virtue only of the commission
and delegation which they have of the king. Yea, bishops themselves
exercise not any jurisdiction in the High Commission as bishops, but only
as the king's commissioners, as Dr Downame acknowledgeth.(1127) The
assumption is grounded upon this reason: The king hath not power to depose
ministers; therefore he cannot give this power to others. For _nemo potest
plus juris transferre in alium quam sibi competere dignoscatur_,(1128) the
king may sometimes inflict such a civil punishment upon ministers,
whereupon, secondarily and accidentally, will follow their falling away
from their ecclesiastical office and function (in which sense it is said
that Solomon deposed Abiathar, as we heard before), but to depose them
directly and formally (which the High Commission usurped to do) he hath no
power, and that because this deposition is an act of ecclesiastical
jurisdiction; whereas the power of ecclesiastical jurisdiction doth no
more agree to the king than the power of ecclesiastical order: his power
is civil and temporal, not spiritual and ecclesiastical. Dr Field also
confesseth,(1129) that none may judicially degrade, or put any one,
lawfully admitted, from his degree and order, but the spiritual guides of
the church alone.

2. The deposing of ministers pertaineth to classical presbyteries, or (if
the matter be doubtful and difficult) to synods, as hath been showed. And
who, then, can give the High Commission such authority as to take this
power from them and assume it unto itself. These commissioners profess
that they have authority to discharge other ecclesiastical judicatories
within the kingdom from meddling with the judging of anything which they
shall think impertinent for them, and which they shall think good to judge
and decide by themselves in their commission: which, if it be so, then,
when it pleaseth them, they may make other ecclesiastical judicatories to
be altogether useless and of no effect in the church.

3. In this commission ecclesiastical and temporal men are joined together,
and both armed with the same power; therefore it is not right nor regular,
nor in any ways allowable. For even, as when a minister hath offended in a
civil matter, his fault is to be judged by civil judges according to the
civil laws, and by no other; so, when he offendeth in an ecclesiastical
matter, his fault is to be judged only by ecclesiastical persons according
to ecclesiastical laws; and, in such cas