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Updated: October 18, 2025
For the minister of Christ must be in subjection to the magistrate; and if he be not, he is punishable by the law of the land as well as any other subject. The persons and estates of church-officers, and all that they have in this world, are subject to civil authority.
And now, seeing I have touched upon the covenant, I wish the reverend brother may seriously consider whether he hath not violated the oath of God in advising the Parliament to lay no burden of government upon church-officers, but to take the government of the church wholly into their own hands.
Thus much by the way of that distinction of names; and, for the thing itself, to object an innate enmity between the ministers of the gospel and those that are not ministers, is no less than a dishonouring and aspersing of the Christian religion. To return, you see his words tend to the taking away of all church government out of the hands of church-officers. Now may we know his reasons?
Though we cannot find in Scripture that the power of the keys is committed by Christ unto deacons, with the other church governors, but conceive that deacons, as other members of the church, are to be governed, and are not to govern; yet forasmuch as deacons are ordinary officers in the Church of God, of which she will have constant use in all ages, and which at first were divinely appointed, and after frequently mentioned in the New Testament; it will not be thought unfit, before we conclude this section, touching the divine right of Christ's church-officers, briefly to assert the divine right of deacons, as followeth.
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