il magistrate. 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. But
that which is Christ's, and not ours, the royal prerogative of the King of
saints, in governing of his church according to his own will, is not
subject to the pleasure of any man living. But the reverend brother might
well have spared this. It is not the independency of the church government
upon the civil government which he intended to speak against, it is the
very thing itself, a church government, as is manifest by his other two
rules.

I come therefore to his next, which is the third rule: "Lay no more burden
of government upon the shoulders of ministers than Christ hath plainly
laid upon them." He means none at all, as is manifest not only by his
fourth rule, where he saith that he finds no institution of other
governments beside magistracy, but also by the next words, "The ministers
have other work to do (saith he), and such as will take up the whole man."
He might have added this one word more, that without the power of church
government, when ministers have done all that ever they can, they shall
not keep themselves nor the ordinances from pollution. Before I proceed
any farther, let it be remembered, when he excludes ministers from
government: First, It is from spiritual or ecclesiastical government, for
the question is not of civil government. Secondly, He excludes ruling
elders too, and therefore ought to have mentioned them with the ministers
as those who are to draw the same yoke together, rather than to tell us of
an "innate enmity between the clergy and the laity." The keeping up of the
names of the clergy and laity savoureth more of a domineering power than
anything the brother can charge upon presbyteries. It is a point of
controversy between Bellarmine(1332) and those that write against him; he
holding up, and they crying down those names, because the Christian people
are the {~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~}, the heritage of the Lord as well as the ministers. Thus
much by the way of that distinction of names; and, for the thing itself,
to object an innate enmity betwe