XV. Of which nature that also is, wherein Bishops are over and besides all this accused “to have much more excessive power than the ancient, inasmuch as unto their ecclesiastical authority, the civil magistrate for the better repressing of such as contemn ecclesiastical censures, hath for divers ages annexed civil1. The crime of bishops herein is divided into these two several branches; the one, that in causes ecclesiastical they strike with the sword of secular punishments; the other, that offices are granted them, by virtue whereof they meddle with civil affairs.”
Touching the one, it reacheth no farther than only unto restraint of liberty by imprisonment (which yet is not done but by the laws of the land, and by virtue of authority derived from the prince). A thing which being allowable in priests amongst the Jews, must needs have received some strange alteration in nature since, if it be now so pernicious and venomous to be coupled with a spiritual vocation in any man which beareth office in the Church of Christ. Shemaiah writing to the college of priests which were in Jerusalem, and to Zephaniah the principal of them, told them they were appointed of God, “that they might be officers in the house of the Lord, for every man which raved, and did make himself a prophet2,” to the end that they might by the force of this their authority “put such in prison and in the stocks.” His malice is reproved, for that he provoketh them to shew their power against the innocent. But surely, when any man justly punishable had been brought before them, it could be no unjust thing for them even in such sort then to have punished.
As for offices by virtue whereof bishops have to deal in civil affairs, we must consider that civil affairs are of divers kinds, and as they be not all fit for ecclesiastical persons to meddle with, so neither is it necessary, nor at this day haply convenient, that from meddling with any such thing at all they all should without exception be secluded. I will therefore set down some few causes, wherein it cannot but clearly appear unto reasonable men that civil and ecclesiastical functions may be lawfully united in one and the same person.
First therefore, in case a Christian society be planted amongst their professed enemies, or by toleration do live under some certain state whereinto they are not incorporated, whom shall we judge the meetest man to have the hearing and determining of such mere civil controversies as are every day wont to grow between man and man? Such being the state of the church of Corinth, the Apostle giveth them this direction, “Dare any of you having business against another be judged by the unjust, and not under saints? Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? If the world then shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters? Know ye not that we shall judge the angels? how much more things that appertain to this life? If then ye have judgment of things pertaining to this life, set up them which are least esteemed in the Church. I speak it to your shame; is it so that there is not a wise man amongst you? no not one that can judge between his brethren, but a brother goeth to law with a brother and that under the infidels? Now therefore there is utterly a fault among you, because ye go to law one with another; why rather suffer ye not wrong, why rather sustain ye not harm3?” In which speech there are these degrees: better to suffer and to put up injuries, than to contend; better to end contention by arbitrement, than by judgment; better by judgment before the wisest of their own, than before the simpler; better before the simplest of their own, than the wisest of them without; So that if judgment of secular affairs should be committed unto wise men, unto men of chiefest credit and account amongst them, when the pastors of their souls are such, who more fit to be also their judges for the ending of strifes? The wisest in things divine may be also4 in things human the most skilful. At leastwise they are by likelihood commonly more able to know right from wrong than the common unlettered sort.
And what St. Augustine did hereby gather, his own words do sufficiently shew. “I call God to witness upon my soul,” saith he5, “that according to the order which is kept in well-ordered monasteries, I could wish to have every day my hours of labouring with my hands, my hours of reading and of praying, rather than to endure these most tumultuous perplexities of other men’s causes, which I am forced to bear while I travel in secular businesses, either by judging to discuss them, or to cut them off by entreaty: unto which toils that Apostle, who himself sustained them not, for any thing we read, hath notwithstanding tied us not of his own accord, but being thereunto directed by that Spirit which speaks in him. His own apostleship which drew him to travel up and down, suffered him not to be any where settled to this purpose; wherefore the wise, faithful and holy men which were seated here and there, and not them which travelled up and down to preach, he made examiners of such businesses. Whereupon of him it is no where written, that he had leisure to attend these things, from which we cannot excuse ourselves although we be simple: because even such he requireth, if wise men cannot be had, rather than the affairs of Christians should be brought into public judgment. Howbeit not without comfort in our Lord are these travels undertaken by us, for the hope’s sake of eternal life, to the end that with patience we may reap fruit.” So far is St. Augustine from thinking it unlawful for pastors in such sort to judge civil causes, that he plainly collecteth out of the Apostle’s words a necessity to undertake that duty; yea himself he comforteth with the hope of a blessed reward, in lieu of travel that way sustained.