West Port Experiment

The following taken from Book 2, Chapter 4 of Aaron’s Rod Blossoming, pp. 184-194.

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CHAP. IV. Of the agreements and differences between the nature of the Civil and of the Ecclesiastical Powers or Governments.

Having now observed what our opposites yield to us, or we to them, I shall for further unfolding of what I plead for, or against, add here the chief agreements and differences between the Civil and Ecclesiastical powers, so far as I apprehend them. They both agree in these things: 1. They are both from God; both the Magistrate, and the Minister is authorized from God, both are the Ministers of God, and shall give account of their administrations to God. 2. Both are tied to observe the Law and Commandments of God: and both have certain directions from the Word of God to guide them in their administration. 3. Both Civil Magistrates and Church Officers are Fathers, and ought to be honoured and obeyed according to the fifth Commandment: Utrumque scilicet dominium, saith Luther, Tom. 1. fol. 139. both Governments, the Civil and the Ecclesiastical, do pertain to that Commandment. 4. Both Magistracy and Ministry are appointed for the glory of God as Supreme, and for the good of men as the subordinate end. 5. They are both of them mutually aiding and auxiliary, each to other. Magistracy strengthens the Ministry, and the Ministry strengthens Magistracy. 6. They agree in their general kind; they are both Powers and Governments. 7. Both of them require singular qualifications, eminent gifts and endowments, and of both it holds true, Quis ad haec idoneus? Both of them have degrees of censures and correction according to the degrees of offences. Neither the one nor the other may give out sentence against one who is not convict, or whose offence is not proved. Both of them have a certain kind of Jurisdiction in foro exteriori. For though the Ecclesiastical power be spiritual, and exercised about such things as belong to the inward man only; yet as Dr. Rivet upon the Decalogue, pag. 260, 261. saith truly, there is a two-fold power of external jurisdiction which is exercised in foro exteriori: one by Church-Censures, Excommunication, lesser and greater, which is not committed to the Magistrate, but to Church-Officers: Another, which is Civil and coercive, and that is the Magistrates. But Mr. Coleman told us, he was persuaded it will trouble the whole World to bound Ecclesiastical and Civil Jurisdiction, the one from the other; Maledicis pag. 7. Well: I have given ten agreements. I will now give ten differences.

The difference between them is great; they differ in their causes, effects, objects, adjuncts, correlations, executions, and ultimate terminations.

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The following selections are taken from George Gillespie’s Aaron’s Rod Blossoming (1646).

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7. That there is a distinction between Magistracy and Ministery, even Jure Divino. That the civill Magistrate hath not power to abolish or continuate the Ministery in abstracto at his pleasure; nor yet to make or unmake Ministers in concreto, that is, to ordain or depose Ministers, as he thinks fit.

    8. As the Offices are distinct (g) so is the power; Magistrates may do what Ministers may not doe: and Ministers may doe what Magistrates may not do.

    9. It is Juris Communis, a principle of common equity and naturall reason, that the directive Judgement in any matter doth chiefly belong to such as (by their profession and vocation) are devoted and set apart to the study and knowledge of such matters, and (in that respect) supposed to be ablest and fittest to give Judgement thereof. A consultation of Physicians is called for, when the Magistrate desires to know the nature, symptomes, or cure of some dangerous disease. A consultation of Lawyers, in Legall questions. A Councell of War in military expeditions. If the Magistrate be in a ship at Sea, he takes not on him the directive part of Navigation, which belongs to the master, with the mates and pilot. Neither doth the master of the ship (if it come to a Sea-fight) take on him the directive part in the fighting, which belongs to the Captain. And so in all other cases, Artifici in sua arte credendum. Wherefore though the Judgement of Christian prudence and discretion belongs to every Christian, and to the Magistrate in his Station; and though the Magistrate may be, and sometime is learned in the Scriptures, and well acquainted with the principles of true Divinity, yet ut plurimum, and ordinarily, especially in a rightly Reformed and well constituted Church, Ministers are to be supposed to be fittest and ablest to give a directive Judgement in things and causes Spirituall and Ecclesiasticall: with whom also other ruling Church-Officers do assist and joyne, who are more experimentally and practically (they ought also, and diverse times are more Theoretically) acquainted with the right way and rules of Church-government and censures; then the civill Magistrate (when he is no ruling Elder in the Church, which is but accidentall) can be rationally or ordinarily supposed to be.

    10. There is some power of Governement, in the Church given to the Ministery by Christ: else why are they said to be set over us in the Lord, and called Rulers and Governours, as we shall see afterward?

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Finally, The Presbyteriall Government hath no such liberty nor arbitrarinesse, as Civill or Military Government hath: there being in all civill or temporall affairs a great deal of latitude left to those who manage the same, so that they command nor act nothing against the Word of God. But Presbyteriall Government is tyed up to the rules of Scripture, in all such particulars as are properly spirituall and proper to the Church; Though in other particular, occasional circumstances of times, places, accommodations, and the like, the same light of nature and reason guideth both Church and State; yet in things properly Spirituall and Ecclesiasticall, there is not near so much latitude left to the Presbytery, as there is in civill affairs to the Magistrate.

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