Ecclesiastical power

“ Although many things are introduced here in the topic of Ecclesiastical Power, with greater bitterness than is just, yet it must be declared that to most reverend bishops and priests, and to the entire clergy, all ecclesiastical power is freely conceded that belongs to them by law or custom. ”

“ If spiritual and ecclesiastical power be in the church or community of the faithful, the church doth not only call, but make officers out of virtue and power received into herself, and then should the church have a true lordlike power in regard of her ministers. For, as he that will derive authority to the church, maketh himself lord of the church, so, if the church derive authority to the ministers of Christ, she maketh herself lady or mistress over them, in the exercise of that lordlike authority; for, as all men know, it is the property of the lord and master to impart authority. ”

“ Ecclesiastical power consists of the keys of the kingdom of heaven, which are exercised in the preaching of the word, dispensing the sacraments, executing the censures, admonition, excommunication, absolution, ordination of presbyters, &c.; but magistratical power consists in the secular sword, which puts forth itself in making statutes, inflicting fines, imprisonments, confiscations, banishments, torments, death. ”

“ That the Holy Catholic Church is artfully constituted to subjugate all secular and ecclesiastical power under its authority, and that its object is not to advance the interests of moral goodness, but to acquire temporal dominion, must be admitted by every one that fully comprehends the principles upon which its religious Orders are organized. These Orders were founded by Catholic saints and Bishops. ”

“ For we know from the apostle that all power is of God, and especially that ecclesiastical power has been given by God for edification: for this reason, from the Christian and devout heart of the holy Church the constitutions of the same holy, catholic and apostolic Church should be received as are useful to the Church, as well for promoting divine worship as for restraining the lust of the flesh, while they enable us the more readily to keep the divine commands, and when well considered are found in the Holy Scriptures ”

“ Whereupon oftentimes the worldly princes do grant the bare use of the church, and oftentimes use power to exercise justice, which the clergy cannot; exercise by any ecclesiastical minister, or any other person of the clergy. ”

“ Nothing can be more perfect than the analysis by which the two ruling powers are separated from each other, and the ecclesiastical set above the secular." [263] If this is not quite borne out, one can hardly help feeling that more care should have been taken to mark out the limits of ecclesiastical authority, and to show that the power of ministers and elders was as distinctly limited by the laws of Christ as that of kings and magistrates ought to be by the laws of the land ”

“ If we regard the Constitutions as a production of the third century, (containing remnants of earlier compositions,) the work possesses a certain kind of value. It contributes to give us an insight into the state of Christian faith, the condition of the clergy and inferior ecclesiastical officers, the worship and discipline of the Church, and other particulars, at the period to which the composition is referred. The growth of episcopal power and influence, and the derivation of the episcopal authority from the apostles, is here clearly shown. ”

“ His theory, which marks the culminating point of English sacerdotalism, represents the episcopate and episcopally ordained clergy as a spiritual power co-ordinate with the temporal power, and associated with it in a federal union, the regal supremacy in matters ecclesiastical being treated as a mere derivative from the papal usurpation. ”

“ In matters ecclesiastical we believe, first, that civil magistrates have no power to make or constitute laws about church affairs, which the Lord Jesus hath not ordained in his word for the well-ordering of the church; for the apostle solemnly chargeth Timothy, and in him all governors of the church, before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords, that the commandment given by him for the ordering of the church be kept without spot, unrebukeable, to the appearing of the Lord Jesus Christ, 1 Tim. ”

“ The principle of the church, that her power, though essentially resident in the person of one, should be disseminated through the instrumentality of many, is applicable to all degrees of the ecclesiastical hierarchy. ”

“ If ecclesiastical deliberations are said to be specially inspired or directed by an illuminating and supernatural power, we should examine whether the councils and convocations of clergymen exhibit a degree and harmony of wisdom that cannot reasonably be accounted for by the play of our unassisted faculties. ”

“ At a time when the whole system of ecclesiastical government was under discussion, and when the temporal power was beginning to predominate over the Church in France, the greatest theologian of the age made an attempt to apply the principles of secular polity to the Church. ”

“ As the real founder of the ecclesiastical state, he must be held mainly responsible for the evils which resulted from the policy of the church in exalting the ecclesiastical over the secular authority. ”

“ And the Church, on her part, the above principle having been adopted by the State, acknowledged in the head of that State, the King, her temporal head; investing him with that general supremacy in ecclesiastical affairs, which he already possessed in civil. But we are not thence to infer that she gave, or that she could give, to an earthly monarch, or to his temporal legislature, the right to interfere with things spiritual, with her Doctrines, with her Liturgy, with the ministration of her Sacraments, or with the positions, relative to each other, of her Bishops, Priests, and Deacons. ”

“ Ingleby.—"Yes, Sir; our clergy who advocate high church principles talk like Papal priests, and breathe the same spirit; and, unless they can be checked, they will assimilate the Church of England to the Church of Rome. Regeneration and absolution, which the sacred writers ascribe to the grace of God, they [448] pretend to effect by their own delegated authority and power; and, as a necessary consequence, they require the people to look to them as holding the keys of the kingdom of heaven. ”

“ These priests thought that obedience to the national authority which respected and protected religion, was a catholic dogma. What resistance could be made to legitimate power, which neither attacked the dogma, nor morality, nor the interior and essential discipline of the church? ”

“ They recognized the visible church, the apostolic succession, the hierarchical order, the sacrifice and sacraments instituted by Christ, and continued the outward show and appearance of conformity to established Catholic usage, and even to the language of the Fathers respecting the mysteries of faith. They were intruded into the possession of the titles, churches, and other temporalities of many of the most important episcopal sees, and sustained in their usurpation by the civil power. ”

“ And since the Church alone has, through the grace of God, received the means necessary to realize such end, she has her fixed laws, special spheres of action, and a certain method, fixed and conformable to her nature, of governing Christian peoples. But the exercise of such governing power is difficult, and leaves room for numberless conflicts, inasmuch as the Church rules peoples scattered through every portion of the earth, differing in race and customs, who, living under the sway of the laws of their respective countries, owe obedience alike to the civil and religious authorities. ”

“ So entirely have political ideas and jealousies infected our mode of judging of spiritual things—to such a degree is our peculiar civil liberty made the standard of Church government—that it is necessary to insist again and again on what to Christians ought to be a first principle, viz., that "all power and jurisdiction in the Church, like the Church herself, ought to rest not upon natural and human authority, but on the divine authority of Christ. ”

“ The church was now in the highest power—every vestige of episcopacy banished, popery treated as a crime, the doctrine of the headship of Christ in full paramountcy, and enabling the clergy to exercise an unlimited authority over the external religious practice and professions of the community. It was ruled that each head of a family should conduct worship and reading of the Scriptures daily in his house, catechise, reprove, and exhort amongst his children, servants, and dependents. ”

“ The clergy, the lords of God's heritage, have crowned themselves with the rulership of earth, in the person of the pope and in the general desire of clergymen to rule in the affairs of men, a lordship based upon their supposed righteousness (mitre) . This great crisis will not be like the temporary setbacks of ecclesiasticism in past centuries. The lowly, revolutionary, anarchistic masses will exalt themselves to power in the Time of Trouble, and the lofty clergy shall be utterly abased.—Matt. ”

“ May this our seal for the welfare of religious and public order, acquire aid and authority from the princes. Our dearest sons in Christ, who, let them reflect, have rceived their power not merely for their temporal rule, but chiefly for the protection of the Church. Let them carefully observe, that whatever is done for the good of the Church, necessarily benefits their government, and confirms the peace of their states. Let them be persuaded that the cause of the Faith interests them more nearly than that of their Kingdom ”

“ Prelates of Religious Orders have quasi- episcopal jurisdiction over their own subjects, and as a general rule have the same power over these as a Bishop has over his subjects. Besides, they receive by their privileges ample delegated authority to dispense not only their own subjects, but seculars and lay people as well. ”

“ In the ecclesiastical domain we find the same ideas taken henceforth as the true basis of Church government. The Church is not the priestly order and hierarchy alone, but the whole body of Christians. ”

“ But it behoves us Churchmen, not only to assert the spiritual liberties of the Church, but also to realize a great deal more fully than we do, the divine authority of the civil ministers and civil laws in their own department. ”

“ If they will pay money they will surrender power: a form of three articles is sent to Convocation in 153a by which the clergy are to renounce their right of spiritual legislation without royal licence, and consent to a reform of the canon law under the king's authority. ”

“ So far, therefore, as the power—authority—is concerned in which the clergy glories it is to be noted, that power is sometimes taken to mean lordship or real power, as in Romans 13:1: "Let every soul be in subjection to the higher powers." ”

“ The ecclesiastical constitution excludes all violence to other disciplines; allows every division of religious opinion to take its own way; and even suffers Popery, with all its hostility, to take its own way—to have its churches and chapels, its public services, its discipline, and all the formalities, however alien and obnoxious, which it deems important to its existence. ”

“ Some, overlooking the twofold agency, partly civil, partly ecclesiastical, by which the Most High promotes his own ends and the well being of his creatures, have resolved each into the other, making religion an affair of the state, and civil government a matter for ecclesiastical influence ”

“ The supremacy which canon law obtained is easily accounted for when we compare the disciplined character of all ecclesiastical as compared with lay government, the training of the priest with that of the noble, the ignorance pervading all classes, and the rude character of the legislation administered in feudal society. ”

“ What double power does the Church possess and confer on her pastors? A. The Church possesses and confers on her pastor, the power of orders and the power of jurisdiction; that is, the power to administer the Sacraments and sanctify the faithful, and the power to teach and make laws that direct the faithful to their spiritual good. A bishop has the full power of orders and the Pope alone has the full power of jurisdiction. ”

“ Hitherto holding strong High Church views in some directions, he now assumed a position which ultimately led to his abandoning the doctrine of Apostolical succession, and ordaining pastors and bishops, and finally creating a separate ecclesiastical organisation. ”

“ Therefore we shall lay down, in the first place, the Romanist theory of church and state; and, in the second place, the Protestant theory of church and state: and then we shall see what will follow, in reference to the spiritual jurisdiction of the General Assembly.
Firstly. In the Romanist theory, church and state are two separate institutions, a distinct duality, not only in regard to the affairs which each administers, but also in regard to the persons who administer them. The principle which holds church and state everlastingly apart, is the doctrine of the apostolical succession. ”

“ It was under a solemn consciousness of the dangers from ecclesiastical ambition, the bigotry of spiritual pride, and the intolerance of sects, thus exemplified in our domestic, as well as in foreign annals, that it was deemed advisable to exclude from the national government all power to act upon the subject. ”

“ I wonder how men came to looke with so envious an eye upon Bishops power and authority, as to over-see both the Ecclesiasticall use of them, and Apostolicall constitution: which to me seems no lesse evidently set forth, as to the maine scope and designe of those Epistles, for the setling of a peculiar Office, Power, and Authority in them as President-Bishops above others, in point of Ordination, Censures, and other acts of Ecclesiasticall discipline ”