Of National Churches, Chapter 4
Chap. IV. Particular Churches and Paſtors how far eſſential to a National Church, and what are its materials.
§ 1. THere is more eſſential to a National Church than the meer Formal Cauſe or Soveraign: Matter is eſſential as well as Form: Yet not all parts of the Matter neither, though all be parts Integral. As in the Body, a man cannot be a man without a ſtomach, liver, and lungs, and heart; but he may without a finger, or a hand, or leg.
§ 2. I doubt not but I have proved that the Soveraign Magiſtrate is the Formal Humane Head of his Kingdom, and as Chriſtian of the Kingdom as Chriſtian: And nothing remaineth diſputable but de Nomine, whether a Chriſtian Kingdom muſt be named a Church: which Cuſtom, Etymology and Scripture put paſt queſtion. Our Civilians (ſuch as Dr. Zouch, Dr. Rich. Couſins, &c. and our Lawyers ſay trulier than moſt have believed, that the King is perſona mixta, & Cuſtos utriuſ que Tabulae, and Head of the Church as a Chriſtian Kingdom. And for want of knowing this, and the true nature and bounds of his Office, how foully many have miſcarried, I have ſhewed.
1. Thoſe called Eraſtians, carry it too far, and give the Magiſtrate part of the Office of the Paſtors, even the Keys of Admiſſion into the Church as a Church, and of Excommunication; which God hath put into the hand of the Paſtors, by as immediate a Commiſſion, as he hath put the Sword into the hand of the Magiſtrate. And by this over-doing they undo: They would ruine the Prince on pretence of defending his Power: For all Authority hath alſo Obligation to duty: And muſt Princes and Magiſtrates be put on the task of trying the Faith and Repentance of all that are to be Baptized, Confirmed, Abſolved or Excommunicated? Then they muſt leave their own Calling, for they will here find work enough. This is like the Separatiſts making the People Judges, by which they would undo them, calling them from their Callings, to take on them a work of which they are uncapable, and about which they will never long agree, and making them reſponſible to God for all their Male-adminiſtration: As if the King muſt not only be Governour of Phyſicions, but muſt be a Phyſicion himſelf, and give Medicines, and be anſwerable for the Patients lives: Or muſt be a Schoolmaſter becauſe he governeth Schoolmaſters: And this puts them on a neceſſity of caſting out true Diſcipline, and holding the Opinion that Sacramental Communication ſhould be common to the Godly, and the openly Wicked, as being a Converting Ordinance; and that Excommunication is but Tyranny. Juſt as thoſe Dioceſans that will have no Biſhops but one over a thouſand or many ſcore or hundred Pariſhes, by pleading for their ſole Epiſcopal Power, take on them the ſole Obligation to Epiſcopal duty, and ſo make themſelves reſponſible for that work which requireth many hundred men, and under themſelves while they undo the Churches, and leave all true Diſcipline undone, and mock (not God, but) men and themſelves with names and ceremonious ſhadows.
2. And the Papal and French Prelatiſts, have by this Ignorance, got a fixed falſe Opinion, that, as Paſtors are the Conſtitutive Heads of Particular Churches, ſo they muſt be of National Churches, and that every National Church muſt be unified and ſpecified by one Clergy Soveraignty, in one perſon, or in a Colledge or Ariſtocracy: Or elſe that a Chriſtian Kingdom is not properly a Church; becauſe it hath not a Prieſtly Head. It's true, that it is not univocally a Church of the ſame ſpecies or rank as a Paſtoral Church is, but is more eminently, and as fitly called a Church, as Iſrael was.
3. And the Independent Separatiſts and Anabaptiſts, for want of underſtanding this, as I ſaid before, cry down National Churches with ſcorn, and run away from National Concord, into endleſs Diviſions and Sects, while at the ſame time they pray and wait for National Churches in the Millennium as the Fifth Monarchy. And none of them will deny it to be the Duty of all Kings and Kingdoms to be Chriſtians; and ſo that Chriſtian Kingdoms are Chriſt's Inſtitution and Command.
§ 3. But the Soveraign is the Judge, what Paſtors and Churches he ſhall allow and maintain as parts of the National Church or Kingdom. As the Colledge is to judge who is fit to be a Phyſicion, and the Patient who ſhall be his Phyſicion, and the truſted Phyſicion, what Medicine he ſhall give: But the King to judge whom he will allow in his Kingdom, and to make Laws forbidding poiſonous Drugs and abuſes of Phyſicions.
Even ſo the Ordainers are Judges who are fit to be Paſtors, and the People whom they will truſt their Souls with as their Paſtors, and the truſted Paſtors to judge what Doctrine to Preach, and whom to receive to Communion, or to Excommunicate; but the King to judge whom he will allow, maintain, or tolerate as Members of the Chriſtian Kingdom or National Church.
§ 4. That all eſſential parts of a National Church, are not the Form that denominateth (as aforeſaid) needs no more proof, than that Matter and Privation (by which Ariſtotle meant Diſpoſitio Materiae receptiva) are not the Form of a Natural Body: So that Confederate Paſtoral Churches are neceſſary, yea eſſential matter of a National Church or Chriſtian Kingdom, when it is paſt being a meer Embrio, or unſhapen Maſs, and is come to be a well ſhapen Politick Body: Till then it is but as the body in the womb, while the punctum ſaiiens firſt maketh the Heart, Eyes, Brain and Arteries, before it hath made the Stomach, Liver, Lungs and Inteſtines. It is not yet come to ſhew what Chriſt's Inſtitution of a Church was.
§ 5. But our great Controverſies are,
I. Who be the Organical Paſtors that muſt make up a National Church.
II. Who muſt be the Lay-members of thoſe Churches.
III. What that Confederacy muſt be that muſt unite them.
IV. How far the Members are bound by that Confederacy.
And becauſe Ignorance hath made theſe Points of ſo much Controverſie and Conſequence, I will open them diſtinctly. By which I conjecture it will appear, that Dr. Stillingfleet differed but about the right wording of the definition of a National Church.