to bestow on them which have no society or part in the joys of Heaven, giving thereby to understand that these in comparison are toys and trifles, far under the value and price of that which is to be looked for at his hands: but in truth the reason wherefore we most extol their felicity is, if so be they have virtuously reigned, if honour hath not filled their hearts with pride, if the exercise of their power hath been service and attendance upon the Majesty of the Most High, if they have feared him as their own inferiors and subjects have feared them, if they have loved neither pomp nor pleasure more than Heaven, if revenge hath slowly proceeded from them and mercy willingly offered itself, if so they have tempered rigour with lenity, that neither extreme severity might utterly cut them off in whom there was manifest hope of amendment, nor yet the easiness of pardoning offences embolden offenders; if, knowing that whatsoever they do, their potency may bear it out, they have been so much the more careful not to do any thing but that which is commendable in the rest, rather than usual with greatest personages; if the true knowledge of themselves hath humbled them in God's sight, no less than God in the eyes of men hath raised them up; I say, albeit we reckon such to be the happiest of men that are mightiest in the world, and albeit those things alone are happiness, nevertheless, considering what force there is even in outward blessings to comfort the minds of the best disposed, and to give them the greater joy when Religion and Peace, heavenly and earthly happiness, are wreathed in one crown, as to the worthiest of Christian Princes it hath by the providence of the Almighty hitherto befallen; let it not seem to any man a needless and superfluous waste of labour, that there hath been thus much spoken, to declare how in them especially it hath been so observed, and withal universally noted, even from the highest to the very meanest, how this particular benefit, this singular grace and pre-eminence, Religion hath, that either it guardeth as a heavenly shield from all calamities, or else conducteth us safe through them, and permitteth them not to be miseries; it either giveth honours, promotions, and wealth, or else more benefit by wanting them than if we had them at will; it either filleth our houses with plenty of all good things, or maketh a sallad of green herbs more sweet than all the sacrifices of the

un godly. Our fourth proposition before set down was, that Religion, without the help of spiritual ministry, is unable to plant itself; the fruits thereof not possible to grow of their own accord. Which last assertion is herein as the first, that it needeth no further confirmation: if it did, I could easily declare how all things which are of God, he hath by wonderful art and wisdom sodered as it were together with the glue of mutual assistance, appointing the lowest to receive from the nearest to themselves what the influence of the highest yieldeth. And therefore the Church, being the most absolute of all his works, was in reason to be also ordered with like harmony, that what he worketh might, no less in grace than in nature, be effected by hands and instruments duly subordinated unto the power of his own Spirit. A thing both needful for the humility of man, which would not willingly be debtor to any but to himself; and of no small effect to nourish that divine love, which now maketh each embrace other, not as men, but as Angels of God. Ministerial actions, tending immediately unto Luke God's honour, and man's happiness, are either as contem- 1 Cor. plation, which helpeth forward the principal work of the Tit. i. 7. ministry, or else they are parts of that principal work of 1 Pet. administration itself, which work consisteth in doing the Ephes. service of God's House, and in applying unto men the sovereign medicines of grace, already spoken of the more largely, to the end it might thereby appear, that we owe to the guides of our souls* even as much as our souls are worth, although the debt of our temporal blessings should be stricken off.

xii. 42.

iv. 1.

iv. 10.

iii. 2.

given

execute

venly of

the gift

77. The Ministry of things divine is a function, which as of power God did himself institute, so neither may men undertake unto the same but by authority and power given them in lawful men to manner. That God, which is no way deficient or wanting that hea unto man in necessaries, and hath therefore given us the fice; of light of his heavenly truth, because without that inestima- of the ble benefit we must needs have wandered in darkness to Holy our endless perdition and woe, hath, in the like abundance Ordina of mercies, ordained certain to attend upon the due execu- and tion of requisite parts and offices therein prescribed for the good of the whole world, which men thereunto assigned niently * Kai σEAUTív μoi πgoropeines. Epist. ad Philem. [ver. 19.] VOL. II.

G

Ghost in

tion;

whether

conve

the

power of

may be

sought

for.

do hold their authority from him, whether they be such as Order himself immediately, or as the Church in his name, investeth; it being neither possible for all, nor for every man or sued without distinction convenient, to take upon him a charge of so great importance. They are, therefore, Ministers of God, not only by way of subordination, as Princes and civil Magistrates, whose execution of judgment and justice the supreme hand of divine Providence doth uphold; but Ministers of God, as from whom their authority is derived, and not from men. For in that they are Christ's ambassadors and his labourers, who should give them their commission, but he whose most inward affairs they manage? Is not God alone the Father of spirits? Are not souls the purchase of Jesus Christ? What Angel in Heaven could have said to man, as our Lord did unto Peter, "Feed my sheep? Preach? Baptize? Do this in remembrance of me? Whose sins ye retain, they are retained; and their offences in Heaven pardoned, whose faults you shall on earth forgive?" What think we? Are these terrestrial sounds, or else are they voices uttered out of the clouds above? The power of the Ministry of God translateth out of darkness into glory; it raiseth men from the earth, and bringeth God himself from Heaven; by blessing visible elements, it maketh them invisible grace; it giveth daily the Holy Ghost; it hath to dispose of that flesh which was given for the life of the world, and that blood which was poured out to redeem souls; when it poureth malediction upon the heads of the wicked, they perish; when it revoketh the same, they revive. O wretched blindness, if we admire not so great power; more wretched, if we consider it aright, and notwithstanding imagine that any but God can bestow it! To whom Christ hath imparted power, both over that mystical body which is the society of souls, and over that natural which is himself, for the knitting of both in one (a work which antiquity doth call the making of Christ's body), the same power is in such not amiss both termed a kind of mark or character, and acknowledged to be indelible. Ministerial power is a mark of separation, because it severeth them that have it from other men, and maketh them a special Order consecrated unto the service of the Most High in things where

de Ad

Castit.

[c..7.]

ii.17

with others may not meddle. Their difference, therefore, from other men is in that they are a distinct Order. So Tertullian calleth them. And St. Paul himself, dividing Tertul. the body of the Church of Christ into two moieties, nameth hort. the one part idiórag, which is as much as to say the Order Cast of the Laity, the opposite part whereunto we in like sort leb term the Order of God's Clergy, and the spiritual power which he hath given them, the power of their Order, so far forth as the same consisteth in the bare execution of holy things, called properly the affairs of God. For of the power of their jurisdiction over men's persons we are to speak in the Books following. They which have once received this power may not think to put it off and on like a cloak, as the weather serveth, to take it, reject and resume it as oft as themselves list; of which profane and impious contempt these latter times have yielded, as of other kinds of iniquity and apostacy, strange examples. But let them know, which put their hands unto this plough, that once consecrated unto God, they are made his peculiar inheritance for ever. Suspensions may stop, and degradations utterly cut off, the use or exercise of power before given; but voluntarily it is not in the power of man to separate and pull asunder what God by his authority coupleth. So that although there may be through misdesert degradation, as there may be cause of just separation after Matrimony; Matt. yet if (as sometimes it doth) restitution to former dignity, . or réconciliation after breach, doth happen, neither doth the one nor the other ever iterate the first knot. Much less is it necessary, which some have urged, concerning the Reordination of such, as others in times more corrupt did consecrate heretofore. Which error, already quelled by St. Jerome, doth not now require any other refutation. Examples I grant there are which make for restraint of those men from admittance again into rooms of spiritual function, whose fall by Heresy, or want of constancy in professing the Christian Faith, hath been once a disgrace to their calling. Nevertheless, as there is no Law which bindeth, so there is no case that should always lead, to shew one and the same severity towards persons culpable. Goodness of nature itself more inclineth to clemency than rigour. And we in other men's offences do behold the plain image of our own imbecility. Besides also them

xix.

4-9.

that wander out of the way it cannot be inexpedient to win with all hopes of favour, lest strictness used towards such as reclaim themselves should make others more obRuffin. stinate in error. Wherefore, after that the Church of

Hist.

lib. cap.

28.

Eccles. Alexandria had somewhat recovered itself from the tempests and storms of Arianism, being in consultation about the re-establishment of that which by long disturbance had been greatly decayed and hindered, the ferventer sort gave quick sentence, that touching them which were of the Clergy, and had stained themselves with Heresy, there should be none so received into the Church again as to continue in the Order of the Clergy. The rest, which considered how many men's cases it did concern, thought it much more safe and consonant to bend somewhat down towards them which were fallen; to shew severity upon a few of the chiefest leaders, and to offer to the rest a friendly reconciliation without any other demand saving only the abjuration of their error; as in the Gospel that wasteful young man, which returned home to his father's house, was with joy both admitted and honoured, his elder brother hardly thought of for repining thereat; neither commended so much for his own fidelity and virtue, as blamed for not embracing him freely, whose unexpected recovery ought to have blotted out all remembrance of misdemeanours and faults past. But of this sufficient. A thing much stumbled at in the manner of giving Orders, is our using those memorable words of our Lord and Saviour Christ, "Receive the Holy Ghost." The+ Holy Ghost, they say, we cannot give, and therefore we foolishly bid men receive it. Wise men, for their authority's sake, must have leave to befool them whom they are able to make wise by better instruction. Notwithstanding, if it may please their wisdom, as well to hear what fools can say, as to control that which they do, thus we have Eccles. heard some wise men teach, namely, that the Holy Ghost fol. 52. may be used to signify not the Person alone, but the gift p.2.1.1. of the Holy Ghost; and we know that spiritual gifts are not

Discip.

'In XII. Tabulis cautum est, ut idem juris esset sanantibus quod fortibus, id est bonis et qui nunquam defecerunt a populo Romano.' Fest. in ver. Samnites. + Papisticus quidam ritus, stulte quidem ab illis et sine ullo Scripturæ fundamento institutus, et a disciplinæ nostræ auctoribus (pace illorum dixerim) non magno primum judicio acceptus, minore adhuc in Ecclesia nostra retinetur.' Ecclesiast. Discip. p. 53.