Quest. IX. _Whether the people are bound to receive or consent to an ungodly, intolerable, heretical pastor, yea, or one far less fit and worthy than a competitor, if the magistrate command it, or the bishop impose him?_
For the deciding of this, take these propositions.
1. The magistrate is authorized by God to govern ministers and churches, according to the orders and laws of Christ (and not against them); but not to ordain or degrade, nor to make ministers or unmake them, nor to deprive the church of the liberty settled on it by the laws of Christ.
2. The bishops or ordainers are authorized by Christ to judge of the fitness of the person to the office in general, and solemnly to invest him in it, but not to deprive the people of their freedom, and exercise of the natural care of their own salvation, or of any liberty given them by Christ.
3. The people's liberty in choosing or consenting to their own pastors, to whom they must commit the care of their souls, is partly founded in nature, (it being they that must have the benefit or loss, and no man being authorized to damn or hazard men's souls, at least against their wills,) and partly settled by Scripture, and continued in the church above a thousand years after Christ, at least in very many parts of it.[239] See Blondel's "Full Proof de jure plebis in regim. Eccles." Hildebertus Cænoman. (alias Turonensis) even in his time showeth, that though the clergy were to lead, and the people to follow, yet no man was to be made a bishop, or put upon the people, without their own consent: Epist. 12. Bibl. Pet. to. iii. p. 179. Filesacus will direct you to more such testimonies. But the thing is past controversy. I need not cite to the learned the commonly cited testimony of Cyprian, _Plebs maximam habet potestatem indignos recusandi, &c._ And indeed in the nature of the thing it cannot be: for though you may drench a mad-man's body by force, when you give him physic, you cannot so drench men's souls, nor cure them against their wills.
4. Not that the people's consent is necessary to the general office of a gospel minister, to preach and baptize; but only to the appropriation or relation of a minister to themselves; that is, to the being of a pastor of a particular church as such, but not of a minister of Christ as such.
5. A man's soul is of so great value above all the favour of man, or treasures of this world, that no man should be indifferent to what man's care he doth commit it; nor should he hazard it upon the danger of everlasting misery, for fear of displeasing man, or being accused of schism or disorder.
6. There is as great difference between an able, learned, judicious, orthodox, godly, diligent, lively teacher, and an ignorant, heretical, ungodly, dull, and slothful man, as there is between a skilful and an ignorant pilot at sea; or between an able, experienced, faithful physician, and an ignorant, rash, and treacherous one, as to the saving men's lives. And he that would not take a sot or an empiric for his physician, who were like to kill him, and refuse the counsel of an able physician, in obedience to a magistrate or bishop, hath as little reason to do the like by his soul; nor should he set less by that than by his life.[240] And if Paul said, We have this power for edification and not for destruction, we may say so of all magistrates and bishops. Sober divines have lately showed their error who teach men that they must be ready to submit to damnation if God require it, or to suppose that his glory and our salvation are separable ends; because damnation is a thing which nature necessitateth man not to desire or intend! And shall we ascribe more to a magistrate than to God? and say that we must cast our souls on a likelihood of damnation to keep order and in obedience to man? No man can be saved without knowledge and holiness: an ignorant, dead, ungodly minister is far less likely to help us to knowledge and holiness, than an able, holy man. To say God can work by the unfittest instrument is nothing to the purpose; till you prove that God would have us take him for his instrument, and that he useth equally to work by such, as well as by the fit and worthy, or that we expect wonders from God, and that ordinarily without tempting him! yea, when such a usurper of the ministry is like to damn himself, as well as the people.
And here to lenify the minds of Ithacian prelates towards those that seek their own edification, in such a case as this, or that refuse unworthy pastors of their imposing, I will entreat them to censure those near them no more sharply than they do the persons in these following instances. Yea, if a separatist go too far, use him no more uncharitably, than you would do these men.