_Direct._ XXV. Give not the magistrate's power to any other; whether to the people, on pretence of their _majestatis realis_, (as they call it,) or the pope, or prelates, or pastors of the church, upon pretence of authority from Christ, or of the distinction of ecclesiastical government and civil. The people's pretensions to natural authority, or real majesty, or collation of power, I have confuted before, and more elsewhere. The pope's, prelate's, and pastor's power of the sword in causes ecclesiastical, is disproved so fully by Bishop Bilson _ubi supra_, and many more, that it is needless to say much more of it.[74] All protestants, so far as I know, are agreed that no bishop or pastor hath any power of the sword, that is, of coercion, or force upon men's bodies, liberties, or estates, except as magistrates derived from their sovereign. Their spiritual power is only upon consenters, in the use of God's word upon the conscience, either generally in preaching, or with personal application in discipline. No courts or commands can compel any to appear or submit, nor lay the mulct of a penny upon any, but by their own consent, or the magistrate's authority. But this the papists will few of them confess: for if once the sword were taken from them, the world would quickly see that their church had the hearts of few of those multitudes, whom by fire and sword they forced to seem their members; or at least, that, when the windows were opened, the light would quickly deliver poor souls from the servitude of those men of darkness. For then few would fear the unrighteous excommunication of mere usurpers.[75] It is a manifold usurpation by which their kingdom is upheld. (For a kingdom it is rather to be called than a church.) 1. They usurp the power of the keys or ecclesiastical government over all the world, and make themselves pastors of those churches, which they have nothing to do to govern. Their excommunications of princes or people, in other lands or churches that never took them for their pastors, is a usurpation the more odious, by how much the power usurped is more holy, and the performance in so large a parish as the whole world, is naturally impossible to the Roman usurper. 2. Under the name of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, they usurp the magistrate's coercive power in such causes as they call ecclesiastical. 3. Yea, and they claim an immunity to their clergy from the civil government, as if they were no subjects of the king, or the king had not power to punish his offending subjects. 4. _In ordine ad spiritualia_, they claim yet more of the magistrate's power. 5. And one part of them give the pope directly in temporals a power over kings and kingdoms. 6. Their most eminent divines do ordinarily maintain, that the pope may excommunicate kings and interdict kingdoms, and that an excommunicated king is no king, and may be killed. It is an article of their religion, determined of in one of their approved general councils, (Later. sub. Innoc. III. can. 3,) That if temporal lords will not exterminate heretics from their lands, (such as the Albigenses, that denied transubstantiation, mentioned can. 2,) the pope may give their dominions to others, and absolve their vassals from their fealty. And when some of late would have so far salved their honour, as to invalidate the authority of that council, they will not endure it, but have strenuously vindicated it; and indeed whatever it be to us, with them it is already enrolled among the approved general councils. Between the Erastians, who would have no government but by magistrates, and papists, who give the magistrate's power to the pope and his prelates, the truth is in the middle; that the pastors have a nunciative and directive power from Christ, and a discipline to exercise by the word alone, or volunteers; much like the power of a philosopher in his school, or a physician in his hospital, supposing them to be by divine right.
_Direct._ XXVI. Refuse not to swear allegiance to your lawful sovereign. Though oaths are fearful, and not to be taken without weighty cause, yet are they not to be refused when the cause is weighty, as here it is. Must the sovereign be sworn to do his office for you, and must he undertake so hard and perilous a charge for you, which he is no way able to go through, if his subjects be not faithful to him? And shall those subjects refuse to promise and swear fidelity? This is against all reason and equity.
_Direct._ XXVII. Think not that either the pope, or any power in the world, can dispense with this your oath, or absolve you from the bond of it, or save you from the punishment due from God, to the perjured and perfidious. Of this see what I have written before against perjury.