, where he hath a peculiar obligation and work.
4. He that is (without degrading) removed from a particular church, doth not cease to be a general minister and pastor related to the universal church; as a physician put out of an hospital charge, is a physician still. And therefore he needeth no new ordination, but only a special designation to his next particular charge.
5. No man is the bishop of a diocess as to the measure of ground, or the place, by divine right, that is, by any particular law or determination of God; but only a bishop of the church or people: for your office essentially containeth a relation to the people, but accidentally only to the place.
6. Yet natural convenience, and God’s general laws of order and edification, do make it usually (but not always) best, and therefore a duty, to distinguish churches by the people’s habitation: not taking a man for a member eo nomine, because he liveth on that ground; but for order’s sake taking none for members that live not on that ground, and not intruding causelessly into each other’s bounds.
7. He that by the call or consent of a neighbour pastor and people doth officiate (by preaching, sacraments, excommunication, or absolution) in another’s special charge for a day, or week, or month, or more, without a fixed relation to that flock, doth neither officiate as a layman, nor yet unlawfully or irregularly; but, 1. As a minister of Christ in the church universal. 2. And as the pastor of that church for the present time only, though not statedly; even as a physician called to help another in his hospital, or to supply his place for the time, doth perform his work, 1. As a licensed physician. 2. And as the physician of that patient or hospital for that time, though not statedly.
8. No man is to intrude into another’s charge without a call; much less to claim a particular stated oversight and authority. For though he be not a usurper as to the office in general, he is a usurper as to that particular flock. It is no error in ordination to say, Take thou authority to preach the word of God, and administer the holy sacraments, when thou shalt be thereto lawfully called; that is, when thou hast a particular call to the exercise, and to a fixed charge, as thou hast now a call to the office in general.
9. Yet every bishop or pastor by his relation to the church universal, and to mankind, and the interest of Christ, is bound not only as a christian, but as a pastor, to do his best for the common good; and not to cast wholly out of his care a particular church, because another hath the oversight of it. Therefore if a heretic get in, or the church fall to heresy, or any pernicious error or sin, the neighbour pastors are bound both by the law of nature and their office, to interpose their counsel as ministers of Christ, and to prefer the substance before pretended order, and to seek to recover the people’s souls, though it be against their proper pastor’s will. And in such a case of necessity, they may ordain, degrade, excommunicate, and absolve in another’s charge, as if it were a vacuity.
10. Moreover it is one thing to excommunicate a man out of a particular church, and another thing for many associated churches or neighbours to renounce communion with him. The special pastors of particular churches, having the government of those churches, are the special governing judges, who shall or shall not have communion as a member in their churches; but the neighbour pastors of other churches have the power of judging with whom they and their own flocks will or will not hold communion. As e. g. Athanasius may as governor of his flock declare any Arian member excommunicate, and require his flock to have no communion with him. And all the neighbour pastors (though they excommunicate not the same man as his special governors, yet) may declare to all their flocks, that if that man come among them, they will have no communion with him, and that at distance they renounce that distant communion which is proper to christians one with another, and take him for none of the church of Christ.
1 Cor. v.; Tit. iii. 10; 2 Thess. iii. 6, 14; 2 John 10;
Rev. ii. 14, 15, 20.